Nothing ever seems to go as planned
That’s something every NBA free agent should consider when signing a large deal to a new team. Something Jeremy Lin should have kept in mind when he went to Houston before the 2012-13 season.
It was nothing short of a perfect move for Lin. He was leaving New York, a marketing superpower and mecca of American culture, for a city and team that is deeply entrenched with Asian-American culture. Succeeding with the Knicks was one thing. But if Lin could succeed in Houston, he’d be worshiped as an icon. You may laugh, but just look at how the people of the city and the Rockets fan-base treats Yao Ming. That’s what Lin was walking into and expectations were high.
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On the court, it seemed like the Rockets assembled one of, if not the most promising backcourt in the NBA with the additions of Lin and James Harden. Lin was fresh off his incredible run in New York, and Harden had just been named the Sixth Man of the Year while playing on the team that just won the Western Conference Championship. Add in a young Chandler Parsons and Patrick Patterson, then later Thomas Robinson after a mid-season trade, and you get a team that held a lot of promise.
But it didn’t really seem like anyone stopped to think whether or not Lin’s and Harden’s playing styles would mesh well together.
Both players were on-ball dominant guards, and the pairing just never seemed to work well together in then-head coach, Kevin McHale’s system. Lin’s usage percentage dropped an absurd 28.1 in New York to 20.8 in his first year with Houston, good for 123rd in the NBA amongst all players who appeared in at least 42 games that season, per Basketball Reference.
Harden’s went from 21.6 in OKC to 29.0 for the Rockets. Meaning both needed the ball in their hands to play at their best, and, as some old-heads might put it, “there’s only one ball to go around.”
That in itself isn’t damning enough evidence to prove the two couldn’t co-exist, many teams have and do succeed with two starting guards who need high usage percentages to thrive (see Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan and/or John Wall and Bradley Beal, therein proving the old-heads somewhat wrong). The problem with the Harden-Lin duo is their similarities in styles of play. Both of them are quick guards who do well in a pick-and-roll and a pick-and-pop, are respected enough scorers inside, need a spaced floor to thrive and are themselves good shooters.
They were eerily similar to each other on the floor, so McHale understandably made the decision that Harden was the better of the two and decided to start him with defensive specialist Patrick Beverley, instead of Lin.
Harden went from being on a team where he was clearly the third scoring option behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, to a team where he got to flex his offensive skill-set a little. So it kind of makes sense as to why we didn’t see him becoming what he is today. It’s just unfortunate that his break-out, which seemed destined to happen at this point, had to take away from the progression of Lin’s.
After two years in Houston, it looked as if the hype of “Linsanity” was at an all-time low, almost appearing as if it was dead… little did we know it was about to get much worse. Jeremy Lin was about to go to LA.