It’s becoming apparent that the Houston Rockets no longer consider Jeremy Lin the marquee player they thought they signed last year to a $25 million three year contract .
The Culture Map reports that Lin is not on any of the promotional material for the upcoming 2013-2014 season. As you might expect, the honor of being the face of the Rocket franchise is now shared between Dwight Howard and James Harden. That’s not surprising, but what is surprising is the third players on the Rockets promotional material–Chandler Parsons.
Now don’t get me wrong. Chandler Parsons is a solid player and a good contributor to the Rocket offense. But as far as getting people to buy tickets, very few would go specifically to see Parsons. Jeremy Lin, on the other hands, has some of the loyalist fans in the NBA.
So what going on? Several have reported the Rockets would love to trade Lin, but few teams have shown an interest in taking on his back loaded contract. It could be the Rockets don’t know if Lin is going to be with the team next season, therefore don’t want to spend money promoting a player they may no longer have.
This is the second time the Rockets have done this to Lin. You might recall that Lin was not part of the Rocket’s all out push to convince Howard to sign with them either.
I’m pretty sure Lin would like to stay with the Rockets and show what he can do. But personally, I think he’d be better off going to another team that values him as a point guard. Harden is someone that needs the ball and doesn’t want to play off it. Lin is a distributor and does best when he’s controlling the ball. The two don’t seem to be a good match for each other and the offensive scheme Rocket coach Kevin McHale has employed doesn’t seem to play to Lin’s strengths.
You can read why the Rockets handling of Lin may be a huge mistake in Culture Map.
