No use in crying over spilt milk. It's over. This season is history. Time to look forward and figure out how we can win a championship from here and be honest with ourselves about where we are right now in order to move forward. You cannot improve without acknowledging what improvements need to be made and how to make the improvements. Firstly, I want to say, I'm not for trading Harden. And we shouldn't even discuss trading Harden on this site. Those posters should be suspended. Secondly, Harden is most definitely a top 5 player. He deserves top billing on this team. Thirdly, and here's where it gets sticky, Harden is the biggest problem with this team. For us to move forward Harden has to change. And this is the first step to us moving toward a championship. If Harden doesn't change we won't win a championship as long as he's a Rocket. But if he does change we could win multiple titles. Harden has to mold his game into a true team and he has to accept other playmakers and distributors in the rotation. He has to become less selfish. Assists do not prove he's unselfish. He is choking us with his ball dominance. It shows up and hurts us at the worst times. This whole season was catered to Harden. We got the coach he wanted. The coach tailored the system to Harden. The GM tailored the roster to Harden. We dismissed all players that Harden didn't want to play with and we only brought in guys that Harden wanted to play with and we kept everybody that Harden wanted us to keep. We let Harden set the pace and tone and we consulted with him about everything, every roster decision, and every tweak to the system. We got to the second round after winning 55 and the wheels came off. There's no Dwight to blame this year. It is on Harden. The first adjustment Harden needs to make is to let Morey bring in the pieces we need to win a championship. Players aren't the best judge of talent. They know their buds. They know the cats they competed against back in the hood, or on the AAU circuit, or at All-star games. But they don't know talent outside of their circle. That's what a GM gets paid to do, find talent that can help win championships and get it on the team. Morey needs to be free to do this without checking with Harden. Because Harden doesn't know a lot of talent out there playing ball. Harden also needs to let go of his buddies and allow Morey to trade them if Morey decides that's what is best for the team. The next change Harden needs to change is to let MDA experiment with different things without Harden having to approve them. Harden needs to let the coach coach the team. He needs to let the coach try different things like moving him weak side off the ball and also getting him the ball in the high block in the triple threat. Harden needs to allow MDA the leniency to develop a multi-pronged offensive attack that does not necessarily run through Harden. MDA is the most innovative offensive mind in the Association. Let him coach unimpeded without having to please Harden with everything he does. In a nutshell, Harden needs a lot more humility. We've spent five seasons now catering to Harden. Each season we have catered even more to Harden. And each season has ended in severe disappointment after the first season. Harden has to start catering to this franchise because Morey and MDA and Bzdelik know more than he does about how to win in this league. He needs to be the franchise player, not the front office decision maker and not the head coach of the head coach. That's for starters and that's all for now. I'll be posting more over the weekend concerning player transactions and the system tweaks. Thank you, Go Rockets
Does Harden need to UNbalance his game? I think it's obvious that Harden is doing too much, but that's because that he's forced himself to do so or was asked to do so. In my opinion, Harden needs to unbalance his game where he focuses on one thing more than the other. This means that I do think the Rockets would be better if Harden didn't have another 29/11 season. The numbers are pretty, and I wish I could find the data on any of this, but to me it feels like the Rockets need to figure out the James Harden situation rather quickly. He's too balanced, and the way the roster was formed this season we needed Harden to be balanced. He couldn't be too selfish and only look for his own shots, and he couldn't be too unselfish and forget to score when he needed to. I hate to repeat what you preach, but if the Rockets got a guard who can take over guard duties then I think Harden would be much better scorer similar to how Kevin Durant improved this season with the Warriors or how deadly Curry was in 2016. Obviously, not on that level that those two were or are on but I'm just saying that the effectiveness and efficiency would be very great. Someone would bring up Rubio, but I honestly feel like Jrue Holiday is capable of doing that. But Jrue likely doesn't come because it would be absurd to sign another Pelican and become the Houston Pelicans. but someone LIKE Jrue could possibly change Harden's role and decrease his workload while also making him much more effective. (or better than Jrue because I'm not even sure how good he is anymore. I feel like his one all-star season was a fluke after all) I really think that the point guard experiment was a solid one, but in the end I don't believe it is sustainable in the long run of a season. And there are any elite scorers on the market right now that could reduce Harden's scoring so he could actually focus on being a PG. I mean who's the best scorer out there? Hayward? Dani?
We need a legit #2 top tier player. Eric Gordon or Lou Williams being your #2 won't cut it when your trying to compete with Kawhi/LMA or Curry/Durant or Kyrie/Lebron. All these teams have 2 all star caliber players on their team. The whole narrative that Harden has a team of snipers and all this help is over blown. He does need a 2nd option that can carry the load day in and day out.
Solid post. I can get behind a lot of this. They absolutely have to get more out of 18 million bucks than they do with Ryan Anderson. I'm curious to see what Morey does about that. That's the necessary step in terms of re-tooling.
Harden doesn't need to change. The Rockets asked him to play this way because it was the only way given our roster. We absolutely maximized the roster's offensive production to its fullest potential. We even reached top 10 in best offenses in NBA history. That's incredible considering there's only a single all-star caliber player on this roster. When Morey can finally add a 2nd star to the roster, Harden will change his ways.
Harden need to change on rebounding, that skill is for big man. Triple-doubles are nice numbers, but they don't translate to win in playoffs. Let big body do the rebounding, just concentrate on the PG skills like Curry. If we repeat this past year's, we will flame out due to tiredness. I love Harden, I believe he was running on fumes. You can run and gun so much without getting tired legs for 6 months. Remember the strongest teams that are left in the playoffs used rest system on their core players. We need better rebounding and we may need to employ rest days to save the best player(s).
No chance we find any takers for Ryno. If Anderson sucked under this 3 point happy offense then the chances are he will suck elsewhere
MDA got his ass handed to him this series. Popovich embarrassed him repeatedly. D'Antoni has been repeatedly outclassed by Popovich in the past. How do you fix that?
Good points. Yes, Harden needs to understand that he should score the ball first. He's perhaps one of the top 3 most prolific and efficient scorers of all time. This team would be much better served if he were averaging 35 points, 6 assists, 7 rebounds, and 4 or less turnovers then it is by him averaging 29 points, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, and almost 6 turnovers a game. Harden needs to yield up being the sole primary distributor and defer to a more efficient creator when they share the court. There will be plenty of time for Harden to still run the show up top when matchups dictate it or when the other primary distributor rests.
You try again? Should every NFL team who gets outcoached by Bill Belicheck fire their coach? Should the Memphis fire their coach?
Popovich made enough adjustments to muck up the Rockets offense. The Rockets did not have enough "counters" offensively to off-set the Spurs adjustments. That's on MDA and also on Morey for not providing more playmakers to add variance. Harden took to the PG role quicker than I thought he would, but he still has room to improve in terms of finding the right balance of getting his teammates involved AND being a scorer and fining his shot and rhythm. He has a good track record of improving so I have no reason not to think that he will improve across the board.
Rockets will make their annual run at all the max free agents. Maybe one of them picks us this time? If they do we package a 1st round pick with Anderson and ship him out. If we strike out there I have no doubt Morey will try to maximize the value of the $10M or so in cap room we will have. He will churn the bottom of the roster guys like he always does and we will pick up flawed, under the radar prospects to see if we can develop them. I personally am hoping MDA and Morey can sell Blake Griffen on becoming Amare 2.0
BTW... When Hakeem was 28, the Rockets got swept by the Lakers in round 1 of the 1991 playoffs. The next year the Rockets didn't even make the playoffs. Sometimes patience is a virtue.
The problem with this is that this year's Harden-dominant offense was entirely MDA's idea. Despite your insistence to the contrary, MDA never wanted to move Harden off the ball, and in fact was the person most responsible for Harden become our PG, where the ball is in his hands even more than in the past. This was not Harden getting his way, it was Harden accepting the new coach's philosophy and ideas because he thought that made sense. I get that YOU think we need to have someone else doing the majority of the playmaking (or at least a LOT of it), but that's MDA's decision, and Morey's, to a lesser extent, and neither of them sound like they agree with your plan. Maybe getting bounced in the second round will make them re-think it, but something tells me that the #3 team getting eliminated by the #2 team isn't going to convince them that the basic system they've chosen is flawed. EDIT: I just listened to the "exit interview" with MDA and Morey, and MDA actually says that maybe the team needs to have Harden play off the ball more. Maybe this ugly loss (and the loss in a very winnable Game 5) will make him tweak his philosophy a bit.
Not true. Before the season started MDA was talking about Harden playing off the ball and trying to figure out the right balance between Harden playing the point and playing off the ball. There was an internal struggle over it. But MDA did not push his point of view. He gave Harden what Harden wanted and supported Harden to the utmost. And he talked about where Harden needed to be as the point guard....15 to 15 assists regularly while getting his turnovers DOWN! IT WAS NOT MDA'S IDEA TO MAKE HARDEN THE FULL TIME POINT GUARD AND THE ONLY PLAYMAKER. But MDA covered for Harden and gave in to Harden in that matter. There'll be plenty of talk this summer. MDA wants Harden to see it for himself.
Ricky Rubio and Blake Griffin would help IMO. Rubio would beast under D'Antoni and would help alleviate some pressure off Jimmy Harden.
