You're so enamoured by the rare success stories that you ignore the many many many failures. What if those picks turn into Russel? Okafor? Bennett? There are teams that live in the high lottery and come up with crap year after year. Heck even drafting Wiggins would not be worth trading Harden for. The thing about the mystery box analogy is that there is a 99.9% chance that it's not as good as your current boat. And in that 99.9% there's a 75% chance that it's just a turd. Many of us remember how hard it was to find a star. Once you have one you hold on for as long as he's willing.
This thread is stupid as hell. Why the heck would trade away your super star player for some unknown draft pick, that's ridiculous!!! Harden may have had a bad 6 quarters, but he is Houston rocket basketball. He is our Guy period.
im curious what do you guys here think a superstar is? if harden and westbrook are superstars, then wtf are kd, curry and lebron? before this current nba era, being a superstar meant you elevate your game in the po's and dominated entire series. harden has yet to do that in 8 years in the league. he's been a very inefficient playoffs player, or borderline efficiency i dunno the exact numbers but they're not good.
he and westbrook are def a tier below lebron, durant and curry, but they aint superstars. i assumed westbrook was till i looked at all his playoff series stats and was amazed how inefficient he's been.
Superstars do not just mean how they play. How do they market or sell outside the areas they play at? There is a reason why Jerry Lin was shortly a superstar phenomenon without ever being close to an Allstar. People adored him, ran after him and bought thousands of his jerseys. I add I am being serious here. The Rockets would not have signed him.
Absolutely you're correct. Now show me the championship team that won without their own superstar lotto, top lotto pick? Most have more than one. I think we're talking about the Pistons of the 2000s and that's it. Yes Harden represents that for the Rockets. But because he came in free agency there are subtle differences as to the rest of team building that history shows makes it harder if not nearly impossible to build a championship team without going through the draft.
It's apples and oranges. If we're talking about trading Harden, then we're talking about a full tank/rebuild. None of this "rebuilding while staying competitive nonsense". The problem with your comparison to Wiggins is that it wouldn't only be Wiggins. Harden is good enough to get us to the playoffs without a second star. Wiggins isn't, especially if we're talking about a rookie Wiggins. So even after drafting Wiggins, we'd still be a bad team, and that means we'd get another good lottery pick in the following draft. That's exactly what happened in Minnesota, and look at their current roster. It's not farfetched to think that they'll win a championship before we do.
Kawhi was gifted a Finals MVP. Kawhi DID NOT lead HIS OWN team in scoring, rebounding, assists or steals and somehow won a finals MVP. Defensively, he allowed Lebron to average 28pts 8rebs 4asts (Lebron also averaged 2.0stls) on 57% FG% but somehow the narrative was he outplayed Lebron. The Spurs just had a better team than the Heat, Parker was the leading scorer and Duncan averaged a double-double either of them would have been a more sensible choice. Don't tell me Kawhi's Finals MVP equates with the ones that Dream34, Jordan, and Magic won. They had to DOMINATE. Kawhi merely played well.
The reasoning is far beyond stupid... The Rockets Organization staged a game. It was a 'setup'. Go back and look at the footage. It's like half the team forgot how to play basketball and it was obvious. How much they got paid and details about this staged game is undisclosed. Live with it.
Harden does not move off the ball. Period. There might have been 5 plays over the course of last season where he broke this rule, but he almost always lingers outside the 3 point line when someone else has the rock. I can assure you - NOBODY agreed with your contention other than Harden apologists and maybe the odd person with a bizarre definition of moving off the ball.
CareerRegular season EFG - 51.9% TS - 60.6 % Career playoff EFG - 49.4% TS - 59.0% A step down in scoring efficiency but still elite
perfect example of when advanced stats are useless. those free throw tricks only work against teams that are too stupid to not reach on harden.
