Getting back in transition! Granted it’s out of 79 players who qualified, but still. I’m sure plenty of people don’t care especially with how he’s been carrying us, but come on. He should at least act like he cares about defense and stopping the opponent.
It likely also has a lottttt to do with him always driving to the basket. A lot of times he's furthest from the play and/or he's drawn contact not called and he's in the stands. Also, he does the "wtf" to the refs often. Not really concerned because this is something we know he does and live with it considering
Last I saw Harden was still clean: no babies no baby mamas. As far as I’m concerned he can back that ass up as slow as he wants.
I'm satisfied with Harden defensive effort this season mostly. Fully agree with @BigMaloe here. He can't defend transition when he's tumbled on the ground behind the basket. His overall defensive effort is improved. Thankful for that.
Ryan Anderson is ranked the fastest. Reason: he takes 83.8% of threes from half court so it's easy to get back in transition.
some of these threads.... might as well title some: "Harden has a beard" "Harden gets fouled alot" "Chris Paul is still on the bench w/knee injury" "Ryan Anderson is White" "I like making threads to validate my own thoughts because I think I'm brilliant and no one thinks like me"
How many time does Harden end up going into the stands after a drive, of course he's going to be the last one back
Harden's Defensive win shares...0.44 4th highest on the team(behind Eric, Luc, and PJ), 28th among ALL guards in the NBA. Harden is trying much more than before.
I think it's partially habit, partially wanting to conserve energy, but more so coaching philosophy (ongoing since McHale). And therefore much more by design than laziness (which was not the case IMO 2yrs ago when he was ATROCIOUS in transition). If JVG was coaching this team Harden would be backpedaling after every single shot attempt just like T-Mac used to. This team, unlike the Spurs, doesn't want to forfeit offensive rebounds. It eats into the transition game. So does that short rotation MDA sticks to.
Act like he cares on defense? This is by far his best defensive season ever. He’s locking guys down one on one & he’s defending bigger guys on the post due to switches. He plays 38 minutes & creates everything on offense night in and night out. The fact that the OP doesn’t understand that and fails to factor it in while he’s making thread number 56 of his 453 threads a day, shows me that he’s doesn’t watch Harden much.
Harden only cares about winning and not running really fast on transition feel sorry for Cp3 and his other team mates, Morey, Tilman, and rockets fans. we should be undefeated if he cared ran really fast on transition. he also leads or in the top 5 for win shares, box plus minus, value over replacement, 3's made (@ a better rate than steph), assists, FTs, AST%, scoring, usage, drives, minutes played, PER, steals better Defensive FG made than lebron, durant, paul george, giannis, davis, butler, klay better Defensive FG % than curry, westbrook, paul george, klay but never focus on the great and relevant facts instead lets dig for trivial and irrelevant dirt and throw it at him and hope it sticks, open a whole new thread about it even if there is already a thread for james harden stats, so haters, LOFs, and racists can stay relevant
