It all depends on what you get in return, but first Harden needs to regain his greatness. If you are going to sell, sell it high. I've said Harden had earned the right to not play well, after so many years of carrying this team into the playoffs. Still, he isn't young anymore, and I'm really starting to question if he has the mental makeup to lead a team into winning a ring. This has nothing to do with physical toughness, which we all know Harden has in bunches. It's all about accountability. If a teammate points out that Harden could try to play better defense and give more effort on that side of the court, will Harden agreed to at least give a better effort or will he shrug it off, and go into a shell?
I think it was misguided to focus on beating just one team. There is actually no guarantee that even if we beat GS, we could also beat other good teams. Now GS has collapsed and we are still stuck in being "good" but not great. IMO, there was no good way to beat the Warriors at their peak. People keep saying that we were one healthy CP3's hammy away from winning the chip. But I disagree. We lost that series mainly not because we lost CP3 but because it was just unrealistic to sustain the high defensive intensity. We were competitive in the Warriors series not because of CP3's offense but because of the team defense. At the end, our legs were just too tired to be able to shoot straight. Any great teams is just a couple of key injuries away from becoming not so great. It's actually more realistic to expect injuries hit GS than to expect our inferior talent level could somehow beat them. We should have concentrate on building a very good team that could beat anybody else. If we did that, this season would have been our best chance. Now we are just another second tier team that may not even make the conference finals.
I can't agree to your post. In that series, the Worriers had no answer for CP3. Dude was just straight killing them, and it was more just than our team defense being excellent. I have no doubt, with a healthy CP3, we win that series.
Agreed on the bolded. It might be outrageous, but I feel like every game going forward is shaving off a minuscule value. I think he should be traded before Tillman cleans house this offseason, as MDA is gone nothing short of a Finals appearance and Morey might be as well. Dark times.
I don't see how he was "straight killing them." CP3's number was good but not spectacular. 20 pts 6 assists per game on 36% 3p shooting, 41% overall. His +/- overall in 5 games was -20. The total point differential in those 5 games was -25. So CP3 added 5 points in 5 games, hardly "straight killing them." He played well but not great. We lost by 29 points in Game 6. And nobody, I mean NOBODY, could buy a basket in Game 7. You think adding CP3 would have made that much of a difference?
The problem with stats is that they don't add context. The way I remember that series is that, through 5 games, scored and lead the team in the most difficult portion of the games when a typical run by the Warriors could place the game out of reach. Through 5 games, CP3 was not our best scorer, but best player. Your data regarding games 6 and 7, not coincidentally the games CP3 was absent due to injury, kinda supports the above.
This is a fair take, ppl just assume we could win it all with top heavy management and no real game plan other than riding your stars and main role players to death without ever developing any youngins as Plan B and C.
cp3 along with the shift to a defensive switch everything team lifted the ceiling to beat GS on both ends. it wasn't just on one side of the ball. that offseason immediately signaled that with all the moves and additions. And they were locked in as a unit from day 1. For that season, I don't think it was misguided. that pretty much had every box checked and it was just about going out and executing and staying healthy.
My point was that focusing on beating one team was not a wise strategy. The switch-everything defense was gimmicky aimed at beating the Warriors. Against other teams, it was really not necessary. The defensive scheme needed a certain type of players, players who could defend multiple positions. And you also wanted them to be able to hit open 3s, not being a liability on offense. Those players don't come cheap. We were lucky to get Luc on a cheap contract. Who knows what he would demand had he not got injured. Ariza quickly jump ship when we were not ready to pay him. I suspect that getting players like MCW (bigger defensive guards) was also motivated by the defensive scheme. CP3 was actually not suitable for the switching defense because of his size. He's much better at defending through picks than switching. With switching, he could easily be exploited by isolating a bigger player on him. Teams started to figure that out in his second season with us.
My data shows that CP3 only gain the team an average of 1 point per game against the Warriors. How would he help in a game where we lost by 29 points? And in Game 7 when Harden, Gordon, Ariza, and Tucker combined to shoot 6-39 from 3, even if CP3 made all his 3pt shots in that game, the team shooting would still be horrendous.
the defensive side is mitigated by having better iq defenders and a unit that's on the same page. a mismatch doesn't have to be a mismatch when everyone else is on the same page. cp3 is still a plus defender.
Anyway, I am not trying say CP3 didn't fit. My beef was about the overall team building strategy. We were not a true contender when the Warriors were fully healthy (no one was) and we are still not a top tier contender when the Warriors have been out of the picture.
i personally thought the rockets were true contenders when everyone was healthy. if they weren't considered that then, nobody else really was bc hou was the only team that gave them any real trouble up until they got hurt last year
When they are both on the floor, Harden needs to play off ball bc Russ can't shoot. He needs to attack the basket every chance he gets...the result will be layup, foul, or kick out to open 3pt shooters and/or cutters. Harden will still demand extra attention even if he just spots up...which essentially opens that lanes that much more, leaving other shooters wide open nearly every time down the court. The Harden point guard days should effectively be over if we want to utilize this tandem correctly.
The thing was the Warriors did have locker room implosion with KD and Draymond beefing way before the Clippers incident. Steph should have been more vocal about it, shoot down any incumbent rifts.....he was always injured. They were vulnerable but still more talented than the whole league.
We can agree to disagree here. When the Warriors were fully healthy, nobody could beat them, not even a fully healthy Rockets team. I think Rockets fans are delusional to believe that we came close to beating them. People say that we were up 3-2 and if CP3 didn't get hurt, we would have won the series. That's just a superficial way to look at it. But if you looked at that 2018 series honestly, you'd see that it wasn't really that close. Except for one game (Game 2), when we won, we had to play our heart out to barely squeeze a victory. But when we lost, we got beat convincingly. After Game 5, I knew even though we were ahead and even if Paul was healthy, they were still the favorite to win the series because they were clearly the better team, and not just a little better. Go look at the videos. We had no answer to KD. And the defense had to maintain an insanely high intensity in order to contain Curry and Klay. And I haven't even touched on Draymond Green's role.
