he is 23 superstar potential player, unfinished product, pretty much worn out through the season to the playoff. the only thing i dont like harden is hes always looking for fouls while driving into the crowd. and the last few possession of ISOs are on Mchale.
I have seen this happen to NBA players before. I believe it was during Jordan's first retirement. The quality of the NBA players instantly tanked. Apparently the monstars took their powers. It has been 20 years since the last time this happened and I fear this is the only explanation.
growing pains for a young guard but it doesn't apply to another young guard. we see how you roll flat. I think harden will be fine. It takes time to evolve.
This was a close out game and franchise players are supposed to have monster games. So the way it looked tonight, Parsons deserves the franchise player tag and Hardens paycheck. Not a good sign of things to come if he is the future of this franchise.
Sometimes I feel as though the opinion of some clutchfans' members are the "sources" of other clutchfans member's opinions.
Harden has played continuous ball from last year's Finals and the Olympics, even more season mileage than what Yao Ming had to do. The difference is this is Harden's first time in those minutes, while other players like Durant, Kobe, Lebron and DWade are accustomed to it. It looks a lot like dead legs if Harden can't hit ANYTHING from anywhere.
I guess the the coach let Harden do whatever he wanted early this season and is not able to hold him accountable later during the season. Harden's game depends heavily on hard contacts which hurts himself too. It looks like the opposite of a sound player development.
The other factor is the lack of a big man finisher. Asik's missed layup midway through the 4th was the perfect summary of his limitations. I appreciate what he does, but Ibaka does not have to hesitate to help on Harden's drives because OKC knows that 90% of the time, they'll have time to recover on a drop pass to Asik (that or he'll fumble it away). With Lin injured and/or out, Harden is the only guy on the floor that can consistently create his own shot and he has zero big men that can score with regularity. He's going against Sefalosha and the help defense of Serge Ibaka. His percentages are going to dip. Tonight was certainly bad, but I thought he was VERY good in Game 2 and Game 3, given the circumstances. This is a rough matchup.
Yes Harden was good in the 1st half of the season, but look at his numbers since march. March: 5.7-14.6 .389% April: 7.5-19.3 .390% Playoffs: 7-19.3 .363%...4-25 16% on 3pts this series... in April he averaged 5.1 T/Os per game...in these playoffs he is averaging 5 TOs a game also... these are just the pure numbers...Going from an eye test you can also tell there is so much less ball movement as a result of what he does at points in the game...I am not sure how any of that is "efficient" or winning basketball... Granted he has been playing hobbled...
Just rewatched the first game highlights and harden was moving a lot better. It's def overall fatigue or something lingering that's not too major. Those were impressive 37 pts against the pistons.
I'm pretty sure it's not just 1 game. The past 2 months, Harden has been off and his ISO crap hasn't helped us win any game.
He will be first half of the season next year if not better. He is probably just tired and hurting, nothing to worry about.
I think McHale needs to limit Harden's minutes next season. It's clear he is tired from playing such extended minutes playing his style of ball. With the Beverley breakout season, we can afford to rest him for a few more min each game.
Need a real coach to tap into hardens mentall, iq, and defense. Harden already thinks hes a superstar and often doesn't even listen to Mchale. Harden doesn't suck by any means but he is bonehead who needs to be knocked back into reality sometimes. If we had Mark Jackson or Pop we wouldn't be going through this. Anyway he'll be ok once Mchale leaves and we net some tough vocal players such as smooth or tony allen who will check him but until then everything's a go because its quite apparent Mchale doesn't hold him accountable. As for lin I don't have an excuse for him because his game is no where near as good as Hardens and Mchale always holds him accountable but it seems he cracks rather than get any better. He should pound his chest more rather than curl up, hit or miss you still need to maintain confidence as the game goes on. Another thing Harden is lazy off the ball and on defense I consistently watch the guy take plays off whenever his threes aren't dropping, better yet he rarely commits on defense he really is a down right lazy azz player... step ya game up Harden, Paul George never takes plays off and does it on both ins man.
