That is kind of arbitrary, all the games count... If you want to use that logic then the "sick" game should not count. You can shoot 40% if you are going to the line nearly 10X a game. He is 5th in the league in scoring, like 2nd or 3rd in FT's and 2nd in PER at SG... He had played like a max player so far.
If your argument is about what style of offense to run, fine. But this is a thread about whether or not Harden deserves a max contract. And in that discussion, there is absolutely no logical reason to ignore his two best games of the season when calculating his shooting percentage.
No, it's about whether Harden will do well enough, <b>in the offense that we will probably be running from now on</b>, to deserve a max contract. No point in speculating about some mythical other offense that may or may not improve the Beard's performance. We can only judge what we have now. In this offense we can't avoid the fact that Harden is shooting .383, which is pretty bad. Hence my agreement with durvasa, namely that Harden is not quite deserving of a max, not yet.
Have your heard of "begging the question fallacy?" It's making a baseless assumption and basing all your argument on it. That's what you did here. So I'm asking you, show me the math that states Harden Iso ball started in game 3. Otherwise this argument is pointless.
Harden may not be deserving of a max but Morey obviously thought he was worth risking a max contract for. Out of the Asik, Lin, Harden signings, I would say that Harden was the best bet of the bunch to be worth his contract. Obviously, he being only 23 brings hope that he can improve. Would you agree that it was worth the he was worth the risk?
Davis just mad cause he knows he wasn't worth that big contract the Pacers gave him. Can't ceven start over Derrick mckey.
He was just pointing out a correct observation: Harden isn't being paid the max this season. His max contract starts next season .
Moving the goal posts, aren't you. (A typical loser strategy.) Proving that iso-Beard-ball started in game 3 is definitely NOT what you were asking before. Nevertheless, I have an answer for you. In the first two games of the season, 43 percent of Harden's made shots were assisted. In the 13 games since, the assisted percentage dropped to 27%. I would say that is a dramatic difference, a glaring indication of far greater ball hogging in the latter games. Hence iso-Beard-ball. In those games, Harden has been shooting .383. You can't wiggle out of the fact that the the new offense has been bad for both of our starting guards. And Harden is on current performance not deserving of a max. By the way, my data comes from http://www.hoopdata.com/gamelog.aspx?player=James Harden
I don't see what the problem is. They're right. He's an All-Star but he's not s superstar. You can't win a ring if he's the best player unless you have 3 other players just like him. He is a "B" player or whatever you want to call it. That's not that bad. Pippen was a "B" player and has 6 rings and is a HOFer. He never made max money.
The huge contract has apparently inflated Harden's ego. As I noted in a previous message, he has been hogging the ball, perhaps far more than is good for him. In that light, perhaps the coming maximum compensation may have been a bad idea. On the other hand, we may not have been able to keep the Beard for anything less. So I am conflicted.
This is fundamentally unsound reasoning. I'm a huge Lin fan but what you're saying doesn't hold any water. If Harden doesn't deserve his contract based on the offense YOU SAY we will be running then one could easily make the same argument for Lin based on his games this season, if we take out the first two games of the season like you did for Harden. If you want to make an argument that our offense needs work and isn't really designed to get the best out of our guards, hey, Ill be all over that. We need to be less predictable, we need a LOT of work on our screens and we need to trust Lin with more of a share of playmaking than he has had thus far. But the idea that this will be our offense going forward, doesn't bear out either. We are still missing a solid 4, we will be making trade moves either at the deadline or in the off season, the team has only been together for 14 games. They are still figuring out their chemistry and roles. They are being coached by an assistant coach (who for me is not really cut out for the job long term) because of tragedy in the family of the head coach, they are the youngest and least experienced team in the NBA and holding their own against teams full of vets like the Knicks and the Bulls. Things are going to change and keep changing and ALL our guys are going to keep improving. We are a LONG way away from seeing what the true identity of the Rockets is going to look like so this kind of talk is not only misguided, it is severely premature. You also underestimate the amount of pressure on Harden to prove his 'the man' label, which tbh, he never really asked for but couldn't very well shake off since it was pinned on him. So yeah, sometimes he tries a little to hard to make the big solo play. But he's only 23 and he's a human being, and Sampson is probably telling him he needs to do that. He's fundamentally an unselfish player and a team player and he will figure it out. As for the value of his contract. Well... maybe he wasn't worth the max to OKC, but he certainly is to the Rockets and he certainly would be to many other teams right now. In a couple of years? I've little doubt that we won't be having this argument at all. I think both Harden and Lin are great young players with virtually unlimited potential and I think both will prove more than worth their contracts and become fan favorites at the Rockets for a long time to come. Also do you think Lin would want his fans to bash his team mates in this cheap and begrudging manner? You do him a disservice with your attitude as well.
Let's end this argument NOW!!! Everybody on the Rockets deserves their contract (some more so than others, depending on whether they're still on the rookie scale or not). They were designed/negotiated by Daryl Morey, and Morey DOES NOT overpay. You know Morey doesn't overpay when he gets the Knicks to pay for Toney Douglas. You pay zero for a zero. :grin:
What are you talking about? Your whole premise of .383 comes from your argument that the first 2 games do not count because Iso ball started game 3. I asked you to prove iso ball started in game 3, and you blow up like you are on period. Your stats are also flawed, the percentage assisted shows absolutely nothing. All it shows is that 43 % of his shots were assisted, so what? Subsequent games Harden had games where 83 % of his shots assisted, some even 100%. All you did was exclude the first 2 games from the other 13. Why don't you exclude the first 5 games? Or the first 10? You just picked an arbitrary number of games to ignore. I can't believe you are using such a stupid statistical analysis to prove your point. You showed absolutely nothing, except that you know how to take out 2 games out of the rest of the samples.
Harden is a Max player. Players like LBJ, Durant are not max players.....they are worth MORE than the max, that is simply the limit any team can give them per league rules.
My two cents.... Harden is the best player the Rockets have had since the first two years with Tracy Mcgrady. Yao coming into his own was great as well, but he was forced to retire. He is on the brink of tier 1 players. Howard, Kobe, Wade, Lebron, Anthony, D Rose, Durant, Paul, and Williams. Tier 2 Westbrook, Griffin, Lopez, Harden, Gay, Manu, Dirk, .......its a big list
Instead of ranting, you just have to watch the game. It is commonly acknowledged by pretty much everybody here, that the first two game Lin and Harden played free-flowing offense, each taking turns to generate offense, as the coaches did not have much time to put in plays. Then after the first two games, the playbook changed to Lin bringing the ball up past half court, and giving to Harden to sit in the corner waiting for a spot-up 3. That happened for six games, until Lin started to get the ball back to share in the PG playmaking duty more. Just watch the games instead of shouting. You can see the Rockets offense sucked when Harden was the 'primary' playmaker, in terms of team assists, team score etc per that six game stretch. You can also check Harden's shooting percentages in those six games when he had to take on additional PG duties. They were awful. When things reverted back to Lin/Harden sharing playmaking duties, and Harden more as a secondary playmaker, the Rockets offense and Harden's offense improved, as well as Lin's. The first two games were a similar story. Just watch the games, and read a few other threads discussing this. Having said that, Harden is definitely worth his max contract. Actually everybody here is worth their contract. Morey is the GM, and he doesn't overpay. Note: Knicks are paying Douglas's salary. Morey doesn't overpay.
Fine, but that doesn't mean Harden's statistics from the first two games don't count, therefore his season shooting percentage is NOT .383. So in the original discussion about whether Harden is a max player or not, it is NOT valid evidence against Harden to say he is shooting .383. BECAUSE HIS SHOOTING PERCENTAGE FOR THE SEASON IS .426!!! If you think .426 is not good enough for a max player, fine, then say that. But please stop talking about invented statistics that arbitrarily ignore Harden's first two games.
