GQ: James Harden Is The Villain the NBA Playoffs Need

Strange article

 

Wasn't there a Grantland article a few weeks ago that essentially said the exact same thing? Does anyone care about having an original thought anymore? ****ing amateurs....

 

Truth. I thought it was the same article as I didn't read either lol.

 

Agree with the consensus -- playing for contact is nothing new. Also remember our previous SG, Kevin Martin, had built a reputation on shooting free throws. If drawing fouls is a revolution, the revolution happened quite a while back.

I still maintain, however, that the reason people hate this Houston team is because of Moreyball, not the players. They want to be able to say analytics doesn't work in basketball because quantification ruins the basketball experience for them. But the more success Morey has in acquiring talent and the more success that talent has on the court, the more upset people get that the analytics are working. And, btw, what do the analytics say about drawing fouls? That it's a great play!

 

Rocket River

 

No one wants the Eggheads ruining the beauty of athletics
I mean . .. Watching Floyd win fight after fight . . fighting 'smart' sucks
We wanna see a brawl. .. . . .
If Bunting worked 90% of the time . .. we'd hate baseball . .. .

Minimal thinking but maximum over powering atheletic TALENT

We are a society that PRAISES what we consider natural ability over learned skills

Rocket River

 

Stopped reading at the word "free throws." There was a young star player in the '86-'87 season that hit 833 free throws that season. Harden hit 715 free throws this season. That young guy's name in the 80's? Michael Jordan. Anybody writers out there want to argue about Michael Jordan and how often he went to the line? Hmm, silence? Hmm.

Well, maybe you guys out in the media could argue with these dudes:

HOFer Jerry West
HOFer Wilt Chamberlain (if only Wilt were still with us)
HOFer Adrian Dantley
HOFer Oscar Robertson
Last year's MVP Kevin Durant
HOFer Rick Barry
HOFer Moses Malone
HOFer Charles Barkley
HOFer Karl Malone

That rounds out the top 15. Ya know, media dudes, simply googling "most free throws all time" would immediately take you to the page where I got all this information. Apparently they don't teach math OR first-grade search engine skills in journalism school. Now, drop it, will you, all?

 

Probably should have posted this here. Similar but different article on Harden from Deadspin:

http://deadspin.com/how-to-watch-james-harden-the-loathsome-genius-1705192515

 

Harden two straps baby.

 

Lol, nice. (Though I consider Michael Jordan the penultimate villain.)

 

Not this year.
LeBron is the hometown hero and the reincarnated savior of Cleveland.

 

Only part I disagree with is Harden not taking a pounding. He gets thrown around ALOT.

I can't say I watched much of Iverson, but did he really take a pounding? How in the world could his frame afford to take a pounding like Wade took?

 

I just don't get how getting to the free throw line as frequent as possible is a bad thing, smh. They'd praise all other superstars for their knack at getting to the line, they praised Direct, but somehow that's a starting point to discount and criticize Harden.

Sounds like a bandwagon u

nintelligent fan is the starting point for all Harden critics.

Ridiculous.

 

Harden occasionally creates fouls by intentionally wrapping his arms inside the defenders arm and creating the contact with the primary goal of drawing a foul rather than trying to score. Or going out of his way to run into them creating contact. They are fouls, but he went out of his way to create them. Considering Harden isn't getting any more foul shots on average than other star shooting guards it doesn't seem to be that big a "revolution". It might lead to more players trying the same tricks though. And other players like Durant do similar tricks to draw contact on jump shots when a defender sticks their arm out and they swing under them and shoot.

Some fans and media aesthetically prefer players to play the way you would in a pick up game. In a take the ball out if you get fouled style pick up game there is no point to intentionally creating fouls, so some people just don't appreciate that style.

In the end other team's fans only hate your players if they are good, or dirty, and I don't think anyone considers Harden dirty.

 

Would be even better if you just 'shopped out the "vey" and "t".

 

Nice nod to the city where screw was born.

Never heard of Harden's game being compared to screwed and chopped music.

 

FIFY

 

James Harden is too boring to be a villain.

He doesn't do anything really bad and doesn't even really trash talk the opponent or complain constantly about the refs or whatever.

 

But he get's too many fouls. And no one in the NBA wants to play with him.