Don't pretend like the Rockets and most of clutchfans aren't looking down the road for a Harden replacement a couple years from now. But that's not gonna happen unless there's another greater prospect or Cuban goes broke and sells the team.
To be fair, Gentry likes Harden as well. The problem is that Luka copies Harden and plays like him, yet Harden is hated for "gaming the system" while Luka "plays the right way". All the while, their games mirror each other. The only difference between the two is skin tone. In other words, DD is a Luka fan while still ragging on Harden. Welcome to America.
Hold up, but aren’t a lot of Harden haters black?!? I seriously think it’s a personal issue more than race.
Luka plays exactly like Harden yet gets none of the hate for it. I wonder why? Also, he has a ton of European fans that love him like LoFs love Lin. They already proclaiming him better than Lebron ever was. Everywhere I go online I see comments like "Luka is already the GOAT and he's only 20!", it's much worse than LoFs. I want to love him as a player but it's hard to with his delusional fanbase.
LOL, pulling the race card when race has absolutely nothing to do with it. Welcome to America is right.
Nope, but I have come around. I dun dislike his game now. And it got nothing to do with race, breh. Wrong though. Not bleck.
Exactly. Strange that the media, fans, and rockets fans even are crowning a guy with zero playoff experience, small body of work, no defense, and teams have not fully adjusted to playing double team/ trap zone defenses at 3/4 and half court the way they do harden. Please stop all the dumbass comparisons.
Nah of course people that’s never dealt with racism will day it’s not about race. Others who’ve felt the pain understand. Just as someone grown up in a well to do home will never understand how it feels to be an orphan or growing up dirt poor. You can empathize, you can pity, or you can even disregard and not care but you will never understand how it feels to be a person of color in this country.
Doncic and Harden are cut from the same template. You could even say that Harden or the Rockets played a major role in defining that template and proving its success. But it’s a mistake to boil it down as Doncic is the same player as Harden when there are clear differences in how they play that shows up both in the box score as well just by the eye test. That’s not to say Doncic plays a superior game, or that Doncic plays “the right way” (whatever that means). But they are definitely different. Harden has more of a scorer/gunner mentality and is more advanced at drawing fouls. Doncic is a more effective finisher close to the basket (maybe because he tends to focus more on converting the FG vs drawing the foul compared to Harden) and he whips passes over defenses in a LeBron-like manner.
I’m a person of color but don’t use the race card when it’s not the issue. Matter of fact making assumptions about people’s upbringing is just as bad as playing the victim. You don’t know where people come from or what they’ve experienced.
all I’m gonna say is that people better keep that same negative energy they have towards Harden with Doncic if he’s out here averaging 10+ free throws a night with ease a few years from now...if I see appreciation for using his skills and craftiness to draw so many fouls while Harden was getting derided every night I’m gonna have an issue
I think it's fair to point out differences in their game, but I disagree that Doncic is more effective close to the basket or that he "focuses on converting the FG vs drawing the foul". Harden beginning in 2018 and really culminating in this season so far has to me looked more and more to convert the bucket: so many more of his foul calls are not of the ticky tack variety when he drives to the paint. The one play where he sticks his arms out, draws contact across his forearms and then loses the ball out of bounds, relying on the refs to call the foul on the contact, is almost completely out of his playbook. This is why you see an increase in and-1's from him this year. The one play he still does and probably will always do is move his body into the defender once he has a step on him. He's a strong player but not the fastest, so he can convert those layups and floaters even after the defender has made contact with him. It's perhaps a play to draw the ire of opposing fans, however, because Harden is the initiator of that contact. The problem I have with the Doncic perception is that people say that he's "trying to score the ball", when I clearly see a lot of the same Harden tendencies when he's driving. He's not the fastest guy either, and his body could stand to improve, which clearly he'll have time to do since he's only 20. He relies way more on timing and getting defenders out of balance, the way Harden does. He's a very sneaky guy at seeking out the contact, just like Harden. Most of his fouls are of the ticky tack variety, where there's just a hint of contact. Yet at the same time, home and away fans both seem to be marveling at this guy as though he can do no wrong. Maybe it's just that he's still in the honeymoon phase of his career, and he hasn't accomplished enough in terms of wins and playoff performance to upset other prominent fanbases in the NBA, mainly those of the bandwagon teams like the Lakers, Warriors, Celtics, Spurs, Sixers etc.
We all will, but remember Hardens smear campaign is at least 6 years old. He wasn’t hated like this 4 years in there’s definitely been a shift.
How would you explain the difference in field goal percentage within 10 feet from the basket? About 46% of Doncic's field goal attempts are within 10 feet of the basket, and he shoots 63% on those shots. Meanwhile, Harden gets about 40% of his field goal attempts within that distance, and he shoots 56% on those shots this year. At the rim, its 74% for Doncic and 65% for Harden. Any way you want to slice those numbers, Doncic does appear to be the more effective finisher near the basket. I attributed that, mostly, to Harden's tendency to seek contact on his drives. Doncic also has a couple inches on Harden, so that could be another factor. By the way, when I say that Harden tends to look for the foul more than focus on converting the field goal, I don't mean it as a criticism. I understand a lot of his critics use that as a criticism, but I don't see it that way. Scoring at the line is as a legitimate a way of putting points on the board as anything else.
