This is only Hardens 2nd year without Howard. His 1st year he was 23 and never been a starter before. His supporting cast was 1st time starter asik, less than 70 total games played Jermey lin and second year 2nd round pick Chandler parsons, with a few journey men vets like Delfino and Garcia. That team won 45 game. Russ this year at best will win 49 Games. He's also in his prime at age 28. His supporting cast is Adams who the thunder though highly enough to pay 25m a season. They also have olidipo who they thought highly enough to pay 21m a season. They also have kanter who they paid 17m a season. Taj Gibson a nice veteran player. Dougie mcderment who's a decent role player and three point specialist. Abrines who's about to break the thunder rookie record for Made threes (held by James harden) Roberson who's one of the best wing defenders in the entire league. Russ has talent he has big boys and versatile defenders as well as some shooter. And there still at best if they win there next 5 games would only finish 4 games better than young harden and scrubs. Russ team is seen as worse than Hardens this year because of shooting, Which is pretty silly. That's all anyone focuses on. No one mentions that harden is the best player in the NBA at generating open threes and he's been the best before he even had these so called snipers on the team (number 1 3yrs in a row) Why can't it just be that harden elevates the play of guys around him? More proof? Harden played 41 games two years ago with Dwight Howard put woth injury. During that stretch he also lost Beverley for over 20 games and tjones for all of them but like 5. That's down 3 starters from a 54 win team the year before. Plus a new starter in Ariza. So James harden is playing with Ariza, kostas papa, cannan, Tarik black, Joey Dorsey, Jason terry and a dmo who had never played rotation minutes ever. That group went 28-13 and maintained the 56 win pace they actually attained that year. Even the biggest Russ supporters can't tell me that his support is worse than that? So once again you give harden pretty much any able bodies around him and he will win 50+ games. Now this last part is speculation but if you swap harden for Westbrook. The thunder get better and are the 3 seed and have 54-56 wins easy. Russ on houston with less rebounding and defense but more shooting and you got a 45-50 win team max. Teams would just sag off him and let him shoot as much as he wants. Similar to what they do now in okc only difference is okc is the best offensive rebounding team in the league. Houston while good is not that good. Not hating on Russ he's a great player but he's no harden and I don't know why it offends so many when ppl say so.
Ignore both. si put a freaking soccer player on the cover when we beat the Knicks even though they had a huge Knicks issue ready to go if they had managed to thug their way to the championship. Yes, it is a slight that is over two decades old and no, I have not forgiven or read their magazine or web site since. Even when I'm in the waiting room at the dentist. Screw si.
Just take out Mike D'Antoni and we will see how much MDA ignited this system and helped Harden. Harden has been good under McHale too but not assisting that much. I concur.
Sure. Played soccer in my youth and couple of other sports. Including tennis, individual ones. Basketball was not my forte I admit but I watched it regularly. Thing is it is a team sports. I get that. But there are other leagues that underscore team spirit more than the NBA. The Euro league for example. The NBA has become a league of individuals, stats stuffers, and less and less about the team itself. They honor individuals. I do not think there is a big Most Valuable Team player award. No No Stats Allstar award. So the NBA is not even the best example of teamball, I know it has the highest standard of basketball, but it just is not. This is a fair thing, this is me, a Rockets fan, giving credit to a OKC player. He is getting better. Nothing else.
If you start a winning team, you start with Harden. If you want to start a 1 man domination team, you go #1 with Westbrook. Durant, Ibaka and R.Jackson all does not have nice thing to say about Westbrook. OKC baller is stat-driven, his fire is similar to post Shaq- Kobe (me, all me), where he dug the current grave for the Lakers. Watch the Thunder follow the Lakers because no free-agents players would want to play in OKC because its train conductor is Westy where he own stats.
It's like there is a genuine board room meeting at SI headquarters saying "hey...make sure you tweet about Harden's defense. It'll get lots of clicks!"
But you have to factor in that all MDA really did was increase Hardens assists by about 4 per game. That's huge no doubt but Hardens been a 29ppg scorer and 6-7 rebound guy for a few years now. Take Russ out that system he is in and make him play in MDA system? I bet he doesn't grab 10+ rebounds a game. The system they run in okc is the epitome of hero ball. Okc does not run any plays they have no actions going on opposite side of the call handlers. It's strictly set Russ a pick and roll to the hoop. Russ will either shoot the three shoot the mid range or take it all the way to the hoop. Then and only then that those options are not available he'll jump in the air and look for someone to pass. This is his most unique skill imo. It's terrible basketball it's what many hated the most about Jermey Lin. Russ gets away with it a lot so it works but he's not this player with great vision. You'll never see Russ go around a pick up top stay patient and let his big get to the hoop then throw a pin point pass to the big for an easy lay up. Those are tough passes that maybe 5 guys can make. He doesn't use the pocket pass like harden he doesn't swing the ball across the whole court to guys in the corner open for three. Harden is an elite passer with some of the best vision the NBA has seen in decades outside of a few guys like Lebron cp3 Nash and rondo. Harden like Lebron tho is also an elite scorer and that's what makes him truly special and unique. Maybe Russ never loses his athleticism and can play like this for a few more years but what I do know for fact is the way he plays you absolutely can't win a championship. There's a reason why anytime he's played a good team this year they have lost and quite a few of them, ran out the gym. The rockets can make 5 threes in a game and still have the game within 6 points against golden state late in the 4th. That's strictly harden and MDA running a real system. Russ can't even manage to keep his team with 15 points against the Warriors. And talent gap is not that big a difference between the two teams. It's something that media and Russ supporters like to use but while different in skill set the talent is very comparable. Harden consistently feeds Capela for 14-16 point games in under 24 min. You think Adams and kanter wouldn't feast playing with harden? James would figure out how to fully utilize them. I'm sure Adams would be boarderline allstar if not allstar with harden putting up 16-18ppg and 10-12 rebounds on the reg. Kanter would score 20 points ok the reg. Abrines, McDermott and olidipo would each athempt 6 three a game and make 38+%. It's unfair to and disrespectful to okc players to keep calling them garbage when in fact there pretty talented group of guys in what there skill set allows.
You have said the same thing in countless threads that D'Antoni deserves the largest amount of credit because look at Harden's assists. Harden is barely playing any different to what he has in the past. Why don't you give some of the credit to the fact he has 3 point shooters around him now instead of guaranteed brick chuckers? You don't think the fact Gordon and Anderson are shooting 3s instead of Brewer is going to equate to more assists on its own?
would rep you 1000x if i could. just pure facts. should be a pinned post or made into an article or something
I have said it several times but like many I also said do not hire MDA because he aint a good long term solution, well he may not seem significant but that is probably the best one can do given that the owner and GM gives you the All Uptempo and all 3s and little to average Defense Commando. I am just stressing I was partly wrong about him.
TBH I don't know what to think of Westbrook. There's no doubt that he's one of the best talents in the NBA and he does help his team win. He also has clealry more potential than Harden on defense. Harden will never be even an average defender while Westbrook can be plus defender in the right situation/motivation. So overall he's better player. The part I'm wondering is whether he really helps his teammates. The whole "lack of teammates" thing has been around forever, not just this year. Whereas Harden has always done well to set up teammates.
