Moving without the ball - get CP3 some assists. Come off the bench - lead by example for Melo - get 6MOY award - speech: "Melo, you the real 6th man of the year" Go right - develop a cross to go right - develop a double-cross ala Tim Hardaway - finish right. Learn the right-handed floater. Get on the ballot for DPOY - don't win it - just get at least one nomination. Talk to Clint about the meaningless of making over $85 million over 5 years - been there, done that - tell Clint to go a step further and initiate the convo with Morey to take less than the $85 million. Trim the Beard - "Run it back."
Poor Harden..... how much better does he need to get? Has finished second in the MVP twice Has won an MVP Putting up prime Kobe and near Jordan type numbers.
Cant we just stop putting mid range in here....plz, unless you want him to make over 50% then its a bad shot period. Like maybe if he was like on fire thatd be cool. But a midrange should not be one of his go to moves. Seriously I'd like to know what his percentages were from the midrange during his first MVP season.
Harden's mid range was soaking wet; It was automagic. The turnaround mid range everyone knew it was going in, it was that good.
It should be his 3rd MVP. The first Curry MVP and Westbrook's MVP should be his. He was voted by the players 3 times I think.
Over 50 % good? Cause if not.... then it is what it is. It's not like I hate midrange either, it's just an inefficient shot, unless you are Chris Paul, Durant, or....Khris Middleton.
I think if he works really hard he might get some MVP consideration. I have bad news. He has already reached his ceiling. I have good news. that ceiling is among the very greatest 4 year stretches of all time in nba history
Thanks, this was really helpful. So his first MVP season, he shot about 37% on mid range on more than 200 attempts. So no, no no no noooo NOOOO MID RANGE. It will not lead to winning.
to me his floater should be 1, 2, and 3 on his list of things to work on. as great as harden is at getting by people to the rim, he doesn't seem very good at actually finishing over people at the rim if he doesn't quite get by them. at least not the way a lot of elite finishers are. if a big just gives ground and stays between harden and the basket, he doesn't seem to have a soft, high arcing layup that he is good at or a floater he relies on. he gets blocked a surprising amount when a big guy is actually there to contest because he just kind of shoots a normal layup. even the spurs very effective defense in the 2017 playoffs didn't really force harden to take mid-range shots. they just gave ground all the way to the basket and put their hands up. the tony parker floater was there any time he wanted. against minny he could've averaged 20 points a game just on floaters the way they were guarding him. we talk about mid-range but while teams might be able to take away the 3 and the basket, there's virtually no chance to keep him from the 3 and floater range. that requires so much of a defense. if he turns that into a high percentage shot, that would do a ton for his game. also, less reliance on step back 3's. i feared all year that they would stop going in eventually. even before golden state, they were drying up in the playoffs. they are so low percentage that it was crazy how well he was shooting them all last regular season. i don't mean get rid of them. they are still an effective way of getting off shots against good defense and a way to not use tons of energy driving, but they can't form the basis of your offense in big moments i don't think. i thought harden did a better job of playing his game in the playoffs this year, his game was just taking incredibly difficult shots. they were never likely to keep going in for a whole high-intensity playoff series. i guess i don't have a superb alternative as you can't drive on every possession and he doesn't have the height to just shoot over people, but a little more early offense and/or learning to actually catch and shoot.
Where does this come from? How many catch and shoot opportunities does he even get. He almost never gets them. An NBA player should know how to catch and shoot, doesnt matter who they are. Harden would do fine given enough attempts, at least thats what I think.
The point of having the midrange in your pocket isn't that you're going to use it every other play. It's that when your 3 point shot isn't falling, and the refs swallow their whistles at the rim, you don't go stretches of 0-27. Even at 37%, I'd much rather take a few of those in game 7, than not score for half the quarter.
Harden needs to be less stubborn about his offense imo, he has a lot of diversity in his offensive arsenal, but he sometimes goes and do the same thing over and over again even when he's cold. Like he will continue doing those step back 3's even when he already missed 5 in a row, so he ends up 2-10 for the game or something.
