You know the ESPN bias is getting out of control when the freaking NBA Referee page is calling them out, smh.
No, sir. No no no. Everything Harden does is wrong. Signed, MICHELLE BEADLE ESPN MAX KELLERMAN SWYYGUY
I'm THRILLED to see them fight back here though. That bodes well. Kind of out of nowhere the "Harden gets favoritism from the refs" narrative started up again in this series. It's really shocking considering the "Harden Rules" throughout the year. National writers/talking heads were disparaging the refs for multiple calls on Harden last night, particularly the one where he was hit on the head. They all agreed that wasn't a foul.
Odd that a broadcaster’s official twitter is having an opinion against a player that is part of their own product. How obvious their bias, how foolish of any fan to take anyone in that network seriously. Walt Disney is turning in his grave, thinking Mickey Mouse made more sense than this..
Idiots on Reddit we’re having a field day with this particular foul spouting the usual overemotional garbage. I’m sure most of them will just disregard what the refs have to say.
ESPN pushes narratives that gain attention, and they stick to them. They're not really journalism, though there are some journalists still doing good work for them. Classic, classic example of ESPN pushing narratives was that "His hustle didn't disappoint" spin on Westbrook's Game 4 disaster against the Jazz.
and they're still arguing with the people who make and enforce the rules that they're wrong. just like these harden haters still argue that harden's stepback is a travel. the average nba fan is really a complete dumbass that doesn't know anything about the rules. just their perception of the rules based on the player they like / hate.
Just as people yelled „travel!!!111!1!1!1!“ all the time with the harden stepback three despite former referee ronnie nunn saying that it’s legal. Yes, sometimes he doel travel on the stepback, but most of the time he doesn’t. Reddit and all the other haters are just casual nba fans and simply HATERS.
Either that or use the responses as "proof" that refs are biased towards Harden. No win situation for Harden.
They'll probably say "player x wouldn't get that call"...if at that point you show them that player x does get the same call they'll probably post you the pick of Harden getting more fts in the league in the last seasons...facts don't matter for some people.
You mean like, "Harden's defense, Houston we have a problem" type story? You mean, the way they manufacture stories to create a vibe (see also: bait, click-), since Harden pretty much sewed up MVP early on, so "what is, really, an MVP? should it be based on wins? stats only?", etcetera, when, God knows, they never had a problem about this until it was Harden who looks like he's going to get it?
the highest rated comment on that thread with over 2000 upvotes was this “I don’t like how the commentators don’t have the balls to say that’s not a foul. Where’s Van Gundy when you need em” well looks like it is a foul moron
Not only was it the correct call, it was an easy call. He hand checked and trapped Harden's left arm before the obvious blocking foul occurred. Despite all the b**ching, NBA refs know they are officiating Harden correctly, whether people like it or not.
which makes me laugh since I have no idea why the refs would choose Harden of all people to be the most biased in favor towards idiots just need to realize that Harden is the GOAT at taking advantage of a defender’s mistakes and drawing contact...the refs aren’t falling for anything, he is drawing legit fouls...if these fouls weren’t legit and Harden was tricking them, they would’ve caught on to it a long time ago...they only have 6+ years of film and hundreds of games refereeing the guy
Discussion aside, what we CFs could do is re-twitting these messages to as many as possible, especially to those media accounts.
they’ve resorted to crying that the game is rigged in favor of Harden If u ask them why the league would choose Harden to be the 1 they rig games for, they’ll have no answer.
Who gets called out like that? I mean even if it was a bad call (which it’s not), who shows a bad call as a “highlight?” The major NBA highlight social media accounts do the same thing. Lots of passive aggressive implications against James Harden and the Rockets. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. And it’s only the Rockets they target. It’s absurd. And I’m sick of b****ell getting praised for jumping over crouching Capela. Should’ve been an and-1 at that.
