All the great teams had a respected bully on their squad. Old Lakers - Riley (took no sh*t) Bulls - Jordan (punch a teammate) Celtics - Bird (talked alot of sh*t) Pistons - Laimbeer (enforcer) Old Rockets - Maxwell (insane) Lakers - Kobe (pick on teammates) Spurs - Popovich (took no sh*t) Warriors - Draymond (nut kicker) Hell, LeBron's teammates are scared to fail. He get rid of them quickly. This lists go on and on... These Rockets don't have a respected bully to scare teammates into getting sh*t done. That's the problem.
It's a very entitled attitude. He feels personally offended when defenders start pressing him or when a ref doesn't buy into his arm hooking.
We do know that Harden is willing to lash out at teammates when he himself is the one at fault for a bad defensive possession in front of a crowd.
Great point, he’s done this a number of times and he’s been lucky as he’s had guys like PJ, Ariza, Chris, and Clint covering for him, pretty shameful. I love the guy but am beginning to feel he's never going to be a champion in his current mindset and with the way the organization coddles him and his behavior.
and LeBron's effort is not the result of any coach kicking him in the ass to run the floor. Effort is on the players and especially on the top player.
Coaches shouldn't have to motivate veteran professionals when it comes to effort. High school or college sure. A young immature team maybe. A team with filled with vets with championship aspirations? No way. It's absolutely on the players. Either you are serious about winning or you are not. Oddly enough the topic of motivating professional players came up on the NFL Network last week in a different context. Primetime(Sanders) was asked about a shirt that the Browns coach wore(long story) motivating the other team. I thought he gave the perfect answer although even though he was referring to NFL players. " I've never seen or heard of a dog needing a freaking shirt to motivate them to play harder. Dogs/champions are self motivated." There was much more to it but that was it in a nutshell. I would apply the same logic to NBA vets needing a coach to motivate them to compete or "play harder". It's absolutely on the players.
Coach, if the coach puts the right incentives, rules, if he builds a framework where excellence thrives and is recognized. Where nothing less than your better is accepted. Then we have effort. This is about the human nature we all have in us.
100% coaching. MDA has to hold players accountable when they're slacking off. Effort has been poor this year (not as poor as the start of last year though).
A ton of truth to this. It's absolutely a problem when you hear your coach talk about effort over and over, yet how many times do we see the problem come about from your "stars" all the way down the list. When you actually need babysitters, especially for vets who should be nothing but hungry, yeah that's a problem. This is where true leaders of the game actually separate themselves.
partly why 2 years ago we won games that we should have lost. Had smart veterans like Cp, Luc Trev, Harden as good as he is this year has not been a clutch player and for sure is not an effort player. Not overly worried, but this team has more of a last year feel to it than the year previous. Just lack quality IQ guys deep in the game and Russ/Harden both are not. Clippers, Spurs, Kings are all examples and I just hope that soon enough this team doesn't derail itself after hurtful losses like these keep piling up.
The correct answer is all the above. Coach can inspire players to play harder but also not play them so many minutes that it is not a lack of effort but just guys being tired. I still put the least amount of blame on the coach. The superstar player does set a tone for the team, most of the blame goes here. Let's be real. Harden has a problem here. There were some really bad TOs last night late in the game by him that probably cost us the game and he played very non-chalantly all night long. In the end, some players are hopeless in the effort department. I think even a Popovic-Lebron led team wouldn't get the best out of a guy like Whiteside. If Spo and Miami could never get it to work than no one will. We don't have any players like that though.
This seems like a loaded question, to associate the loss and bash the coach. Lack of effort would be due to blowout losses by 15 or 20+ points. The two recent losses were in double over time and one point by a 40 ft three point attempt. The team also had questionable calls that would have resulted in a win due to the losses being one and two points in overtime. A freak last second shot and tight double overtime game with blown calls signals competitive effort that could have gone either way.
Were you satisfied with our defensive effort last night? Our close outs on shooters? I feel like we played like all we had to do was show up last night in order to get the W.
It's the problem that never disappears, and comes back to haunt us year after year. This is where James' maturity level as a leader has not reached the growth level it should have.
Who is responsible for a 7-man rotation and then might say postgame "We're just tired. We're a tired team. Got dead legs. Gotta find our legs but we'll be fine."
