I said it. Said it when they first signed Kyrie before Harden even joined the team. Kyrie was going to F this up. It's amazing that he thought being a part timer was a good thing...he's supposed to be a leader on that team and can't play home games. WTF is that?
there's many people that need a lung transplant to survive and yet they refuse to take the vaccine for that procedure. Are these heroes or immature people?
I don't know, not the decision I would make but I don't want to talk about the vaccine in this thread and potentially ruin it. For Kyrie though and this situation, makes him immature if he wants to win a championship. He's the main reason this team is blowing up now. It's not even his immaturity about the vaccine but he has to be delusional thinking he can return mid season and be a part timer and think things would be that easy.
I don't want him back. Ball hog, dribble dribble dribble, milking down the clock and playing ISO. I don't enjoy watching hime to take more shots than anyone in the league like he did here before, regardless of how crappy he was shooting just to pad his stats.
The argument for Harden standing behind the ball when he is not initiating is that it's a way to pull a defender so they can play 4 on 4, presumably 4 on 4 gives the offense an advantage. My question about this argument has always been, if that's the case, why aren't more star players doing it? Why didn't CP3 do it when Harden was initiating? Is Harden the only player that can draw a defender out like that? My eye test is that when Harden stayed around the half court without the ball, his defender did not stick to him at half court. The guy typically just stay a little above the 3pt line. It's not really 4 on 4. If you were the defender, would you follow him and take yourself out of the play? Of course not. Even if you were concerned that Harden would get the ball back, the large distance from the basket would not warrant a close guarding. If he got the ball back there, you still would have plenty of time to come back out to guard him. You just need to keep an eye on him and put yourself somewhat between him and the basket.
Nobody is coming back to play for tilman. Theres a good reason the only free agent we could get was career scrub danny theis
Referring to the second bolded part, it's essentially a 4v4. Harden's defender is stuck in no man's land. If the defender leaves Harden to eventually try to help, the ballhandler can now pass to a wide-open Harden. Now, the defender has to sprint back to Harden (in which Harden blows by him due to momentum) or realize that he can't get back in time and is able to only lightly contest a shot, if at all (in which Harden gets an easy shot opportunity). If the defender sticks to Harden, he's out of position to help against the drawn up play in the 4v4. Basically, this strategy allows Harden to get some rest while still on the court, while also forcing the defender to make a tough decision, as that defender has to keep his head on a swivel, watching both Harden and the 4v4 play develop. Unless you were a Giannis or another rangy player with length, you were most likely going to play substandard defense if you got switched onto Harden and the Rockets had this strategy going. Referring to the first bolded part, only those with supreme offense can do this effectively. Aside from Curry and Durant, I'm not sure anyone else in the world could do this. Maybe prime LeBron, but even that is a stretch. It's arguable, but no one is as scary as Harden was, when the strat was going. CP3 didn't do it because he didn't show a propensity to blow by his defender without the help of a screen, which renders the 4v4 strat moot. Other offensive juggernauts like Durant and Curry might have been able to do it, but both was on GSW so neither needed to do this. Not sure what the reasoning could be for Durant's Nets...maybe Nash didn't see it as a viable option, or maybe Durant wasn't comfortable with the strat.
Not convincing to me. The most you can say is that it's 4 on 4.5. The blow-by theory only makes sense if there's a play design for Harden to suddenly dive to the basket and the ball handler feeds him at the right time. That is clearly not the case. If he just received the ball out where he was, it would just be a reset to normal 5 on 5. The best players that might use this strategy effectively are those who can shoot from extremely long distance with good accuracy, guys like Curry and Lillard. Harden has never been known to be an elite long bomb shooter. Another type of players that might benefit from this are strong bullying guys like Giannis and LeBron where they can use the sudden dive mentioned above. To say that Harden is among only two or three players in the whole league who can do this with good result is quite suspect to me. Besides, there are already plays that utilizes 4 on 4, 3 on 3, 2 on 2 type of game to take advantage of the spacing. In short, taking out your best scoring player from a possession to play 4 on 4 and call it a good offensive strategy sounds like a huge stretch to me.
Even if it was 4 on 4.5 or whatever, that still confers an advantage. Of course there's no play designed for Harden to suddenly blow by, because that's up to Harden. His vantage point in this strat allows him to see the entire half of the floor, where everyone is, if the 4v4 play will be at all successful, etc. "Take what the defense gives you," so to speak. No one is going to stick to Giannis or LeBron like they would, with Harden, Durant and Curry. You know Giannis and LeBron aren't effective from behind the line, so a defender would stick closer to the paint than they would outside the 3 point line, in anticipation of a Giannis or LeBron drive. Harden's gameplan is either a 3 or getting into the paint for a layup or getting into the paint to dish it out. Giannis, at least last season, was just straight bullyball. Not saying it's easy to stop, but you know what Giannis won't do. With Harden, you don't know what he's going to do. With Giannis, you do. Curry and KD both have a propensity to shoot. I'm not saying this strat is effective nor should it be used for an extended period of time, but it has to have its advantages. Otherwise, what's the point?
If you were a superstar, would you want to come back to one of the worst teams in the league? Getting the Harden now would vault us into playoff contention and probably a top 4 seed, but we wouldn't even be close to contention. I'm wondering if this tweet has more context behind it. Like, "if you're entering your age 40 year and are thinking about retiring, sign with us! We'll give you a grand farewell!"
Why would the Rockets front office/Stone/Tillman let it get out that they would welcome Harden back with full arms? It's a pathetic look. This franchise is becoming straight incompetent. Silas loser attitude is infecting all the way up to upper management now.
