contention and Rockets shouldn't be in the same sentence, grammatical error. James knows how to get outtah contracts. He'll probably be on the market if we ever get close to the c word.
Patience is our ally right now. Trying to jump ahead in the rebuild timeline by bringing in stars will just short-circuit our return to the top.
At the end of the day Harden is trying to win a championship right now and needs a team built for that or around him. We can't give that to him as we're being built to contend in the long term. If he ever wins or decides to take a pay cut and downgrade his role like Chris Paul in Phoenix, to supplement the young guys growth sure, would be glad to have him back. But haven't seen that from his actions or words yet and we're in a good place right now, FVV has been excellent for what we're building also. If he wants to retire here at the end of his career to mend things I'd be good with that down the road as well.
....And out the first or second round. It's been past time to move on. He couldn't get it done then, or with any variation of big 3 in his last several teams, he's not going to miraculously get it done now.
As I always say, the game is half defense and half offense. On offense, the biggest factor is scoring and the second is assists. Harden scored 16.6 points on 11.4 shots whil defenses focused on Kawhi and George. FVV scored 17.4 points on 13.9 shots with Sengun and Green drawing whatever attention they drew (obviously not comparable to George and Kawhi yet). Harden is clearly better, but not enough to make up for the vast gap on defense. Then we come to assists and FVV is slightly better, putting up 4.76 assists per turnover. Harden put up 3.26 assists per turnover (they had extremely similar volumes). On defense, FVV is MILES better. On half the report card here, FVV blows Harden out of the water. That this is even debatable is all you need to know about how me made the exact right decision. We got roughly the same thing on a much better contract and with much better character and we did not steal insane amounts of usage away from our core players to get it. It would have been a catastrophe to have Harden on a 4-year near max or max contract. Like I said last summer: if we want Harden, he's going to be available every summer. Even if they pay him this summer, by next summer they will be thinking about moving him already. When we're 1 player away from being title favorites and our young guys have matured, then we can bring him home. Great job by Green and Udoka rejecting Harden's fit on the team last summer.
Harden around a bunch of younger players as their mentor. I don’t understand what could go wrong, lol. There is more than basketball in building a team from the ground up.
It says more about not making sense with his time line than what could go wrong.... Also technically Ime Udoka already vetoed Harden, that means in the Ime Udoka era Harden is likely not playing here unless he is signing for an 10- 18 million discount salary to play for Houston which is very doubtful given that his mother is ill or something. It is like the boss said no but the lower workers (fans) are still gossiping.
He certainly ruined the careers of CC, Maxey and all of the other young guys he has played with by instilling them with his unprofessionalism.
Put me down for his last tour of duty only. Harden can be a bench player, brining the heat on his farewell tour.
Not sure why people keep bringing this up. No player has ever had a hard time developing due to Harden, in fact, a lot of players have gotten paid after playing with Harden. If those players didn't develop, it was likely because they sucked lol. I loved FVV being here, I do think he was the right choice, but lets not fool ourselves that our young guys would not have benefitted offensively from having Harden here.
Yep, but I would still take Udoka over Harden as developer, one is paid to sit on the bench to coach the team. Udoker has proven that he is not really a fan of Harden's heliocentric ways and is hard headed and strong willed, actually much more than Harden ever was.
I would love to see Harden retire as a Rocket. He has had a HOF career. It would insure him being inducted as a rocket. Harden NEEDS his ring before coming home. Would like to take him on as a prodigal son for his second one. Anything other than this would be counter productive because his goal and ours only partially align. (Short term vs long term)
Love Harden, but like alot of relationships, sometimes it's fun to reminisce about the good times but it's probably smart to realize we are heading in different directions. Ime is implementing a system and culture based on good TEAM basketball. Gone are the days of Iso heavy dominated basketball in Houston. Instead of partying after every game, everyone is busting their butts to try and get better. I appreciate all the fond memories and heartache during the James Harden era but I truly believe we have a very good thing going right now. James will have to adjust to what we are doing now if he wants to play here again. That is something I don't see working especially since he is still in search of his first title.
