If you throw out the stats, numbers, and years in the league, how would you determine the true leader between Harden and Howard? Some "non-basketball" moments in Game 3 (with our season on the line) that made me develop an opinion of who the true leader and team player on this team is... 1) Troy Daniels blows an important rebound in the 4th after getting tangled with Howard. Howard stares Troy down like he was about to bust him the mouth, giving the rookie nothing but feelings of guilt and grief. 2) Lin has a bad turnover in OT. Lin is angry and mad at the refs and himself. Harden comes over and calms Lin down and tries to re-establish his confidence. 3) Troy makes the 3. Harden and Bev embrace his teammate with elation and Lin was screaming the loudest when it went in. Howard gives Troy no acknowledgement, probably because of the rebound incident. 4) Howard was barking at the refs during the final 2 free throws of the game by Harden. Harden screams and begs Howard to stopping talking to the refs in fear of a technical.
Harden is an underrated leader. At times, Clutchfans questioned his leadership because of his body language after a missed Lin three. To call Harden a bad leader is BLASPHEMOUS!!!!!
Dude, your acting like a school girl. Who cheered the loudest, etc etc. Shut the F up and watch the game. These are all grown men and they can do what they want.
Dude stop trying to make this into a Howard vs Harden thing. Especially when you're not telling the whole story. Howard got angry because by default all rebounds are supposed to go to your big men when it's a 50-50 situation. Daniels is from the D-league where it's in your best interest to fight for every obtainable stat. JVG said it best last night when he mentioned Daniels not being used to having to play a tough game of defense because in the D-league, it's all about stats and much of the effort that goes into defense don't show up on the stat sheet. Additionally, even after Howard and Daniels fumbled the ball out of bounds, Daniels apologized and Howard let him know it was all good. It's a rookie mistake, Howard got angry because he actually cares about winning and knows you can't give your opponent freebies in close playoff games. Howard made amends literally 2 seconds later, and here you are a full day later trying to start a leadership war between H&H.
WHat a dumbass b****y thread... Hell I could make irrelevant **** up. After big 3 from Daniels while most of the damn team is celebrating like they won something. Dwight & Beverley are the only ones with enough damn sense to realize there is still 11 sec left in the game. Plenty of time for Portland. Dwight & Bev are the leaders because thats the stuff of champions. Awareness of the damn clock awareness to come out and play hard every possession, don't celebrate til end of game... You see what I did there?
I think this team for the most part hates playing with Lin. He doesn't make normal basketball mistakes. He turns the ball over at significant parts of games and he does it by dribbling into traffic and shooting a turn around off the shot clock, or driving for a layup instead of running the clock down. The quicker he is out of Houston the better the team will be. He is a good guy but his brand of basketball is nerve racking because he will make a great hustle play here or there and then totally screw it up 5 seconds later.
This, but what went through my mind after it happened was... 1. Lin really tends to exaggerate fouls, then act completely fine one he reazlied he hasn't gotten any attention whatsoever. 2. Dwight saw him, but he immediately started talking to the ref after the play. Maybe he found more priority in that. 3. The whole team is frustrated.
What the hell is a "true leader"? Beverley is seemingly the inspirational leader for sure. Harden is probably the leader on the floor considering he takes all the big shots.
it's the playoffs. emotions are high. i don't personally take too much stock in some of the interactions on the court. i think beverley is our tone/heart. harden is our on the court leader, he dictates our offense.
howard was closest but wanted to yell at the ref. parsons and harden ran to him but he got up. at 4:20 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24etDfmzK1U
Not going to comment on "who the real leader is" but appreciate some of the positive things you pointed out about Harden. I actually had the impression that Harden was not a good leader (doing things like completely giving up on defense in that one fast break by portland in game 2, not owning up to his mistakes at first, etc.) Good to see that he can keep his cool at times and calm other teammates down during frustrating/emotional moments. You really think he was trying to exaggerate that contact? I dunno, it looked like a pretty bad clobbering to me...
