Good thread. I agree with the theme here on Harden. Great regular season player but disappears in the playoffs due to how refs call the game. Basically, they won't give you benefit of the doubt when you drive in a crowd and initiate contact. So question for the board, if you were gm what would you do assuming we lose this series. Continue on knowing that you can never win a championship with this guy but will be deep in playoffs every year or trade him start all over？ I am guessing 99 percent will stick with Harden given his age and the belief that you never know we may get lucky with some injuries and win it all. As for Mchale, he is a good fit for this team of highly talented, supremely athletic, mentally weak and below avg iq players. He has a knack for getting the team to play together despite individual egos. What's point of having a great tactician when you players can barely spell free throw?
Honestly, if the Rockets have a schtick, it's to have guys want to play here. It's their obsession. Obviously, players like McHale. Les desperately wants to feel cool on either coast for owning this team, and Morey is in it for the gloss, and the buffet line.
It is impossible to answer this question. Did we know that Harden was available at the time we traded for him? There are obviously logical options such as Aldridge but it is clear as day that this core will not get it done. We need to upgrade either the PG position or PF to an all star caliber level player. Harden and Howard alone cannot get it done against the elite teams. I've maintained this opinion for a while and it is being proven right. There is a reason why Morey went so hard after that 3rd player in the off season.
Possibly!! If Morey gets us a Point Guard who can play his role then Harden can play his role of being a Shooting Guard and stop trying to play both. Y
(cont'd) This contrasts with the Spurs, whose schtiick is winning. You don't go to San Antonio for the bright lights- you go there to win, something easier to do when there are fewer bright lights. Popovich doesn''t care if a player likes him or not.
Of all players playing any kind of real minutes in the playoffs Harden is 1st in points per minute played and he's doing it on outstanding efficiency. Offensively he has been BETTER thN his runner up MVP campaign. Turnovers and defense have taken a dive. He's not even top 5 of reasons we are getting beat this series.
Pretty much. Lebron, Dirk, and CP3/Blake were all called chokers and the like at one time too. What I worry about though is the bad habits that he's been picking up from Scott Brooks and now McHale. I can't imagine how great Harden would be if he had to learn under Popovic or Budenholzer...sigh...
Being friends with Daryl I saw this thread and thought, "I can probably ask him the one question and report back" but this question doesn't need Daryl to answer. I can tell you from many conversations that toughness, chemistry and everything else are things Daryl thinks of. He thinks of everything, like any good GM would, and like any good GM he thinks more deeply and seriously about each of these things -- what makes a great team -- than any fifty of us combined. And nobody is stung harder by a loss than he is because he feels responsible for assembling the right guys. Daryl can't even enjoy a game like we can, not even a great win, because all he sees is what's going wrong that's supposed to be going right. So many times I've said to him, "What a great win!" and gotten back a troubled litany of everything that went wrong, every missed assignment, everything. We often say "a win is a win" but that's not true of someone with the weight of a city of fans on his shoulders; he is always looking for how to do it better. The notion that he's happy with anything less than a championship... I get it... I do. I understand the frustration of losing. But nobody feels it harder than he does and nobody in Houston works harder on building a team that can win it all. He won't be happy with anything less. I don't say that because he's my friend; I say it because it is true of any decent GM in the league. And Daryl is far better than decent.
i believe every word you said about morey. let me make one thing clear. this thread wasn't meant to see whose fault it was that we've lost in an extremely embarrassing fashion - twice in a playoff series that is 3 games old. i truly wanted and still want to know as an analytical genius how morey measures toughness. intangibles are always harder to quantify. and this thread wasn't meant to blame harden either. of course game 1 and game 3 weren't lost solely because of him. but as the leader of a team, his mental toughness is clearly lacking, and that's why i dont believe we can win another championship with him being the #1 player. could i be wrong? certainly. can harden change in the future? sure. but i firmly believe mental toughness and leadership are things that one either possesses or does not. i dont think they can be had thru training or cumulation of experience. a couple of folks here asked me whom i think can be the reliable guy that gives his team a good chance to win it all. honestly, other than those who have already been there (lebron, etc.), i don't see many in the younger generation of players. westbrook in my mind is the closest thing to it. that's why in the past 20 yrs or so, only a handful of teams have won it or got close to it. after all, players that combine physical talent and mental toughness don't come too often. and if our team can't win it all, it's not the end of the world. again, this thread wasn't meant to place blame on morey or harden (or anyone else for that matter). i simply expressed my curiosity in one thing and pointed out what i've believed to be the truth.
Do people question CP3 mental toughness do to his lack of playoff success? This is year 4 of CP3, Griffin, and Jordan trio for some context of CP3's current era.
