I don't believe Harden is actually hated... People laughing about his defense doesn't necessarily mean they hate him. Lol... Morey and Howard or giving us that rep.
As an outsider, I can say that people outside of Houston don't hate the Rockets. They see a lot of bluster but not a lot of accomplishments yet. Howard is not the most liked guy in the NBA. Harden's tendency to ignore defense has left an impression on the rest of the league. To earn respect around the league, they need to get to the conference finals.
If Dwight and Harden say that Parsons is a big loss. It is a diss to all of his current teammates as well. People would be criticizing them for not believing in the team and speaking out against management. I just hope Dwight and Harden can back their statements and come to play next season. I am really excited for them to take their game to the next level. Dwight needs to be as aggressive in the regular season as he was in the playoffs both defensively and offensively. Harden obviously needs to step it up a lot defensively. Both of them are just supporting their CURRENT team. They have to focus on what they have now and not dwell on the loss of Parsons, and that is exactly what they are doing.
It's hilarious how much people hate on Howard. Howard has done EVERYTHING we could ask from him in his one season so far. He worked on his post game and played extremely well in the playoffs. Anyone who actually watched the playoffs knows that Howard was an absolute beast. The problem with media and mass audiences is that when one team/player is painted as a villain, the casual fan buys into it and becomes a strong supporter of whatever picture was painted, as inaccurate as the picture could be. For example, I saw on the ESPN comment boards that someone stated that Batum wiped the floor with Parsons after Parsons bragged about being the best SF. Another fan actually responded and said that Parsons and Batum traded blows and Batum didn't play better than Parsons, seriously. At that point, I closed the tab and came to the realization that the casual fan has a large tendency to conform and should not talk about other teams because they have no idea what they're saying and just make up facts to support their ideas. Other people talk about the Rockets as if they know what they're talking about, but it's one inaccurate claim after the other. Basically, the casual fan buys into the media and conforms to the majority opinion presented. Thus you have T-Wolves supporters saying completely inaccurate things about the Rockets. So really, we should not pay attention to it all. Embracing the evil empire is not a good idea either. Lebron said that in his first year in Miami, he played angry and tried to shut up haters and he said that was the reason he failed. We need to simply not pay any attention to outsiders and play our game the way we ought to play it. Either way, McHale isn't really the kind of coach to lead an evil empire..
Exactly. If they both came out and said "Without Parsons we're gonna be a bottom seed" they would look incredibly weak. They said what they had to say and the only people who are offended are the simple minded who find the need to conform to the popular opinion. At this point, that opinion is to hate the Rockets because they're evil. I say screw it. We aren't evil. We didn't do anything wrong. We just come off as evil for some reason. Let the season come around, we'll show them that this team is just as good, if not better, than last year. They can hate if they want, shouldn't affect our focus.
The media refuses to write about Houston out of spite, the NBA conspires to give the Rockets the hardest schedule every season, and every other team message board has a specific section just to talk trash about us.
Yeah but like others have said we gotta embrace it. I really hope we kick some ass this year, let them hate and then shove some hardware in their face. At the same time it is pretty frustrating, because everything that has happened that has given us negative publicity has been completely, almost comically overblown by everybody, it's kind of ridiculous, but hey.. Spoiler
The media is a reflection of what fans think, since most members of the media are just fans themselves. Every major outlet has written about the Rockets, so that's B.S. to say that. Not to pick on you for everything, but people claiming the media creates the stories are inaccurate, the fans create the stories because if the media is writing/talking about a subject no one cares about, then they won't have a job, since they wouldn't have an audience. The media answers/writes the stories fans want to hear about.
We are without question the most hated team in the NBA. Houston as a whole is a city that the rest of the country likes to dump on. They are not happy that we are rising economically and socially. Time to show 'em what's up. I would love if these Rockets became the next Bad Boys. I know we got Beverley, Ariza, and Dorsey on board. Time for Dwight and James to get that mean streak going.
well LOFs hate us..and that's like 4 billion people nah jk lol. but really who gives a **** what other fans think. I mean you don't see anyone hating the bucks or the magic. Just wait til we get that third star, they ain't seen nothin yet.
I think I agree with you? My post was all in jest, and yet I have seen all those points seriously made over the years (ok maybe not the message board thing). Seriously, we need to actually be more successful to be considered a real target of 'hate'.
You would have to be thought about to be hated. People just tell the truth and a lot of people on here have a skewed since of the truth so when people don't agree with your off target opinions of our team, you call it hate. Truth is, we aren't that good. Weren't that good last year either. We will make the playoffs and lose in the first it maybe second round if we're lucky. In my opinion, that's pointless.
No offense, but the world does not revolve around Houston and everyone outside the city limits is not obsessing over it or rooting for your demise.
Giving Full effort? you mean like Asik who took a 1 month vacation in the middle of the season because his feeeliongs were hurt? Lin wasm't focused on winning, Lin was focused on proving himself, If we was focused on winning, maybe the dumbass would learn to call a timeout when he gets a rebound in a clutch situation instead of taking off to the other end and lose the game (that was selfish) just as much as parsons was trying to prove himself to be wotrth a Max contract. Oh wait it's Carl....
