Full Highlights: James Harden's 37 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists vs. Knicks 1/3/2014

Maybe a few bail outs, but he mostly has time, plenty of time... And1-style with 15+ dribbles. Not all bad because he has great handles and can make superstar shots. Team just needs a better offensive scheme overall and hold players accountable. McHale may be liked but he's not respected by the players. The team is destined to underachieve.

 

That's fine and you can post your opinion on the few hundred other threads about how bad McHale is.

 

Those were your numbers not mine. I was simply pointing out that the results that you were hoping for in Wednesdays game was incredibly unrealistic, You're saying we shouldn't have to depend on Harden scoring 30 yet that is much more likely to happen than the scenario you described.

As long as Harden, Howard and Parsons are scoring then all we need is a couple of other players to have good games. It could be Lin, Jones, Brooks,Casspi or Garcia...it doesn't matter who it is. If our 3 primary scorers are having good games then we just need a couple of the other guys to step up.

 

As expected, some people are going to be bias for whatever personal reasons even though we are all supporting the same team. I think Harden is a good player but not amazing.

Secondly, some people are going to fail the eye test even when reading. This was what I said,

Never implied that he missed those games because he thought he wouldn't play well, he missed games because maybe he was injured or sick. Those teams that he missed playing aren't even playing well except for maybe Atlanta. However, against the stronger teams with equal or superior matchups he's not going to score 37 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists. If he wants to be the man, work hard and do it every night like the the better leaders on other teams. Don't pull out some excuses. Some people play through blood and bruises.

"Harden's been under 20 pts a grand total of 7 times in 29 games"

Thirdly, read my post again...slowly:

He has scored 20 points or less NINE times (actually 19 points or less). That's almost a THIRD of all his games. Lebron did it 9 times in his third season with the Cavs while playing 80 games.

For someone to average nearly 40 minutes a game and only plays 1/2 the time on offensive and nothing on defense, it's not good enough.

Plus, the comparison with Lebron is ridiculous. I probably need to refrain myself here for pointing out the obvious but Harden isn't even on the same level, not even close. We can do a trade though, Harden for James and Miami will win this year's championship right?

Look, I don't really want to open up another can of worms here but seriously..

We've lost some good players for Harden (and we're going to lose more), so I expect him to cover our losses and help our team win. Becoming like another Carmelo or Kobe is not good enough.

 

Lin needs to be involved in scoring too and getting to the foul line. He's one of the main offensive threats on the team. Dwight needs to be from start to finish more consistently involved in the scoring and getting touches. He's the primary or secondary option. Jones was having big scoring contributions from teamwork when he was going well in two stretches and I'd like to see him get back to that. Parsons has been getting his points well. If Harden is going for 30 plus every game that's not as good as more balanced scoring with more players getting points.

 

Well then.

 

If the best SG in the NBA is not amazing, then you have some high high standards bro.

 

Harden can also take pride in his own game by holding himself accountable.

 

For what? I can't believe you still have complaints, unbelievable. Never satisfied

 

If the best 2 doesn't play much defense the position is weak.

 

Idk uummm.... defense. You know, 50% of the game. If you're satisfied with that you might wanna be his new girlfriend.

 

I don't know what defense has to do with this thread, which is a highlights video thread but his defense is improving everyday. Doesn't he hold opposing shooting guards to the lowest positional PER on the entire team.

 

IF true, it's only because he makes them work on defense. Credit him for that. But his actual defense sucks. Haywood isn't a 2, so that particular stat might have less credence from the jump.

 

I counted maybe 1 or 2 shots out of the entire highlights that I thought were bad shots. Played hell of a game. Almost every shot was a smart shot. Either he was open, or matched up against a stiff who had no chance at stopping him.

 

What you're describing is the exception not the norm. Is Harden going for 30 every game? Nope. In fact Harden's FG attempts have gone down this season.

It would be great if all of our rotation players had great games every night but that's not realistic. The nights that they are scoring well then we're obviously hard to beat. The problem is the nights that they aren't scoring, that's when we have to rely on Harden, Howard and Parsons. Those are our 3 leading scorers and we depend on them to score most every night, not just when they are having a good shooting night.

I agree that Lin needs to be involved in the scoring and in fact he is. He's averaging 14.1 pts/game. Likewise for Jones, he's averaging double figures. Likewise for Howard, he's averaging almost 18 per game. Parsons is having career highs in scoring and fg% while still averaging over 17 per game.

Do you really think that 24.4, 17.8, 17.2,14.1,10.1,9.6,8.2,7.5 and 6.4 is really that imbalanced scoring for a team's rotation players? It's not like Harden is the only guy scoring. No team's scoring is evenly distributed across their rotation players. There's always going to be some variation in the scoring, it's that way with every team.

I wouldn't want to reduce Harden's scoring opportunities in order to get T. Jones more shots. That wouldn't make any sense. You wouldn't take that ball out of one of the league's elite scorer's hands in order to get more shots for Jones.

What team has evenly distributed scoring? Do you think that OKC should have Durant score less so that Jeremy Lamb can get more looks? All in all we have a fairly even scoring distribution.

 

When you say "odd injury or cold" then you're implying it's not legit. Even in this last post you said " he missed games because maybe he was injured or sick". Maybe? So again you are implying that his injury wasn't legit? Why try to slide in backhanded insults rather than just saying what you mean?

You're complaint against Harden is that he isn't going to have 37pts/7 reb/6 asst against elite teams? Who is? Pick any player in the league and pick any team on their upcoming schedule and they likely won't have a 37/7/6 game. That doesn't happen very often against any team.

Who are these "leaders on other teams" that are having games like that every night against elite teams? Who are those leaders that aren't having some off nights?

I don't believe anyone claimed that Harden was on Lebron's level. The Lebron reference was to point out that even a player as great as Lebron has off nights and a high percentage of those games are against elite defenses. It only makes sense that it's harder to score against elite defenses no matter who you are. If the great players are on they will score against any defense, elite or not. That's what Harden did in the last two games vs the Spurs and what he did vs OKC when he scored 46 last year and in a couple of the playoff games. On the flip side if the elite scorers aren't playing well against an elite defense their scoring will be lower. That's not really a surprise.

Did you also notice that in Lebron's third season when he only scored under 20 pts in 9 games that he was also taking 23.1 shots a game? Do you think Harden's games over 20pts would increase if he took 40% more shots than he currently does (16.4 shots/game)?

You're upset about what we gave up for Harden? A couple of role players and Kevin Martin (who would have left in FA anyway)? Who in the league wouldn't make that trade today if given the chance. Roll players can be replaced but it's not that easy to acquire stars.

If you expect him to help the team win then you should be happy because that's exactly what he does.

Interesting that you're afraid that he'll turn into Kobe, a guy that has 5 rings. Personally, I can't stand Kobe Bryant but I'm also not silly enough to think that he isn't one of the all time greats.

 

I think you need to include Lin as one of the scorers. Lin's clutchness in the 4th and ability to penetrate with truly elite finishing percentage at the rim makes him a huge scoring threat along with Harden, Dwight and Parsons.

The last few games has almost featured Harden bailing out the team on really hot shooting. I want to see in the next game not even, but more balanced scoring. I also want to see more involvement from Dwight through 4 quarters, not just for a segment of the game. Dwight's body language, I think anyway, is showing dissatisfaction with his touches. While it is nice to have Harden going, the other guys going, because of touches and opportunities, makes for a more potent team and will be necessary in going on a win streak. So I'd like to see more of the other guys, especially Dwight and Lin, scoring more. I'd like to see in upcoming games and going forward Lin up his points to get to 16 PPG and Howard around 19/20 PPG when the season ends.

What I don't want to see emerge is a Melo or Kobe 4th quarter chucking and dominating the ball stuff going on with the Rockets.

 

It really is strange.

The best I can come up with is that they need their perceptions to become realities. It seems like they will just continually attack Harden/McHale over and over and over and over and over hoping they can somehow make their ideal scenarios become a reality: IE, Harden/McHale disgraced, and Jeremy Lin steps up and leads the team to a championship.

It really is like some sort of mental disorder.