Harden shouldn't be PG he doesn't make the best decisions, he's let "the man" label cloud his judgement - too much hero ball, when a pass is the best option.
Sampson is a Heroball coach. He doesn't even run plays. You seen his interviews? He only practice defense.
I am not sure that your statement is correct. But no matter what, the coaches are going to put Harden in the best situation to score. The team's offensive coherence and picks currently are bush league, and everything may change once the coaches impose order on the offense. It all takes time. Talk about it after 25 games. Better yet chart it, spreadsheet it, and come back with cogent facts and analysis.
The key is balance. I believe that Lin, Harden, & Parsons can share some of the PG duties when entering the front court. The initial offense could be pick & roll while the defense is not locked in. If any of the 3 is bitten by the TO bug for that particular game or has an effective defender playing him, then he should defer to the others... JH as PG all the time is not a good strategy. The Rockets need to be like water and adapt to their surroundings for any given game or matchup
every single game the rockets have played this season, there have been at minimum 3x each game where harden would drive to the basket vs 2-3 defenders and end up getting a charge, a turnover, or a brick instead of passing to wide open perimeter guys. check the tape. this has happened in alarmingly regularity. wide open players sitting on the 3pt line waiting for a pass instead harden tries to take on multiple defenders. I dont know if harden is not seeing them or if harden is being selfish because he just signed a massive deal and he wants to keep his unrealistic hold on the scoring title. i dont like it and i know im not the only one who is seeing this.
I want to see lin bring the ball up and atleast run half the 24 second shot clock. If he cant create anything, set some off the ball screens for harden so he can free himself and get the ball with around 10 seconds left on the shot clock and go to work. If harden gets the ball straight away teams have alot of time to adjust their defense on him and double him straightaway. with 10 seconds or sdo on the clock, teams will struggle to double harden and it will mean better shots for james. This method will allowe lin to be involved and Harden to be the finisher.
I really like your post. This totally makes sense to me. But for what reason on the earth that the coach particularly chose the inefficient way to play? Which actually made harden struggle for several games as well?
The problem is that Lin is not as efficient as he was last season. He doesn't finish the basket like last season either. This is a huge part of his game. If Lin cannot finish, his pick and roll game is much less efficient and therefore, cannot benefit Harden or others. However, Lin had couple nice cuts last game against the Blazers. I hope that this means Lin is getting his mojo back. On the other hand, Harden can really use some helps in late game situation. According to 82 games, his eFG% during clutch time is 15.4%!!! According to Synergy Sports, Harden's isolation PPP is 0.68 which is 19th in the NBA. How can a good iso player only have 15.4% eFG when the game is on the line? There must be something coaches can do....
I don't think it was a lot though. It was a lot for most SGs but I think most games it was 5 to 10 minutes. We basically have Harden playing PG for 30 to 35 minutes a game and it's not good unless we're playing Detroit.
Lin has already proven that's he's the superior playmaker. How many fullcourt football passes has he made already starting from preseason to now? He almost always finds the right person at the right time on a break. Last night he had a couple of slick highlight no-look passes. If Asik's fingers weren't covered in grease and if our frontcourt could finish a bit better Lin would be close to averaging double figure assists. There have been countless times where Lin has made terrific passes to teammates in the perfect spots and they just bobbled it up or couldn't finish. How many highlight passes has Harden made? He's done the standard kickout-pass from a drive plenty of times but I've yet to see him make any really impressive passes that would allow me to think he has elite vision/playmaking ability. If Harden is an elite playmaker then so is Melo or Kobe.
Neither Harden or Douglas can run the offense as was shown in the Friday Portland OT. Harden had a terrific game up until the OT with both scoring and assists but looked lost when he had to run the show. They need to look for another backup point guard and coach. Also - Lillard had 5 of Portland's 8 points in OT. Nice defensive move Kelvin!
