stepback 3s are brilliant and gonna be remembered by fans and honored through playback while his Jersey being retired in TC or the HOF announcement ceremony one day. Its DRIBBLEs hurt, eps those dribbles in certain situation. he should increase his pure catch and shoot or mid-range shot…that will make him much more unstoppable and unpredictable (shot selection).
Take less step-back threes. He is becoming a victim of his success in a way. He is inviting defense so he can pull it. He should have a mentality of attacking to help himself out. He settles way too often.
The answer is - "situationally". Sometimes, some nights, there will be better shots. Gotta take them, too. Even the math says so, hence my "moreyball chucking" thread.
To put it succinctly, the step back 3 is a great counter to opposing teams using secondary defenders to load up the paint on Harden. Should Harden be more judicious with the shot? Absolutely. Should he stop shooting it? Absolutely not.
Under Kevin harden actually had a mean post game. Plus Kevin used to set him on the elbow where he would he use his mid range game to great effect. He used to to get a ton of and one fouls from the mid range. It seems the last three years it’s three or layups.
https://stats.nba.com/player/201935/shooting/ On this page you can track Harden's shooting by shot type. Lots of different possible types. Step-back jumpshots 153/401 Out of those, step-back 3PTs 147/394 As you can see Harden is 6/7 on his mid-range step-backs. Very insignificant sample, but I'm sure his midrange step-backs would be lethal and another thing the opponents would have to worry about if they didn't stick to Harden's body on his drives to the rim.
I’m surprised it’s that high after the last 6 weeks he’s had... he did have a few games where his 3 was on (think he hit over 50% in the Suns game) so they help to offset the poor night when he goes 2/13. I just wish he’d think more situationally as someone above mentioned, but he rarely seems to do that much this year. I get that he is a confident shooter but he really needs to be more game aware of how missing 3 after 3 (when he’s been grinding all game and missing) is hurting the team, but I doubt he will
He obviously shouldn't quit, but if he's missing a lot during the game, he should mix in some other types of shots to see if he can get in rhythm.
I don’t think he should get rid of the step back, but he should mix it up or disguise it better, because it’s getting pretty obvious for the defender to know the step back is coming. Maybe add a little head fake, if defender reacts/ jumps, then he should blow right by him... but hell, what do I know, I barely made JV in high school, which was 23 years ago lol.
