Cant lie. I laughed. Because it's true. That one YouTube guy needs to make a new Harden impersonation video with less cooking and more dribbling then passing to the garbage can or brick wall in the driveway.
This. The Francis era of Iso dribble ball were some of the worst games I ever witnessed and I was SO freaking glad he was traded. Now we're back to that ****. I just can't even watch, it's so predictable. Iso or 3 and D, neither is appeasing to me and I'm fed the **** up. No effort, no plays, no inspiration. No love from me. All fans should abort their half ass effort with low attendance. The only person on this team who should be "close" to untradeable is Clint.
Let's see Harden is no. 5 in number of touches. He's no.8 in time of possesion. He's not in top 10 in dribbles per touch so at least rest assured there are many more "massaging" ballhogs around the league.
op got it right. there's absolutely no reason to take 8 seconds and walk the ball up that many times. a reflection of his mindset, if you ask me. not good...
God watching him do that is infuriating. I cant imagine having to play with him. Trevor especially always having to try to make up for his mistakes.
Quite simply HARDEN DGAF! Prob TRYING to hurt his teammates stats - so it's a 'team problem' and not just his lazy, selfish ineffective butt looking like garbage! Scottie Pippen Royce White James Harden ....selfish QUITTERS WHO I WISH NEVER DONNED A ROCKETS JERSEY!
The question isn't why he does it, but rather why in the hell is it tolerated? There's a correlation between these types of plays and: stagnancy, scoring droughts, turnovers, and easy buckets going the other way.
All I really want is for someone else to notice how often he's beating a half court call by half a stride. Absolutely there is and why I brought it up. Lazy play, lazy boy bringing up the ball, barely making half court has zero shot at initiating a true offensive gameplan.
This is another entry on a long list of strange observations I've made regarding Harden this season. Dude walks it up S U P E R S L O W L Y almost every single time he gets the ball in the back court. I don't understand this. Why give our already challenged offense only 16 seconds to work with? I'm surprised teams aren't trying to force an 8 second violation once or twice a game by pressuring Harden early.
James Harden is a good player who can be great when he's confident and on. But, without discipline and a designated plan on how to change his bad habits... he'll never consistently be a great player.
seriously though. It really looks like he has no faith in dribbling past his man, or he's lost a step. Earlier I thought it was more about what the defense was doing. But it is happening even without the defense bringing one man to play zone behind the primary defender. And I totally agree. He's often failing to attack immediately when it's open. I posted this screen shot in another thread. This was the 2nd to last set ISO play vs Philly (in regulation). The defense is in wrong position and Beverley points it out to Harden (he is beginning to point to the triple team). Howard is triple teamed for no reason. This was about a full-second count (before McConnell realizes his mistake and gets on Bev) and Harden is pretty far away still, but why not attack as Beverley is pointing out. Who knows how those three guys guarding Howard would react, especially McConnell with his back to the play. Harden drives directly at the triple team to see if he can fool Howard's man to pause, and Howard dives to the rim for an alley-oop. The defense is NOT set properly in this second-count of the play. Worst that happens by driving at the misaligned defense is Bev is wide open and further has time to catch and dribble to the key for passing options/motion. but alas, Harden held it until the zone-player arrived.
I still can't figure out how most guards in the league haven't improved their defense on Harden... I can see and call his step-back jumper before it happens with a better than 95% accuracy every time he moves in a foot or so inside the 3pt line, slowly measuring his defender, doing that ever ineffective rapid-fire low dribble between his legs...
The only player and I mean THE ONLY benefited from those type of passes was Parsons. He was able to get a run start and attack the basket or shoot a three. Ariza on the other hand can't dribble and only can hoist up a 3. Also add to the list. Instead of attacking at 7-8 sec mark, he doesn't start moving until 4-5 mark. Usually happens at the end of quarters.
I don't know why he keeps doing that but it's up to the coach to tell him to speed it up and run the offense. Or how about have your true point guard bring up the ball instead of Harden. I thought JBB was on to something when he drew up a successful play for Thornton and Howard against the Knicks in overtime. But yet again we go back to these Harden ISO's. Makes one wonder is these coaches scared of Harden.
