im not giving him excuses. i do defend him about doing everyting on offense so he abuses the fouling rules and gets carried away, but in the po's he needs to step up for a whole series. even in 14'15 where he had his best po's he couldnt dominate an entire series. im not sure what most pple consider a superstar anymore but before this current era, it meant your playoff numbers were better than your regular season numbers. you elevated your game in the po's. harden hasnt done that yet. yao had the same problem early in his career but grew out of it. tmac never had that problem other than that one year in toronto.
What would James Harden be without his drawing fouls tactics? A mere good player and his offense production would at least be minus 10 pts per game. Drawing fouls does not inspire team mates go 120 percent to win a close game against the Spurs or other great teams.
Right here. He is just way to dependent on that whistle. He's also the only legit star on the team. Get this guy a legit side kick.
Don't let 'the stat boys' hear you say that... lol... don't you know that ft's are the highest % shot - esp at Hardens ft%.... so really just trying to draw the foul is the smartest play possible...blah blah blah.... lol! ...but I agree... i hate seeing an offense player initiate contact just to draw a foul instead of trying to make an actual bucket and maybe get the +1... really detest the whole 'off arm hook of the other teams player coming around the screen and throwin up a one handed shot to try and draw the shooting foul...' move... just seems like cheating... same as flopping...
Also he is not an emphatic player. Tmac jumped up and down, and he would do the fist several times. After his 13 in 33 seconds.
You, a fan boy, have never been appalled by his body language when he ultimately let his mates down. Not every game but in the most important games. I am just saying. Even if he wins games, he isn't overly excited. His passion before and after winning games is limited. If it is 1, 2 times, it might be coincidence. The more he behaves like this, it becomes a pattern.
No, if i was a fanboy, I WOULD care whether he fist pumps and jumps around and smiles and blows kisses to fans after wins and whatnot. I just care about whether he plays basketball well, which 95 times out of 100, is what happens. Unless you know James Harden personally, which I'm going to say you don't, I doubt you have a firm grasp on how much he cares or gets excited just because you can't actively get inside his head from your couch at home. Neither can I or any of us. But he probably cares about basketball and winning a lot since that's literally what all of his teammates and coaches say. But hey...armchair psychology is cool too.
Ok, then let's just talk about drawing fouls. He is selling it to the refs at times, not every of them is a hard foul. So in terms of this the OP has been right to an extent, he has been a Frauden on drawing contacts.
OK...so a completely different and off topic criticism. Sure. Do you believe Harden's the only player in the NBA who sells calls? Surely you don't, or I will assume you don't watch the NBA. But I mean...if the goal here is just that we want to complain about Harden just for the sake of complaining about Harden, then by all means...
fyi he abused the ruelbook because he has to do too much for his team. helps conserve energy. lots of players abuse the rulebook too. harden gets carried away, and so does kawhi.
If you look at free throws attempted both last year and throughout history, it reads out like a "who's who" of superstars and all-stars. It all boils down to people not liking his body language plain and simple. They don't understand introspect and since this is all entertainment, they wanna see extreme passion on screen. I wonder how many spurs fans were upset at Tim Duncan after losses because he didn't show enough emotion? I'm positive there were plenty of fans upset at him for "lack of passion" and wanted to trade him. All the while most fans just thought these posters were insane and too invested in emotions rather than basketball.
