What do you mean rank? Harden's primary role as a damn good scorer doesn't absolve him from playing defense. It was pathetic how easily KD, Steph, and Livingston on that one play were breaking him down. What I'm saying is watching your top player put forth zero effort and continually get put on ice skates is going to be frustrating to the team.
There is a difference between being relevant and being a threat to win a championship. Without a superstar player we'd be the Nuggets...over and over again until the owner got tired of it and fired Morey. Then what?
James Harden is ridiculously athletic. His his ability to stop is better than anyone else. His body control is better than anyone. Please lets stop perpetuating that harden is some Tom Brady who is a 6th round pick who made himself out of nowhere. He was a 5 star prospect in high school. He was a top 5 pick in the draft. Look at the stats from the draft combine: https://stats.nba.com/draft/combine-strength-agility/#!?SeasonYear=2009-10 He is very strong, fast, and can jump. Maybe he isn't John Wall quick, but who is?
That’s my point. I believe with time (or not having to deal with a Les mandate to not go below .500) Morey would have found a different star player.
In these playoffs... Minutes per game Harden - 35.0 Paul - 33.7 Touches Harden - 74.5 Paul - 68.8 Time of possession Harden - 8.5 minutes Paul - 6.9 minutes Seconds per touch Harden - 6.85 seconds Paul - 6.04 seconds Dribbles per touch Harden - 6.35 Paul - 5.42 Walking the ball up I guess is a fair criticism. I’d say people over state how often it happens, but sure it does happen. Freezing Paul out? I don’t see it. We have two of the best point guards in the game and they both get their fair share of time with the ball. Harden has been much more productive per touch as well so not sure why we want to give it to Paul more and Harden less.
But how much time? Which superstar? It took luck too to get Harden, it took OKC being cheap and trying to prove a point...even then it took both the Wizards and Warriors turning the trade down and no other team sweeping in for a better offer. All of this because basically Harden had established himself as a fringe all-star player at best because he didn't have the minutes to showcase he was a star. Had that been a bigger star we would have never even been in the discussions to trade for him in the first place. It is VERY hard to acquire a superstar the way Morey did, in fact, so hard that most teams rather stink for 5 years instead of hoping for the perfect storm to trade for one.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown..." When you're the best player on a very good team; be ready to take the majority of the blame when things don't go right.
I get the point, my point is though that things don't always work out that way. It took years of planning to get Harden, what if the Wizards snapped him up or Warriors? Does Morey get more years to search desperately for a superstar? To stock up assets hoping that some team would trade him their pick or star? If you look at our roster before the Harden trade we were surely tanking. The FO will never admit that but just look at the roster then. A team led by Lin and Parsons was about to get us a top 5 pick in what turned out to be a pretty meh draft. Morey does not have a strong record on drafting either, that hasn't shown to be his strength. If we want to talk about the flaws of Harden lets discuss Morey's flaws as well. The idea I am opposing is this idea that we could have easily just got another Harden-esque player. Look at what Harden has done, he's historically one of the best offensive players ever. That Morey could have just found some other MVP level player to get because he wills it to be, I can't just go along with that. All through Harden's tenure here I see people constantly wanting to trade him for lesser players. Paul George, Butler, even at one time we had OJ Mayo people...comes a time when you realize what you have, but I know when Harden retires, 15 years from now people will look up starry eyed at his jersey in the rafters and go "Man, just imagine if we still had that guy...now that guy was one of our best." Yeah the man has his flaws but he's still a historically great players, the OKC trade is probably also the most one-sided trade in NBA history, if I'm building a team the last thing I will do is rely on that happening again.
It did not take years of planning to land James Harden. It took a couple months of hard work and heartache to be in a position to land Harden. Right after the 2012 season concluded he went to WORK. We finished that year 9th and missed the playoffs by 2 games. It wasn’t a super talented team but they had grit and played hard. We had a combination of young talent mixed with some savvy older veterans and fan favorites. The team was just above average but some believed it could be viewed as an up and coming team. Morey instead knew the team was flawed and fools gold. He didn’t want to be mediocre. He had a plan. I’m sure it was a 2-3 year plan but instead it turned out to be 2-3 months cause he put himself in the position to get lucky. A lot of us thought he was crazy. That summer he traded Lowry a very good young talent (future star). For a 1st round pick and scraps. He traded Camby who was quite valuable to us at the time for nothing basically, he traded Courtney Lee a nice young rotational player also for not much, he waived Luis Scola (upset many clutchfans) and he let Gogi another young talent (future star) walk. All this in a matter of about 2 months. That was all done between sometime July-September. Our team was gutted but we had a bunch of cap space and assets. In October we landed Harden. It was the perfect storm to landing Harden but it wouldnt have been possible if Morey didn’t act swiftly and make the bold moves he did right after the season ended. 1) I think it took everyone by surprise that OKC didn’t extend/retain Harden. (Maybe Morey knew they’d have difficulty or be hesitant) 2) When we landed him it was quite the surprise for a lot of people. Nobody really saw that one coming. (Only Morey knows) 3)Not many/very few honestly knew Harden would turn out to be as good as he has. (I have a feeling Morey had a hunch based off of advanced statistics, metrics, etc that go beyond simply passing the eye test) Harden was not a surefire superstar prior to arriving to Houston. But if it wasn’t Harden he still would’ve found somebody.... some way ....some how ... to be a difference maker for us. There’s a reason why in Morey we trust. Or at least I do.
Harden plays like he doesn't want any of his teammates to have a better game than him & show him up in the playoffs. He's been the unanimous MVP all season & if he isn't the best player and not able to "put the team on his back" then why is he MVP? He's already criticized enough as is. I've never seen a superstar player hated on as much as him. Why he chose to walk and trot the ball up the court like game 1 though doesn't make any sense. Between that and the calls from the refs, it seems as if all of this is orchestrated.
Why does being able to stop quick mean he's fast? He's not a quick runner. Sure, in a particular moment he could exert enough energy to sprint and be pretty fast, but he can't do that for an entire game.
Dirk was pretty good. I wonder if he got trashed by Mavs fans during his prime years. We think they're low class, right?
