James Harden is as good a playmaker as Jeremy Lin.

the "problem" with harden drawing fouls is that he seems to almost rely on drawing the foul. look at the plays where the foul isnt called. those result in stops and turnovers. so in the regular season all is well, and good going to the FT line 10 times a night is great.... BUT what happens in the playoffs? what happens on the final possession? what happens when the refs dont "buy it" and ALLOW the contact? what happens then?

i'd rather harden shoot really, really well and not go to the line as much. its always great to draw fouls when you shoot poorly, but getting fouls should never be your main objective. too dependent on the refs.

 

Drawing fouls is a super power that every superstar has possessed. The benefit in putting the opposing team in the penalty is such an important aspect in the 4th quarter and is one of the biggest pluses of having a superstar. Hence the term "superstar call." I'd love for Lin to start drawing fouls as he did in NY as well, to be honest. That'd be awesome. The trick is to try to score while initiating contact not just running into people to draw contact like Kobe often does.
And just to be clear, most everyone here seems to agree that Harden is and should be the focal point on offense as he is our soon-to-be superstar and is super efficient but that JLin should be allowed to play the pg position more as he is a pg who can be deadly but as a SG... not so much.
The luxury in having two good playmakers who can penetrate and create is such a luxury. We should enjoy and celebrate it as how they go, we go.

 

whenever harden drives to the basket opponents have to obviously hack him or thats an easy 2 pts for us

 

Btw, Mchale is slowly balancing out the playmaking role more anyways without our help. Lol

 

Without our help.. How dare he...!!!

 

You are really grasping at straws. First, yes some times Harden looks at refs when he is fouled and there is no call... just like Kobe, LBJ, Melo and most others.

Have you looked at the list of leaders getting to the line? It is almost all super stars.