Ive seen a comments that still believe Hardens usage is either too high or we need a true PG and let Harden play off the ball more (prob bc his usage is so high). Hardens strengths revolve around his passing and scoring and passing abilities, which are best suited when he's playing the point. He has the option to use either earlier in the shot clock. The issue is when he does pass it, and he gets it back because nothing happened. If we focus on acquiring players who can make their own plays when getting the ball, his usage rate will go down and knowing harden, he will pass the ball in positions where they can succeed. EG does this for us right now, but if we had additional players with this ability - hardens usage rate can decrease since he won't always get the ball back - saving his energy for the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs This is why getting Dmo back on the team will help immensely, it gives us another player who can make a play and not require a setup.
The idea of Harden playing off ball like Klay (or he'll even Curry) is thoroughly getting debunked by MDA and James. Would another person like Gordon who can make plays help. Sure. Will Beverley help. Sure. Would Ennis with elite 3pt shooting help, Yes. Pretty much name your fav PG not named Westbrook or Irving But Rockets need help at every position. I want a star center or PF who can play our style and great at D. I want another 3 and D wing better and younger than Ariza. Hell I want an allstar SF with D Moving Harden to off ball is probably last on my list of priorities. Because of Harden's Elite PG skills and scoring, getting an allstar PG isn't even very high without addressing the other needs. My 2 cents
Sounds like a recipe for a "one pass then iso" offense. Also, how is it possible that we were a really good offensive team last season, we were insanely good in the preseason, and we've been elite so far in the regular season, and we've only played one game at home despite the mediocre level of competition, and we should focus on getting better/more scorers? It doesn't make sense to me. We've not had a problem scoring for a long time, the Cavs were barely able to contain us. Meanwhile it's looking like we will soon beef up the rotation by replacing Ennis with Beverley and D-Mo competing for minutes at the 4/5. MDA has said there are more wrinkles to add to the offense whereas the defense is structurally in place. I can't imagine we'll have trouble scoring this year. We're lacking athletic defenders who can hit open shots, and we're lacking fundamentally sound rebounders. I'm interested in the theory for how those should not be our top 2 priorities right now.
James Harden is better playing point guard because he shares the ball, he makes his teammates get involve more, and he'll continue to develop playing better as a point guard. If he goes back playing shooting guard he will be shooting the ball more, score more, and will do a lot of ball hoggin.
Like I mentioned before, there's no doubt harden is where he needs to be in terms of his role in the offense (point gaurd), but it's key to learn from lessons in the past, which is any player with that high of a usage rate will struggle later in the season because of wear in tear. The point is not to change the way we play, but add 1 or 2 people who can make their own plays (like EG who is doing well) so when harden passes them the ball, if they can't score right then and there they can make a play either by scoring or passing. It's all about decreasing hardens extremely high usage rate so he can maintain this high level of play late in the season. Plan for the future and appreciate what we have now.
Yes we get it. But we aren't too worried about our offense. We need to improve the defense. Look at it this way...GSW won a title and then 73 games with a Top 3 defense. We like to talk about their half court offense, but that team also had the most fastbreak points (by far) in the NBA. That comes from their superior defense and rebounding. And fastbreaks is a great way to make things a lot easier for Harden, and lower his Usage rate, too, if that's your statistical requirement here. Trouncing bad teams so Harden rests as a luxury like Curry does is also a way to bring down his Usage rate ... and we need better defense to trounce more teams ... amping up our fastbreaking with better defense is sure way to run people off the court, and rest your starters.
To improve our defense also requires a coach who cares about it. So basically you're assuming were firing our coach (not out of the realm of possibility) or hoping he has a change of heart. If the players acquired are elite on defense but a liability or not as good as current players on the roster on offense, they won't get enough PT to take advantage of their skill set. Good 2 way players are valuable in this league and are harder to come by than players who can create their own shot and for others on offense but aren't that great on defense. Frankly we don't have as many great trading assets either so I'm hoping for something more realistic.
No one said elite defense. We said players who can rebound and defend better We are worst in the league in Drtg right now. The Suns were much better than us in both rebounding and defense. Anyhoot, I agree. Another playmaker would be great, sure. Is that your first priority though, in a game where you can't have everything
you know what was so cool about that moment, Dream? Dekker STAYED CALM. Although he lost his balance, he maintained his emotional equilibrium . . . achieving a kind of mean between the twin extremes of despair and optimism. A .500 balance, so to speak. I honor his achievement.
only 5 games. anderson is as involved in the offense as ariza and bev were last season. wait till **** settles down. i think we have enough offensive talent so james will eentaully not have to do every thing. eg's already taken off. waiting for ryan.
We have the best offense, and the worst defense. The answer is not to add more offense. The reason is diminishing returns. How much more potent can the offense really be? Whereas even one additional good defender would make a significant impact on our defense.
We need an athletic SF can create his own shot and make plays Don't get me wrong ariza is an awesome player [desoute being streaky but hell who isnt] but he's a spot up shooter and cannot dribble or create his own shot. He's got great D though so it pays off but even Rudy gay would fit in better offensively
Idk that's debatable. I think it's the mentality and coaching not so much the players Heck ariza, Bev and capela are pretty highly regarded defensive players Their isn't a special formula, you play good on both ends but at the end of the day you gotta score.
The way Harden has been playing you shouldn't even pay attention to anyone who wants to move him back to a traditional pg..
Okafor would be great with Harden because of his ability to stretch the floor. He is the playmaker we need.
With the way the modern NBA is run, and depending on how legitimate Harden's unbelievable prowess at pg is (i think very, but always give it time, it all depends on that ast/to ratio) I believe we are a lot closer to contender status than I initially thought. We really need one more solid wing like EG, some more experience for Capela, Dmo or someone similar in the inside, beverley back, and we can beat a team like the warriors/cavs/spurs in a series despite being inferior in talent. Why? Harden has an unbelievable, perhaps never before seen ability to control the pace of the game. This is his most important asset, and it can only get better. Pace is what it's all about, and playing at your own pace is how you can be most effective. Is this a ridiculously optimistic post? Yes, but I've waited an entire year to be this optimistic, so let me indulge for the time being
This team's defensive talent is appalling. Ariza is a declining really good defensive player, while Bev and Capela are average. Those are probably our best defenders. I can think of 20 teams with better defensive individual talent than us. Also to debunk the notion that the coach will simply play the best offensive players, that makes little sense considering the worst offensive players on this team, and all his Suns teams, have gotten proper chances in the rotation. Anderson plays, he wanted to keep Prigs, we play Brewer, Gordon is getting heavy minutes over KJ, KJ is getting minutes, Beverley was the chosen starter. There is no pattern to indicate MDA won't play good defensive players. He just won't play them if they can't score in any way whatsoever. Capela is not a good offensive player, he just pick and rolls well, but he still starts over Nene.
