Draymond is a superstar?!?! He is a very very good role player that can push a really good team over the top and win a championship. Superstars are the one's that can push the team to the top and also possibly push them over the top by themselves as well. A team lead by Draymond isn't winning a championship any time soon.
This is 2015, not 2011 nor 2004. Looking back at that 04 Piston team, they had 3 superstars: Chauncey, Big Ben, and Rasheed. The 2011 Mavs were the exception. The exception can occur under the right circumstances. Mavs caught a lot of breaks, including playing against a newly formed trifecta of superstars that wasn't able to build out their role players and bench in one season. So the Mavs caught a break. But even that 2011 Mavs team had other superstars on it. They might not have been superstars when they won a championship but they were career superstars. Jason Kidd is a hall-of-fame player. He was a lifetime superstar. This is 2015-16. Look at the league. Be honest about what other teams have working for them. Be honest about their rosters, and about their talent. Be honest about how we match up against them. This mix of players CANNOT match up against the Warriors nor the Cavaliers. And most likely we can't match up in a 7-game series against the Thunder, Spurs, or Clippers either....if both teams are totally healthy. Those teams all have multiple superstars and much better supporting casts. We played over our heads last season. And we enjoyed some good fortune with injuries (even though DMo did get hurt), and we got some off-the-charts outperformances from some of our players. We really had no business winning the Clippers series. We were fortunate to do that. Now, look what has transpired since then. Look at the pieces we added and subtracted and look what other teams added and subtracted. It's plain to see we're a notch below. In fact it was plain to see before the season started and before training camp started that we were falling behind with the departure of Smoove and the injury to DMo.
He is very unique in his greatness. Just as both Pippen and Rodman were. He's a nasty, nasty man. And they're going to be great for a long time because of him.
Yeah I agree and he has effectively turned Lawson into an undersized spot up shooting guard. McHale has done nothing to integrate Lawson into the Rockets offense either. It's very frustrating to watch. Changing the starting backcourt is only an attempt to sweep the problem created by McHale under the rug. If we had Terry from 10 years ago it would work, but 2015 Terry isn't going to solve anything. Lawson needs to be running the offense and McHale should have figured out how to work Lawson into the offense in the offseason. Morey brought in a very dynamic offensive player and all he is doing is standing on the 3pt line. It's all pretty ridiculous. The worst part is there is no hero walking thru the door the coach this team and create some kind of team based offense. Coach K ain't walking into the Toyota Center to save our season.
This was a great thread started by Clutch himself, until basketballholic took it over as his own... YAH! and y'all just can't stop yourself from arguing with him
Except you'd likely get the same results from Thornton that you'd get from Harden. Both guards play lackluster defense and chunk from the three point line like crazy.
I'm done debating this with you. You're delusional. Ben Wallace was a superstar? The guy had no offensive game. Yes he was a good rebounder and defensive player, but that does not make a player a superstar. Same with Rasheed Wallace or Chauncey Billups. At their peak, they were All-Star caliber players, but never superstars. And now you're revising your terminology to include "career superstars"? Does that include the likes of then 36 year old Mitch Richmond who gravytrained a championship ring off of the 2002 Lakers by sitting at the end of their bench all year? A superstar is someone who ranks as one of the best players in the NBA at his respective position. Someone you could conceivably build a team around. No one was gonna build their team around Jason Kidd circa 2011. Nor Jason Terry or Shawn Marion or Peja Stojakovic or Caron Butler. The 2011 Mavericks had one superstar, Dirk Nowitski. And even he was at the tailend of his prime. The irony you seem to be missing is that the Mavs at one point did have 3 superstars in Dirk, Finley, and Nash and were never able to reach the NBA Finals with that trio much less win the whole thing. And why? Because they never committed to defense the way the less talented 2011 team did. That's the difference Rick Carlisle brought to the ballclub vs Nellie who never prioritized defense and always tried to outscore the opponent.
This kind of greatness? https://youtu.be/LZliv6NlcT8 One of the dirtiest players I've seen, pairs up really nicely with Andrew Bogut. Btw, if Andrew Bogut was out this past season, no way GSW make it past the Rockets. Draymond Green is super overrated. He just sometimes never gets called for his dirty plays. That sh** don't fly in the playgrounds. That's why he doesn't play outside the NBA. Aside from dirty plays, his stats is not resembling a superstar in any shape or form. Steph Curry is a superstar on that team, and without him, Draymond is useless because this guy is not gonna be giving you 30-40 point games. I give you he's a great defensive player (even though he is still dirty in my book), and fits really well for spacing the floor. But that's it. He's no superstar.
Actually it was great until you came in here and posted a non-basketball, non-Rockets post. Too bad I'm not a moderator. I'd take away 2 points of your rep for that. Do you have anything Rockets related to add here?? Or do you just want to attack other posters like a drunk at the Texans game who would rather fight with the other fans around him then watch the game??
It's a cringe-worthy thought to admit that that was the LOFs argument two years ago, as well. Super fast PG with PnR skills being turned into a spot up shooter. Of course, Lin was a scrub, and Lawson is a proven player who LOFs can only wish Lin was. But regardless, that's two starting PGs whose best skills are similar (albeit on vastly different planes). It tells you that McHale has faced this dilemma before with Harden, and as you say, he should have been able to integrate such a PG in preseason.
the same jvg who placed his superstars on a pedestal and allowed t-mac to do half session practices where t-mac would spend the other half sitting in a director's chair watching?
Being unable to play off the ball does not make one a PG. A PG sets up and runs the offense while protecting the ball. Harden is terrible at all three of these things - his court vision is very basic and he's a turnover machine. You could maybe argue that he is a combo guard but he's basically just a ball-dominant SG aka Allen Iverson or Francis. Teams don't win with these kinds of players. Sometimes they have a transcendent season that elevates the team to the finals, but inevitably, the inability of ball-dominant players to adapt to a team game suffocates the championship aspirations. That's what we're seeing this season - Harden overachieved the last two seasons and is coming back to his real level which is a good instant offense player but not a true cornerstone. He'll fill up the stat sheets, and have games where he is unstoppable on offense but he'll never make the plays and show the leadership that elevates his teammates. Maybe I'm wrong, however, and James can transform into a better team player. If that's the case, he has to learn to play off the ball and allow the PG to run the offense. And now is the time for the Rockets to push this transition - otherwise, we'll see Harden slowly become less and less effective until he's just another guy who had a few allstar years. The league's history is full of guys like this. If he can't learn to play the team game - if he's just too selfish or too limited like Iverson or Francis - then better we learn now while he still has trade value. But the Rockets cannot continue to play this way and expect to win a championship. Changes must be made.
Does that reveal more deficiencies with Harden or with McHale? Clearly McHale needed to integrate Ty's skills, and past situations with Lin confirms that he has issues with that. But after Harden talked about looking forward to playing off-ball games, dude kept handling the rock. It seems to me the offensive identity is in crisis. On one hand, you've got Harden who will give you a starting line-up that lives and dies with him, and on the other, you have Ty who will give you the ability to involve everyone on the floor given that they'll learn to find ways to move without the ball to get open shots, lay-ups, drives to the basket. You'd expect a guy like Harden to learn how to be effective without the ball, but clearly he's been deficient at it this season and his offensive skills just don't look compatible with Ty's.
the ball movement was a lot more fluid when Harden was off the court as evident by building the 15+ pt lead
