Rockets tend to lose when Harden aims for triple doubles?

What...this is a very transparent contradiction to your idea that we should be running him off-ball around screens. Running off-ball saps energy more. Crab dribbles sapping energy. lulz. And that entire list really just one thing = "Harden Drives"... do you want me to list all the little pieces of trying to get open off ball, too.

Or do you mean he should just stand in the corner when you finally get Rubio.

Besides, what makes Harden the most tired is playing 38mpg the past 4 years, 5 more mpg than Kawhi and 4 more mpg than Westbrook gets last 3-4 years. Finally, we are getting enough talent and playmakers like Lou and Gordon to hopefully get him down to 34 mpg. He's already dropped 2 mpg from last year.

 

You know I'm talking the entirety of Transition Offense systems. Are you talking about, at best, an initial option in Transition Offense. Are you saying going over the top of the defense is the best way to run a sustainable and efficient fastbreak? Or anything involving the PG running away from the ball?

All things remaining equal (player talent). The sooner and safer the ball gets in the PGs hands, in the middle of the court, the better.

We are even seeing advances to this in today's game where the versatile bigs like Green, Cousins, Davis, Jokic even start the fastbreak by dribbling themselves and everyone goes wing. You can cite as many examples of PGs like Francis or outlet passers like Wes Unseld while I cite rebounding PGs like all you mentioned and dribbling Bigs, but really, the difference between you and I is I'm citing fastbreak X & O systems.

I really do not think this is arguable. Example, MDA does not and has not ever run a fastbreak designed around long outlets or wing outlets. It is "get the ball to the PG" in the middle of the court and everyone pick a wing lane. They PG even comes back for the ball. All fastbreak systems in college and HS levels are designed for the PG to come get the ball as early as possible with short passes. Of course, many defense are around stopping this, so alternatives are to pass to the wing, then center it to a guard. The best way to achieve this is when the PG is already a very good rebounder so he gets the ball without a need to pass it to him.

The long outlet passes is not sustainable, not needed and not designed into any system other than an initial option....that probably still isn't higher ORtg efficiency for Transition Offenses.

 

somebody's gotta grab them boards.... too often I think thats our achilles heal....

rebounding vs clips was phenomenal... 62-36 with pretty much everybody contributing...

 

Honestly, if Harden is getting most of the rebounds in a game then that means the rest of the team is not hustling enough. Harden doesn't park himself under the basket like Westbrook does.

 

a lot of the time harden is putting up triple doubles, is because the rest of the team is doing ****. The rebound stat probably relates a fair bit to energy of others too.

 

Didn't say they were. Simply explained the 4th quarter slide.

 

At least we're not talking and making graphs about Harden's defensive woes. The fact that he has more pure shooters to choose from and can play less minutes should offset any energy lost by going for trip-dubs.

 

No. Running off the ball would not run him down more than being on the ball. I'm not talking about running him around off a bunch of screens and curls like Ray Allen, RIP Hamilton, or JJ Redick. I'm talking about letting him run down the wing and spot up where he'll have to be face-guarded and spread the floor for everybody else and if they don't then just throw it to him in the triple threat.

Harden is too good. He don't need to run off a bunch of screens. He can create space in a moment all by himself to catch the ball. Put him in spot up position and let him catch or cut beck door and finish. Give him MORE easy scoring opportunities. Catch-and-shoot.....over 40% from 3. Cut and finish...probably around 70% TS% when you include the fouls he would draw. Harden needs to replace about 30% of his on-ball possessions with these sort of plays. But to do it there has to be another great pick-n-roll playmaker on the floor with him. We don't currently have that.

 

There may be some truth to there being a correlation here, but I don't think it's fair to say that Harden is "aiming" for triple doubles. There haven't been many games where it looked like Harden was doing anything unnatural to try to get rebounds. To me, this seems of a classic case of "correlation does not imply causation".

Maybe Harden gets more rebounds on the nights where others on the team are lazy on the glass, and Harden is cleaning up after them a little bit. Maybe Harden gets more rebounds on the nights where we're shooting poorly (which means more rebounds to grab). There's a million explanations other than "Harden going for triple doubles leads to losses".

Also, you mentioned spending energy on "defense" and "rebounding" as if they were mutually exclusive. They're not. Rebounding is ultimately a large part of defense. No matter how well you defend a shot, even if you cause a miss (or a block) and then you don't recover the ball, you didn't do s*** on that possession. You need to rebound to get the ball, and ultimately to win.

 

Few month ago I've gone back and checked all of Harden's 35+ point games because I suspected the same thing.
My idea was that it's best for the team to have 7 players in double figures than have a super game from Harden.
The results weren't that conclusive.
First, this year we have tremendous amount of games with 7 players or more in double figures (last year we had 2 games like that all year, this year we have about 9 so far).
I suspected that the win percentage of those games will be much much in favour relatively to that 35+ games.
It wasn't so much different actually.
We are doing very well when Harden is putting on crazy numbers, it doesn't hurt us so much as I initially thought.
So, although I love having a much more balanced score board, I'm ok with Harden going all out and putting on triple doubles and monster games.
We're winning in both cases.
We're losing when Harden has an off night and the other guys don't pick up the slack.

 

I worry Harden is not aggressive enough sometimes. . . .esp driving

Rocket River

 

Yeah he's so unfit he can only play 37 mpg with a 35% usage rate on one of the best teams in the NBA as a favourite for the MVP.

 

LOL if PBEV is rebounding alot he's a hero

and if Harden does it he's stat padding

"Harden shouldn't be rebounding"

what's next?

he shouldn't be scoring

he shouldn't be playmaking

he shouldn't be playing

and where the **** did you get that harden isn't a conditioned athlete?

 

Guard defensive rebounds are a little overrated as an aid to the team, sure.

That said, what you've really presented is three data points, stating that in a ten game set, our three losses have come in Harden's T-1st, fourth, and fifth highest rebounding games. That is not that statistically significant, especially given that every team has different rebounding skills.

The more pertinent point would seem to be the Rockets' 12-3 record when Harden gets a triple double, yeah?