YOU CANT EXPECT HIM TO DO EVERYTHING. THE GUY IS LITERALLY CARRYING US ON OFFENSE THE WHOLE GAME. HE CANT TAKE A REST CAUSE THE TEAM GOES TO ****S WHEN HE IS OUT. WITH THAT BEING SAID, I THINK HE IS A DECENT LEADER BUT DOES NEED TO IMPROVE ON DEFENSE . BUT WE KNOW HE WILL NEVER BE GREAT ON THAT END OF THE BALL.
.... and Harden is one of those people. You can't have his effort level on one side of the court and expect his teammates to respect him. Harden's effort and attitude also affects the "lack of" chemistry you mentioned. This doesn't even mention his careless TOs and 4 consecutive subpar playoff performances.
Shaq doesn't have a be a great leader to point out other people's leadership flaws. Criticism of Shaq is not a defense of Harden. You're correct that "winning cures all ills" in the sense that no one will complain about Harden if the team wins. That doesn't mean that his leadership is good. And at any rate it's a moot point right now because we're definitely not winning anything. The reason people are ragging on Harden is because we aren't winning. Thirdly, the problem with the Rockets IS a complete lack of chemistry and culture within the organization. There were a lot of contributing factors this season... This is not mutually exclusive with Harden's leadership. This is Harden's most classic defense on Clutchfans - "the team is broken, not Harden". Harden is still part of the team, and a big part. I stand by what I said about his on-court body language and teammate interaction. Nothing that you have said has actually addressed Harden the person, but instead all of the external factors in this situation.
James Harden is the best thing to happen to The Rockets since Hakeem and the championships..... Even after an awful season The Rockets are still in a great position to win a title and its not because of DMO or Pat Bev..... We have a superstar and a young one at that. It has become really popular to hate on Harden and I'm not saying that's its without reason but its absurd to say he is not capable of leadership. Harden cannot make Ariza, Brewer, Terry, Jones, DMO and Bev make wide open shots. He also cant shoot free throws in place of Howard..... I don't think we could surround Harden with worst players for the system Morey designed if we tried. Surround Harden with some capable players and shooters alongside a real coach and this team is back to the semifinals.....
Last year he was really good in the playoffs. To sight the last game were we lost to The champs who have only lost 12 games since that game as him having 4 consecutive sub par playoff performances is a bit of a reach. 28/7/5 on 63%ts is not sub par and if it is to you then I guess only Jordan lebron have had great playoff moments. This season was a disaster from the start and harden as the best player has to take the most responsibility. Talent chemistry coaching can all be the case also but he should have rallied his team better. Maybe they don't win more games but you would not have had this bad vibe they put off on most nights. Only a few games all year I watched were they played like a team and I felt harden was not only playing well on both sides but being a great leader. The Okc game late in the season the SA win on Christmas come to Mind and a few others but overall compared to last year he just wasn't the same leader. I think a lot had to do with the fact that they just flat out lost slot of close games they won last year and eventually later in the year when It was clear this team would do no better than a lucky 6 seed it imploded. If you watch last years team after he came back from the work games he was jumping up and down for his teamates he was running to congratulate them at timeouts he was picking guys up off the floor. I didn't see much of that this year and as a rockets fan it is concerning because he is our best player and a top 5 talent but he can't have another year like this without the doubt start creeping in on if he can really do it. I know some of you guys are already there but ill give him a pass. He played great ball since he got here we've had a lot of success avg 50 wins a year. He's an mvp caliber guy legitly. We just need to not only get better talent around him and coaching but most of all he needs to become more mature on and off the court. That will go further than almost any acquisition or coach. Self reflection this offseason for harden, next year is going to be the most important season of his career so far.
I watched nearly every one of Harden's games at OKC. Before he played his first game for the Rockets, I said he was no leader at all. This is what you get with Harden, for better, for worse. He will never "grow" into a leadership role because that's not who he is. The thing that still puzzles me is he defended while at OKC. He can be a very good defender. But in his mind, the offensive burden he shoulders for the Rockets gives him the right to play matador on the other end.
He has no excuse to be flat out bad defensively (he has been better than his reputation, but still not a positive on that end at all, and that's a problem), but it's not exactly mind-blowing stuff to acknowledge that less burden on one end probably means better production on the other. Maybe not playing 40+ minutes a night would help in that regard, as well.
Harden might have taken a step back this year in leadership. But he is a leader. He has room to grow. Just remember this from Coach K.
What happened was that someone compared Harden to Hakeem and so Tinman now has to go postal on Harden. We've seen this before (Tmac, Lin). So par for the course for him.
umm Harden is clearly a horrible leader.. Doesn't play D, doesn't inspire the team, doesn't make others better, doesn't seem to care, comes into camp out of shape, ..just overall does not seem like a guy others want to play with... I think it's safe to say and it's obvious that he's a horrible leader.
Dude, stop YELLING at us. Uncalled for. I do think putting less burden on him would make him more effective on the defensive end. That said, this quote below is what bothers me: It seemed to me that if he didn't think we could win/mount a comeback in a game, or if he was frustrated with teammates, he would shift into "body language whine mode" (best way I can describe it). This suggests a mental weakness in my mind. I don't question his talent, ability, etc, but if doesn't have the mental toughness to deal with a disappointing and frustrating season, but rather just gives up over and over again, that's a problem--that's a lack of leadership. He's young, sure, but I don't just give up at work when I get frustrated with people around me. Wouldn't you agree, though, that it's a LOT easier to be "a leader" when you're in a group of studs? It's so much easier to maintain a positive outlook and push people and lead a team when things are going well and a team is great. It's the down times, the hard time, the frustrating times where the truth is revealed, IMHO.
I thought it was pretty well established since last year that haren isn't a leader. Just a really good offensive player. He needs to cut his beard doe.
Yes, absolutely. That's why I am saying that Harden is a leader, but still has room to grow. He didn't do a good enough job this year. Lets see if he learns from it. Great opportunity to grow from this.
Harden gets beat. Dwight does not rotate. HARDENS FAULT. Ariza gets beat. Harden does not rotate. HARDENS FAULT. Hot take Kazaam .
I feel this is the role he has chosen more than the offensive burden falls on him. He has chosen to dominate the basketball and attempt to make all the plays himself while wanting to be surrounded by spot-up shooters rather than other creators/playmakers. Now he's got an excuse not to play defense and complain that he needs help handling the ball at guard. But he instigated it by being ok with losing Parsons, and not wanting to play with Lin, Thorton, Smoove or anybody else that can go make a play and get some. And then further than that he shoves Lawson to the wing and then acts like he don't understand why Lawson didn't work. I realize Lawson was messed up in the head but Harden vouched for us trading for him. Then when he gets him he tries to make Lawson play an off-the-ball role. Terrible leadership. Hamstringing the franchise. And sucking both Les and Daryl in on it to the tune of firing McHale after convincing Daryl to bring back everybody except the player we really needed to break up the one-dimensional Harden monotony (Smoove). I'm very disappointed in the triumvate leadership of all 3 men this season. Harden goofing around with the balls of the franchise. Morey sucking up. And Les meddling. All three of them took a dump on us at the same time. And they're continuing the charade with these bull crap pressers like Morey just spewed out last week. Making everybody stand up while he blithered away nonsense.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WATCH: Shaq wasn’t too happy about this Kobe/Drake meme last night on Inside the NBA <a href="https://t.co/uzBym6h2BK">https://t.co/uzBym6h2BK</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Views?src=hash">#Views</a> <a href="https://t.co/E1GPYCwodk">pic.twitter.com/E1GPYCwodk</a></p>— SI NBA (@si_nba) <a href="https://twitter.com/si_nba/status/726937074759262208">May 2, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
