The real reason why the Rockets won't win a Championship for 3 years

It's called adapting and growing as a player. The guy has been a number 1 option for two seasons... He's gonna learn some new things with every season that passes

 

Harden pretty solid on assists. I believe the guy averages more than Lin in that regard. There goes the ball hog theory overall. He just hogs it to isos in the worst situations however.

 

OP, you mean we'll win a championship in our 4th year?

 

I'm beginning to doubt Morey knows how to build a championship team.

Yes, we did get two All-Stars. But now we're stuck with the contracts of Asik and Lin. With how the new CBA is, teams are getting smarter in trading players.

Instead of getting solid role players, he's gonna hamper the team by going for a 3rd star. Instead of fixing the main problem of lack of coaching, he's gonna cover it up by a 3rd star who's probably an offensive guy again.

He wants to be a top 10 defensive team, yet his idea is to get 2 top defensive centers and a defensive PG, without addressing the need for a team defense. The whole year Harden was poor on defense, and he waits until the offseason to get a defensive coach for Harden.

He's good at finding pieces, but not building the whole. That's the coach's job, but ours can't do it. So we continue to have a BIG problem

 

You dribble almost out of clock and then dish the ball to a teammate who then makes the shot.
Yes, you will get an assist on record.

 

OP is missing a chromosome

 

I dont give a rat **** of what you think of the regular season, two years ago, or anything GOING to happen in the future.

We lost this playoffs and I blame 2 people - McHale and Harden.

Harden - he cant blame anyone but himself, like McGrady said "it's all on him". You are the highest pay player on the team, you are the offense, and the whole offense runs thru you. No excuses - Zero.

McHale - he is the HC, he suppose to make in game adjustments. HC suppose to have game plans beside just letting Harden run it or throw the ball to Howard and let him go one on one. What if Harden isn't hitting? What if Howard is in foul trouble? We all saw it in the playoffs. What did we do instead? nothing - zero adjustments.

HC is also responsible for Xs and Os, dont blame on an assistant coach who left and took a better job elsewhere. Why did you get no backup plan? Why did AC leave after the reg season? not why until summer? Was there an arguement between them? Was there bad blood perhap?

Dont' blame on the role players, they are role players. Seriously if you depend on role players to carry u in playoffs then u got an issue. HC suppose to control the role player roles too. Why only 8 men rotation? Then all of sudden we play a player who wasn't even playing in the reg season? What kind of message you are sending?

Overall our coaching staff should buried the most blame

 

Harden is 24 yrs old. He still has time to revamp his game. Knowing how hard he works and he will improve is D next season.

 

Actually by all accounts he not that hard of a worker at all, low cardio and a bit on the heavy side.

 

Apparently the referees don't know this. If you'd actually look at stats you'll find that the refs call more fouls in the playoffs than they do in the regular season.

This year is the first time in Harden's 5 seasons where he's averaged fewer free throws per game than he did in the regular season. Additionally, this year he averaged 9.1 FT/game in the regular season and 8.3 FT/game in the playoffs. So, Harden shoots as many or more FT in the playoffs for 4 years in a row and then in the 5th year he gets 0.8 less FT per game in the playoffs and that convinces you that he won't get any calls?

Have you ever see Durant play? He shoots more FT per game than Harden and likewise his FT attempts have gone up in every playoffs except this year. He's down almost 1.5 FT attempts per game this playoffs. So do you feel the same way about Durant?

Harden not driving as much wasn't because of him not getting calls. It was because Portland had two bigs in the paint waiting for him any time that he drove. Would you have preferred him to drive it straight into Aldridge and Lopez? Portland's gameplan was to stop Harden and because of that they had to play Howard 1-on-1 for most of the game. Portland had their defenders (Batum or Matthews) prevent Harden from going to his left and instead send him to his right where the two bigs were waiting for him.

If Harden didn't drive as you say and he still only shot 0.8 less FT/game then wouldn't that mean that he's actually getting MORE calls than he does in the regular season?

Can you name any player in the history of basketball at any level that goes 5-5 or 6-9 on 3 pointers every day? Harden shoots 36.6% on 3pters which is a very good percentage.

 

Do you even watch games? Harden is an excellent facilitator.

 

You mean Harden gets paid more than howard? And while everyone had their failures in the playoffs, you blame harden and mchale for the lin turnover that cost us the game.

 

See, this is the reason we desperately need to get rid of Lin. His fans are the biggest problem he brings to the table.

One star thread.

 

Please delete this ...... how do you know what is going to happen in 3 yrs, GET REAL

 

He seems to've gotten more efficient this season... but his old habits are still there... still looks for a foul bail-out first, over creating a shot... for himself or his teammates... He still passes it off to a teammate with less than 5 seconds remaining on the shot clock when no opportunity for a foul is available or a shot... Not even in the process of creating a play.. he just hands it off...

He still tends to chuck the ball when he can't be bothered to try and create a play or a shot... no matter how much the game demands that he try...

That's not learning season to season... Look at his postseason play this year, and his body language... He played well the last game, but we've been there before... He'll have games like that to "redeem" himself only to fall back to same old same old habits...

His defense... What else needs to be said...?

 

History my friends history. Don't be naive.

What makes you think Harden will change his ways, especially when we are bringing mcfail back.

 

Dwight barely crumbled. He never gave up and took the team on his back. I cannot say the same for Harden... I want to, but I cannot.

I never respected Dwight's game before he joined the Rockets, but now I do. He's a dawg, he's my new favourite player.

 

Shiet! You are good KlutchQT, you are fantastic! haha

 

Unfrotunately, Harden and Howard are both secondary stars who are meant to be the sidekick. We don't have a player on this team that has a "killer" "take-over" attitude like MJ, Kobe, and (not comparing him to Kobe and MJ but just saying) you can even make the case for Lillard becoming a player with that mentality.
Until you have someone who can simply dominate, you can't win. Name a championship team that did it without a player of that personality.

That being established, we need to get a player who can consistently bail us out when we have issues. Our roster has enough talent to win majority of games, BUT there are going to be games, especially in the Western Conf. playoff bracket, where games are not going to come down to roster talent, but to heart and attitude.

Unfortunately, we don't have a championship attitude. Bev has the mental toughness, but he can't take over offensively. Howard and Harden are both very very good players, maybe even great, but you can't truly trust one of them to take over late in the game and pull through for us.

Kevin Love is not the answer. Carmelo is not the answer. The answer is hidden and it's almost impossible to tell who has a killer attitude, because it is a rare commodity in this league. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe Harden develops his offensive game to a point where he doesn't just depend on 3s or free throws (i think high post game would be best for him). Maybe Howard becomes better at protecting the ball and converting his low post opportunities. Maybe Linsanity will occur again, but for 3 years instead of 3 weeks. These are definitely not impossible (except for Linsanity, sorry LOFs) but they are definitely a challenge. Howard is aging, but he still has plenty of time to developed his post game. Harden is just 24 (will be 25 heading into 14-15) and has A LOT of time. But killer attitudes are not generally "learned" but are apart of one's persona and I can't see a Rocket having the attitude.

Personally, my dream would be for Troy Daniels to develop ball handling and possibly an attack guard personality. As far I am concerned Daniels hit a game-winner and did nothing but pull through for us whenever we called on him. Is it DOF time?