I realize we traded him to unleash the full Russ, but I wonder how Harden's play will adjust. He really had a great chemistry on his drives to the hoop with Clint, and would throw it up there when they closed him down. It will be interesting to compare the stats he had with Clint vs without. Hopefully it will be a positive and Harden will get even better, but I suspect his assists to go down without 3-4 lob dunks during a game. DD
the trade was for westbrook, but it will really be about harden. particularly how harden adjusts his game without having a big man to cheese 5-10 PnR buckets a game. will be a true testament to harden's greatness if he can adapt and get back to league leader assist / efficiency king harden.
I expect Harden to be Harden. We had CP3, Dwight, JLin, Chandler P, Faried, Melo, Jimmy Butler, GGreen, DMo, Capela... He still has MVP numbers and putting Rockets in the playoffs year in and year out. With, or without D'Antoni. With, or without Tillman, he will still be rocking it.
counting stats don't matter. I couldn't careless if his numbers go down and neither should he, so long as the rockets are winning.
Harden will jack up more threes No risk for Russ chucking them up cause he is freed up to drive in the lane
Why do I get this feeling this thread idea started with a more way more negative tone as in Morey doesn't value chemistry and Harden lost a friend...perhaps the DD effect. Sorry.
Harden seemed to have already began to trend away from those constant PnR's of 2-3 years ago in favor of space out on the perimeter. Capela was still a great clean-up guy on Harden drives. But the damage it does to Harden doesn't compare to the advantage it gives Russ. Harden will be fine. It's the rebounding and talent issues that will hurt us.
I'm not sure it will be better for him offensively... ... but from eye test so far it at least seems like defensively he's acutely aware there is no Clint back there to clean up his defensive failings, or to blame. Eye test he and the rest of the team seem to be better defensively just from scrambling/effort.
Ultimately, it really is. Sure, we are all (well, most of us) heavily invested in the players on our team, the front office, and we even care about the owner, at least what he does or doesn't do. We want them to have good health, a good personal life, and we're interested in that. Things as mundane as our GM, Daryl Morey, growing a beard, or as fascinating (at least to me) as Daryl being very interested in theatre, exhibited through his involvement with our fellow member @Batman Jones and his Catastrophic Theatre in Houston, where Batman spends so much of his time in his "real" life. What James Harden does at night, or if Coach Mike D'Antoni's lovely wife will ever let him grow back his mustache. Yet when you really drill down into the Rockets, wins are what it's all about.
I saw some Russ-and-James PnR action, I think last night, that looked intriguing. On the theme of Russ replacing a lot of what Clint could do ... why not that?
This is accurate. Pick and roll plays per game with Harden as the ball handler...And it’s safe to assume CC wasn’t the roller for every one of these 19/20 : 6.4 18/19 : 7.4 17/18 : 10.2 16/17 : 11.7 And it’s had a very favorable result for him turnover wise turnover% 19/20 : 13.6(best as a Rocket) 18/19 : 14.5 17/18 : 15.1 16/17 : 19.5 He personally won’t miss CC that much.
It is how your inner voice reads things, I am generally curious about how the effective PnR game between Hardena and Capela being gone will effect James. Seems that he will have more room driving, but he really took it to teams that came over to close down with that lob pass. DD
Harden's arsenal on offense is what made him so dangerous. HIs ability to get to the basket caused defenses stay on their toes. Harden drives and either gets fouled, a layup/dunk, a lob, or a kickout to the wide-open perimeter. It was read option for days. Of course, he could also hit from the three. Taking away Capela actually takes away something defenses have to worry about when Harden drives. Now they can just stay home on the perimeter and make Harden make a contested layup. Defenses can also throw off timing with delayed doubles, they can over rotate to the corners and send help, etc. It doesn't help that Harden hasn't been getting the whistle he's been getting the past few years. To me, that's why the Harden's been struggling. He's gonna need to find a way to adjust. In my opinion, Harden should bring back the stop and pop, mid-range elbow jumper. Defenses are collapsing late on him at the basket with some success. That's because they know he has to lay it up. Good teams will over rotate to cover the corners right away because that's the only other option. No more Clint means they don't have to worry about the lob. Aside from bringing back stop and pop mid-range for Harden, a nice wrinkle in the offense is to have the corner cut for a lob like House did against Mitchell. This requires the corner man to read how they're playing the corner, and it requires Harden to know if the corner man is staying put or cutting. I think it's easy though. If Harden sees the corner defenders back, kick it out (relative to space obviously). If he sees the corner defender's facing the rim, that should be the cue for the corner man to cut to the rim.