Maybe so. He's already sustained it to the quarter pole. For diehards like all of us, what we know and see are gone are the mental glitches: ball watching, weak close outs, losing switches, cheap reach ins, lack of effort. People think this is cherry picked but it's like "OH NOW you're worried about cherry picking", when in truth, he wouldn't be where he's at with stud defense numbers thus far without consistency.
There are: Raw stats such as blocks and steals Advanced stats like defensive win shares Actual results like us being one of the best defensive teams in the league with Harden leading our team in blocks and steals among non-injured players And now literally video proof and people are still hating.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/ca_rockets">@ca_rockets</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/KPatel1017">@KPatel1017</a> Harden still gets caught standing around</p>— Matt Moore CBS (@MattMooreCBS) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattMooreCBS/status/540969400447553536">December 5, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/ca_rockets">@ca_rockets</a> H <a href="https://twitter.com/KPatel1017">@KPatel1017</a> He's no longer a train wreck because their team defense is better. But he still struggles off-ball A LOT</p>— Matt Moore CBS (@MattMooreCBS) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattMooreCBS/status/540969530525511680">December 5, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
You name me a player right now that plays 48 minutes of straight defense and carries TE offensive load Harden does. These media people are idiots!
I feel like the focus is much improved. That's what I think was most frustrating last year. Do we need him to be DA GOATEST on defense? No. Because we have Ariza, Bev, and (sometime soon I hope) Dwight. I don't really care if the new generation of blogger/writers gives James props. I feel like James has made steps to improve and it's showing. The team is playing well and we're winning games. Forget ESPN and their clickbait.
I almost wish the video wasn't made but with the hating going on ever AFTER this vid went viral I'm not worried Harden will relax. I think he can see this is just disrespect. He will use this to get even better.
F the media honestly, most of them don't watch Rockets games anyway, they've never seen Harden play defense or not play defense They just bandwagon whatever narrative is popular at the time, and run with it like it's the truth Harden was always a good strong post defender, he was lazy last year a lot of times and f's up the defensive rotations. Now that he's put more effort into fixing those mistakes. I think the team culture of being keen on defense helped a lot too, especially with the signing of Ariza, and players like DMo being focused on defense as well.
