Harden says he plays too much to maintain defensive focus

If he started the season strong on D and it faded as the season wore on I'd believe him. It seems like that's what happened last year. But his D has been bad from game 1 minute 1. It's not like it's April or something, it's been 5 weeks of basketball and the Rockets haven't exactly had a gruelling schedule.

 

its not like every single play in the NBA are plays. In fact, plays are mainly done in situational spots. It's the sets that give the players the options. You say Harden isn't supposed to make up plays yet he wants to act like he's the pg and run them, score it, all while being the one dribbling the air out of the ball and turning it over. Obviously thats been a disaster. He is every bit as responsible in the integration of Lawson. his playing style has made everything Lawson does well as a pg completely useless.

 

It's not that simple. Both Hakeem and Jordan's opponents were also playing that many minutes. People played more minutes. The last two years in the NBA, no one is playing over 37 minutes, with Butler being the only outlier last year.

So, why not rest your stars when the opponent is resting their stars, in the new NBA.

 

There certainly is plenty of blame to go around in regards to the lack of evolution of the Rockets offense.

1) Coaches. No integration of Lawson & Harden.
2) Harden needs to be more of a leader and inspire Lawson.
3) When given his chances Lawson needs to be more decisive and take the reigns.

As an added bonus, it would be neat if the Rockets role players could hit a few shots.

 

Harden not doing him self any favors coming out in the media saying this.

Not a very smart approach, IMO.

 

you surround harden with Dwight, Capella, Ariza, and Beverly yet Harden still is nowhere to be found on defense. If Harden gave even the same amount of effort Curry did on defense it would be a dramatic improvement.

 

THIS. Spot on Deuce. The coaching that Morey hired has been utterly atrocious as of late. Integrating Lawson was a huge key for this team especially since they lost the 2nd best playmaker in Josh Smith. This season has totally exposed the rockets poor coaching in so many ways.

 

JB should bench the **** out of him and lower his minutes.
Can't play defense for 40 minutes a game? Fine.

Here's your 15 allotted minutes, play some D.

Jesus christ, when your franchise player is basically saying I DONT HAVE TO PLAY DEFENSE BECAUSE ________. What a joke of a leader, no better than T-Mac in that regard and T-Mac at the very least admitted he was a ****ty leader.

 

No it means that the Rockets get a better ROI with Harden expending energy on offense than on defense, on balance.

This isn't just the Rockets, btw. It's true of every team r....why do you think every team has a bunch of "hustle guys" who generally suck on offense in its rotation? To take pressure of the "non-hustle" guys who fill other roles.

 

Also what was the pace?

The defensive rules were also vastly different.... hand checking ...etc.

 

Agreed on all points

 

this may actually be true, imo.

but,,, then,,, if you cant play 40mins a game and be effective on both ends of the floor, you're simply not "the best player in the league", are you?

 

Irrelevant. No one plays more than 37 mpg now (except Butler). The game has changed wrt Analytics player-tracking helping coaches build better strategies for player minutes. That's something they are actually doing. And imo, one of the best uses of the stadium camera data.

Old stats are irrelevant wrt mpg, because (as you pointed out), everyone played more minutes. Now they don't.

One thing that is true across all eras is when one coach sits their star, the other coach usually does, too. So, in past, they sat less, and got tired equally. Same is happening now, but at less mpg. Except for Harden. We are not sitting him when the opposing coach sits their star.

This isn't an excuse for Harden. This is meant to debunk the logic to show past era mpg stats.

 

Perfect example...how tired could he be to at least attempt to box out a person? Also, this was in the 1st quarter, smh

 

Not defending Harden. Just want to know what the rest of the team's excuse is. They not scoring or playing defense.

 

What I find interesting is that the Rockets are supposed to be cutting edge when it comes to philosophy and how they play.

Yet the Rockets are distributing minutes like it used to be done...... their three point shooting % is similar to what teams used to shoot.... they have rotations like teams used to run.

Doesn't really seem that progressive.

 

Why is noone answering this?

If Harden's reason was credible then he would have started with good defence.
But the apologists are quick to brush this aside.
Please tell me when in the FIRST game in the season did Harden play good defence?
In the second?

 

sad year for me to have spent $4,500 renewing my 2 season tickets. not even mad all I can do is SMH

this team has so many problems, no respect at all for coaches or staff, think harden will be gone after contract fasho