You can find scoring, but man Harden is super undervalued around here his offense is elite hall of fame caliber. If he keeps up his season pace he would be the third player in league history to avg 29/6/6 with leborn and Jordan. It's easier to find defense than offense that's fact. You can't trade hardrn and expect this team to be great again for a very long time. Look at Denver? Once they traded Melo they had one good year and have been mediocre ever since at best with no Allstar level talent. What about Orlando? Since tracing dwight they have been bad with no Allstar level players and that's factoring in all the high draft picks. The twolvs have just gotten a nice foundation after losing KG years ago. Yes they got an Allstar in Love but how did that team do? No playoffs and eventually a trade for wiggins which looks like It will pan out because of the Towns pick they just had. What I'm getting at is the grass is not greener on the other side in the case of trading Harden. None of you guys would have even entertained trading the guy 6 months ago when he was coming off his mvp worthy season. He's has a slow start to the season and he's the best player so he deserves the lions share of the blame but the whole team as underperformed. It's easier and a safer rout to rebuild around JH find players that compliment his game a little better. Bev is a solid piece so is Dmo capela and Ariza. Try and find a way to bring in a legit 18-20 ppg scorer at all cost including the guys I metioned above. Once the Rockets have a legit 2 scorers in JH and somebody else then you can build around them. Right now we have JH with dwight whos aging and never really been a legit offensive weapon he's just to inconsistent. We've built around a flawed core from a offnesive standpoint it's just too much pressure on James to run the offense and score and pass. I think ultimately we made a mistake by not keeping Parsons he was a great fit next to JH and DH. He provided that extra somthing to our lacking offense.
I agree with much of this. Parsons complimented Harden, and the rest of our roster for that matter, very well on the offensive end. We just didn't have any great defensive wing player with him here. I wonder what is going on behind the scenes with the Grizzlies. It is becoming more apparent, at least to me, that they are never going to win a championship with the core they have. It is too old at this point, and they seem to be getting worse each year. I would be doing everything I could to try and pry Conley away. Or if he does finish the season with the Grizz, I would go pretty hard at him in the offseason. I don't see him returning to the Grizzlies, and I think he would compliment this roster nicely.
I still think as GM you need to move Jones and Ariza to get a nice package back. Ariza is slow and his offense is inconsistent and def overrated.
I've been a Howard Basher myself and at the same time who else on this team is playing Defense consistently other than Howard and Capela...when the team doesn't play defense it even makes the one's like Howard and Capela's defense look bad on the court trying to over compensate. I guess Ariza also but again, even the good defenders effort looks bad when the team as unit suckass. Having said all that I'd trade T Jones for a rim protector or a similar role player that can at least make layups and not get lost on the court. Hopefully once this DUI drama is over with Lawson he can refocus on playing basketball or possibly trade him as well. I sure want Lawson to work but Harden would have to COMMIT to Lawson handling the ball with Harden running around screens playing off the ball in my opinion. Lawson is a fish outta water unless he's the ball handler...at least that's how it appears so far
You've got to cut out the cancer. There are some players on this team that should be removed, even if you don't get much for them in return. Addition by subtraction. Lawson is the first, Jones comes next. Anyone else, aside from maybe Capella, should be on the block for the right offer. This is a fundamentally broken team, not much should be off limits.
Cut out cancer? Team isn't going to work harder than lead dog. Team won't listen to coach if lead dog won't listen to coach.
