Wasn't Harrell guarding Gobert last night? I'd let it slide and hope he picks it up in the next game. Harrell was a rebounding machine at UL. He'll figure it out. I like the dude. Plays with 100% effort all day long.
Going to dispute this a little. Harrell was a slightly above average offensive rebounder at Louisville. He was good at watching the shot go up and positioning himself for either the board or the midair putback jam. He played the paint for that putback dunk. And sometimes it got him out of position and out of the rebounding picture altogether. All the same, he made extra effort on the offensive glass. On the defensive glass...Harrell was at Louisville (and is currently) a mixed bag. He has a tendacy to drift off into ball-watching and lose concentration. And he's not the biggest of the bigs down there so when other bigger bigs lay a body on him, his natural gift of explosion is greatly negated. I don't think Harrell will ever be a great rebounder at this level. He may be somewhat good at offensive putbacks. But I'm afraid him playing for the putback actually could cost us or whomever he plays for by leaving him out of position to either rebound or get back in transition D. And he simply doesn't have the rebounding instincts on the defensive to be a great rebounder. You mix his ball-gawking and not always concentrating with him being slightly undersized at the NBA level and I think he'll be an average overall rebounder. Don't see him ever dominating the glass. Just being adequate if held in strict on-court discipline by a good head coach.
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don't know about y'all but i think JB's rotations were REALLY GOOD last night. what a masterful ROTATION job.
And that's the problem. Because although what you are saying should make sense it doesn't work out that way and here's why. 1. James Harden is one of our best spot-up shooters. When you make him a distributor you do away with his shooting and you replace his shooting with guys like Ariza and Brewer getting shots. That's not efficient enough. Especially as your primary play. 2. Probably our most efficient possessions outside of a Capela/Dwight finish dunk....is Harden at the FT line. Harden at the FT line is way way more efficient than our 3-point shooters clanging away. By the way to go along with the 25 shot stat.....we are 14-7 when Harden shoots 10 or more free throws. This is why I say we have to get a starting point guard who becomes our primary distributor and we take that role away from Harden. We want Harden to score the ball....often. Because the more often he either shoots it or gets to the FT line, the better off we are over one of the other guys flinging up a 3-ball. And the more he distributes, the more we're having inferior shooters throw up shots and the more turnovers Harden makes. Harden is a great player. But he is not a great distributor. Harden should be the backup playmaker. (Which means by default we have another primary playmaker whose offensive job it is to make plays.) That way, he's on the court at the end of all the quarters and he's fresh (after a time on the bench mid-quarter) and he's running down hill against the opponent's backups while we are most likely in the bonus. That's big time winning time for us..when we're on the bonus and Harden is going to the basket.
basketballholic, can the Rockets get Harden to "buy into" someone else being the main ball handler? That seems like a current hurdle right now. I don't know if it is Harden or if the coaches are calling for it though.
I've been saying this. Every championship team has their core players make sacrifices in one shape or another. Harden is still trying to play the exact same way as last year only now it seems hes putting even more load on himself. He hasn't adjusted his game to help integrate a player like Lawson who again he wanted here. That's on no one but himself. You don't put that on coaches or other players. Until he figures that out or makes at least some adjustment the Rockets will not reach their full potential and what this team could possibly be at its best.
Despite popular belief Harden is not a selfish player. At the beginning of the season he kept giving the ball back to Lawson and Lawson wanted no part of it so Harden had to keep doing what he was doing. The Rockets did a good thing by getting Lawson but what none of us realized is that even if Lawson started the season playing just like he did last year he likely would not play good enough defense to be on the floor with Harden. They both need to play better defense if they want to play together.
there's huge difference between just giving lawson the ball and standing there and actually going through basketball passes and trying to make actual plays. And yes you can make plays without the ball in your hands. You don't just give the ball to Lawson and just say go. that's not how it works especially for a pure pg.
Harden called for ball-handling help after the playoffs. We got him the handle. We didn't get him and the handle the coaching. And there is something else awry here that I can't explain right now. So I don't know. But I'm afraid if we don't get Harden to understand and accept this and then we don't get the right distributing point guard that we're going to be searching for the entirety of Harden's Rox career for the right formula. Yeah, seen plenty of that. Sure looks like Harden had Lawson completely bamboozled into trying to become a spot-up shooter and backup playmaker to him (Harden). Agreed. He seems to be putting more load on himself this season than even last season. Which is not what he or we need. We've become even more Harden-centric, which will lead to a swift catastrophe in the playoffs...if we get there. You have to be multi-dimensional with multiple playmakers to make a championship run. At this time I'm buying that Harden has become selfish. Distributing the ball doesn't mean he isn't selfish. I still see that Harden has a good case of McGrady Syndrome. He either wants the bucket or the assist. This is one more factor that separates him from guys like Chris Paul, who are great distributors and scorers. Paul will catch the ball on the wing and immediately reverse it without even looking when he knows the defense has overplayed strong side. He doesn't even hesitate. Those plays are hockey assists for Paul. They lead to a second pass where the wide-open look comes from. If the NBA tracked hockey assists, Paul's numbers would be insane and Harden's would be at the bottom of the league. That's selfishness. I don't like it. Don't know what it's going to take to change Harden. But if I were Morey I'd go get an outstanding playmaking point guard, plug him into the lineup, hand him the basketball, and deal with the fallout.
Miami won their titles by other people sacrificing to let Lebron play exactly how is best suited for him. Duncan let the team be about Parker, Golden State have got themselves maximizing what suits Steph Curry, the Lakers sure as hell weren't asking Kobe to be anything but Kobe (and still don't lol). Asking your best player to sacrifice his game is quite literally the best way to not win
They do track it, Chris Paul is 1.7 and Harden is 1.1, which is a very similar ratio to their 9.5 vs 6.6 assists
