After last night there should be no doubt where this group is headed. 5-game winning streak against mediocre teams who are missing players doesn't mean a thing. We're just not that good folks. Just not that good. We can be beat by uptempo teams like the Warriors that can just run and shoot circles around us. And we can be totally worked over by good teams that slow it down like CLE did last night and just bludgeon us in half-court action. The recipe to beating this team is very, very simple. And that's why we aren't going to be going anywhere this season or any season until it changes. This team is a one-man band. If Harden is shut down, this team is shut down. They simply cannot win. Not only are the role players around Harden lacking but even if they weren't lacking we're still in this predicament of basically everybody (including Howard) being a role player to Harden. So come playoff time, and playoff series winning time, we're going to come up short as teams take away Harden and leave us stumbling and mumbling. Someone in another thread asked why we're starting Capela. It's very simple. We don't have anybody else. We're a bad defensive rebounding team without Capela alongside Dwight. We simply get beat up on the glass in spite of how many boards Dwight gobbles up. Capela is a better rebounder and defender than Terrence and that's why he's in there. But Capela isn't even good enough to really be starting. It's simply the best solution we've got to our rebounding deficit. And when he doesn't get minutes like last night....we get beat on the boards bad. However....even if we had a stud rebounder in there that can shoot the 3 it doesn't fix the one-man-band problem. We could become a dominant defensive rebounding team but we're still going to go down because at some point a really good team is going to choke off Harden and leave us with all the midgets trying to win the game. Lawson? Isn't it obvious that he's not the answer? And the problem isn't really about Lawson anyways. It's our style of play. Our style of play is when Harden is on the floor he gets the basketball and everything runs through Harden. That's one-dimensional. That's a one-man-band. That's not going to work in today's NBA. Our system is fatally flawed. It's not the rim-and-3 that is flawed. It's the fact that everything has to flow through one player. We can make trades and bring in better players but if everything is going to go through Harden, other teams can simply key on Harden, turn him over, force him into bad shots, and take us down. Way too simple. Harden has to recognize this. And Morey has to recognize this and go get another premier player from the perimeter. A player that can both defend (because Harden isn't) and can and will go down the other end and will be a better playmaker than Harden, that can move Harden to where he should be used, as the primary scorer and backup playmaker. There has to at least one and preferably two additional playmakers to Harden on this team, that can play alongside him and take the basketball out of his hands and make a play on the opposite side of the floor from Harden so that the defense cannot just prepare to stop one man. We've discussed this before and some of us have arrived at this conclusion already. But it can't be emphasized enough. Some of us knew 5 minutes into that game last night that we weren't going to win. Simply because we could see what Cleveland was doing to Harden. They dogged him, then doubled him when he even got close to the paint, then totally collapsed on him when he got into the paint. They collapsed on him so good that he couldn't even see to make the passes to the perimeter and then they simply smothered out whatever he tried to throw up inside. And some of us knew we weren't going to be able to adjust away from that because we're simply not willing (system), nor do we have the personnel, to put a second playmaker on the floor next to Harden and have him make a play while being able to go to the other end and play quality defense against a team like Cleveland with multiple playmakers themselves. We are fatally flawed and aren't going to win anything substantial until we get another two-way star from the perimeter and we change our system to incorporate two great perimeter players playing together in tandem and reading the defense for which one has the best play. We have to move past the Harden funnel and diversify ourselves while simultaneously getting a better defender on the floor from the perimeter than what we have now.
Yes, we knew they were totally exposed when they were 0-3 and on the edge of a steep cliff. Last night told us nothing we already didn't see/know about this team.
was gonna give it a tl;dr but then i needed to take a dump. :grin: seriously tho, while you often make good posts/threads, is it necessary to write a loooooong essay on an internet message board each time to make a point? for instance, the op of this thread could be said in 2 sentences. we're bad because we run a one-man show. and that one man isnt even good enough.
J.R. Didnt you know this is the planned sequel to "Edge of a Steep Cliff" I was hoping it would be called "Edge of a Steep Cliffnotes" though
Season is a wash. It's all about free agency next Summer, but the Rockets will have difficulty attracting quality players if they don't make some noise in the playoffs. Best case scenario is 5th seed. Try to land Clips or Mavs in first round. As for Harden, I think the guy is playing like he doesn't plan to be here for the 2018 season.
I'm kinda thinking Nicolas Batum would be an awesome addition, since Kevin Durant is a complete laughable "why the heck would he come here and play with an apathetic titty-bar drunk?" pipe dream.
No premier play maker is going to thrive alongside Harden's egotistical, my stats first, selfish, no defense, turnover prone style of play. Dude is worhtless without the ball. He stays rooted to one position. No moving off the ball, back door cuts, coming off screens etc. And when he has the ball and elite teams plan against him, he turns it over 12 times or 8 times. Mentally checks himself out of the game and then goes on to brick 3's. Unless Harden changes which would require a totally different mentality and this organization right from Morey and coach not playing lackey to him. Harden has Morey and coach by the cojones and unless they instill in him to change the way he plays, you can bring in the best playmaker available and nothing is going to change. It starts and ends with Harden Honestly another option would be trade him for Butler and spare parts or PG and spare parts , start Lawson and let Lawson run that team as primary ball handler. Watch Lawson return to the 15/10 guy he was
I'm not ready to call the season a lost cause... IF harden got his head out of his butt and played to last years level and some 3s start to fall for the roleplayers (like the other night)... anything can happen... That said, I'm not wild about our hopes hinging on whether or not someone decides to focus and play hard intelligent basketball rather than worrying about playing kardassian... Personally, I would rather be looking at whether guys will develop and figure some things out (utilizing DH consistently)... rather than if our superstar is going to put in the effort and focus... smh... really disappointed in this season... not so worried about record - as the motivation...
Good post, OP! However, I honestly think you can't win with Harden in your starting lineup. I think Harden as a 6th man role is the best usage for him. He can outscore other second units and help the team win that way. Just have to face it, Harden-ball can't co-exist with any other ball dominant superstar/all-star.
Agree with most of OP's points except the idea that bringing in another 1-2 playmakers would somehow alleviate our problem. The issue with the offense (and defense) is deeper than that, as we have no system in place to allow a successful multifaceted offense, where players cut, set screens, run plays. Without the ball, Harden does nothing. He literally stands there and points and various people at various times. His man, then basically stays within an arm's reach and can easily help in the paint or perimeter. If he moves, cuts, sets screens, and generally helps to FACILITATE the offense, then we don't need any more playmakers than we already have. I mean, how many true "playmakers" do the Spurs have? Parker? Ginobili? They're not bad, but they're at the tail end of their careers. Instead, their whole team runs a system where everyone contributes. Until we get rid of Harden and/or his lazy hero ball mentality, this team is going nowhere.
The saddest part is that this team IS sufficiently talented to win it all, what they're missing is chemistry, bball iq, the ability to recognize how to play off of each other. These are all intangibles, the little things...
Even if all that happens Harden isn't good enough as a solo playmaker to make it work. He's not as good as Lebron who plays both ends of the court, he's not as good of a playmaker/ball handler as Lebron is and Lebron plays alongside a superstar playmaker/scorer in Kyrie that is well able to just torture defenses from the opposite wing when they take Lebron away. Lebron is smart enough to know his teams have to load up and he's gotta have at least 2 other All-star homies, including a second great perimeter running mate. Lebron is also smart enough to understand he's got to have great defense and rebounding in the paint and at the rim to make the defense championship quality. And I'm not a Lebron fan. But it sure appears to me right now that Hardens ego has gotten even bigger than Lebron's. Just look at the difference in these 2 teams. Take Lebron off the Cavs with everybody else healthy and they're still going to win close 50% or more of their games. Take Harden away from us and we're lucky to win 20% of our games. We simply don't have a great team. We have 2 great players surrounded by parts. And one of our 2 superstars is not a playmaker and the other one is not a great playmaker.
