Again I see this all boils down to effort . My question still stands .. Is he a me first player ? You say this season he is not giving effort .... Therefore he is a selfish/ stat hogging player . What about last year when he gave effort ? Especially on defense ? Was he just as big of a me first guy when he gave 100 % effort last year ? This is my issue with everyone's ****ing logic . You can't say that he has always been a me first player , not willing to play team ball , not giving effort ... When he had an MVP caliber season last year BECAUSE he played with 100% effort and defensive intensity . You guys are hanging the ducking narrative , and frankly I think that the posters perpetuating this story are too smart to be spreading this bull**** . Or maybe not , I dunno . I just don't think it's rational to assume ..., oh harden isn't playing as well this year , yeah he is a me first player , needs to grow up , doesn't give any effort on defense , is a poor leader , has always been about getting his own stats . When everything we've seen from the guy up to this point leads in the opposite direction. When he came in , I still remember those first two games , just relentlessly attacking the hoop . Playing the first generation of Morey ball with delfino , parsons , Lin , etc ... Yeah a young team with not great D, but mostly due to turnovers killing us . The year after that , integrating Dwight , taking on more of a scoring load . Last year MVP , hustle on both sides , hitting shots as well as attacking . This year , his shot is off and he's not attacking as much , I can't in good conscious dismiss 3 years of watching him play and chalk it all up to he's not trying . Seriously ??
My eye is good enough to judge defense. Sorry it isn't good enough for you. His defense certainly isn't good enough for this team to have any shot at a title with how he currently plays defense.
That was the worst performance by James this season down the line. The Clippers have him figured out, and the rest of the league is catching on. All it takes is a playoff series or a Poppovich and they realize you can take twice what he scores on you from him. The Rockets have no triple threat guys outside of him, so he is our only creator. Meanwhile the Warriors can field an entire line up of triple threat guys. Lawson would be one if he could shoot.
Harden is the MAIN cause for why we're losing. He is not responsible for ALL the reasons we lose. Do you understand the difference?
Harden has a triple threat? Is it really a triple threat when the defender can guess it's going to be a jacked up 3 and be right 95% of the time?
Lol at people saying they want harden gone if he hurts the team .... You guys don't understand , harden IS the team . He has been since last year . We don't have a system , a smooth offense , a defensive scheme drilled into players heads . Because if we did , we might have won 1 GAME that harden played subpar in . But we haven't . Of course somehow this is because , harden has too much control , and isn't trying to win . It's not like he ****ing carried us all last season . You wanna blame mchale for giving harden all the power and now harden won't give it back ? Really ? If harden is that lazy , he should welcome playing in a system and making the game easier . Well well ... He's both lazy and too egotistical to give up control .. Well damn then his play up to his point in his career has been nothing short of a miracle .
If Lebron suddenly went from being top 1-2 players in the league to borderline Allstar, and the Cavs start losing, then I would say he is the main reason for them losing. Obviously, the Cavs have other deficiencies, but I wouldn't pin it on Tristan Thompson's free throw shooting, or David Blatt's rotations. If you don't understand that, then there's no more discussion to be had.
Yeah it's semantics. Bottom line is Harden went from a top 3 player to a mediocre player. That's why we're worse.
This is the scary part. Teams are about to hammer him as they see he struggles on dibble penetration and finishing at the rim. not to mention his pnr defense is worse than ever
They already do this . Teams have adapted to him a bit , and he is not getting as many calls as last year . In response James isn't attacking as much , which is probably the wrong solution . He needs the coaches to give him some holes to the basket , because his shot has been off . Mchale trying to get him going off the catch last year may have been a huge part of his MVP campaign .
His PnR defense is nonexistent and that is the reason why the Rockets defense switch everything. How many times have you seen Capela/Howard on Crawford/Paul tonight?
You are not allowed to speak common sense about Harden on Clutchfans anymore he is the new Jeremy Lin/Tracy Mcgrady scapegoat guy. It's just how Clutchfans rolls. Even if we traded James and got a new star they'd probably start hating Dwight.
Just like Dwight needs three point threats to stretch the floor for him to be effective and use the paint as his domain, Harden needs the same thing. We need a stretch 4 so we do not need Ariza to slide there. Please Morey get us Josh Smith and Dmo back!
Its like everyone with a ball in clippers try to switch to Harden, then attack the basket. Doc is no poster
The whole team is playing worse this year. Ariza is shooting worse, Howard is having one of the worst years of his career, DMo is out, TJones is having the worst offensive season since his rookie year, Terry is shooting the 3 worse, and Brewer is just trash. James could be playing at the level he was last year and this team would still be struggling with everyone else playing so poorly. You built your team around two guys that have historically been great at getting good 3 point looks for others guys and you surrounded them with a bunch of guys that can't hit them.
. . He is in a slump because of the offense he's playing in, the defense he receives, and his attitude in general. - Harden needs a rhythmic offense, which the rox do not have- ball movement is just ugly at points. - Harden has been accurately profiled by every team, who all apply similar defensive tactics that work. - Harden iso + opposing defensive strategy = Fatigue, also resulting in forced turnovers & lower FG% - Harden has not openly acknowledged his slump, but more importantly he seems complacent with his game. I'd rather Bash the Rockets Offense, but would bash Harden on his attitude & effort at certain points. . .
