So what did he say.... I saw that he didn't want to come out and I know he said something to JB and JB just waived him off... BtW... I thought that was by far one of the best moves JB has done as coach... If you don't want to play, hustle or listen.. Then come hang with me on the bench. T_Man
Thinking James Harden shouldn't be traded doesn't equate to thinking James Harden can't be traded. Thinking James Harden shouldn't be traded also doesn't equate to the organization being held hostage by James Harden.
Any player can be traded.. James.. Dwight.. Whom ever... If the Rockets feel as if either of those players should be or need to be traded to move forward they can't let other influences change their mind. If the Rockets get a high profile coach he may want to move one or both of those guys... you never know... T_Man
Ever heard of empty stats and stat-padders that don't help the team as much as the stats would make you think? Posting a bunch of shooting stats doesn't tell you one bit how a player affects his team's winning and play.
lol. Ok man whatever you say. Last year he wasn't putting up empty stat padder stats, this year he is. Like I said.
This is absolutely moronic. If you know anything about Morey and his vision of building a team (get 3 stars), you would see how stupid of an idea it would be to not only trade a superstar, but trade that star, the absolute face of Moreyball.
Who says he's immune to criticism? If you read my posts above I certainly criticized his play last night. Trading Harden right now is not only silly but it's stupid. He was an MVP caliber player this year and for the past month has certainly turned up his game. I would bet my house that Morey hasn't even thought about trading James.
Wrong, since we got smoove he has shown flashes of last season. Attacking at will, not getting passed half court at the 16 mark as much, more energy.
Those are mostly volume stats. When you dig into more advanced stats it doesn't look as pretty. His +/- numbers are bad compared to last year. Not sure how it compares to rest of his career but probably not good. He's always been a good +/- guy before this year. He's also posting some of the worst ORtg and drtg of his career. His tov% way up. Fewest percentage of shots at the rim for his career as well. Even his real plus minus, which includes box scores stats, is way down. He was top 3 last year and is like #20 now. And as Morey said there isn't a good public defensive stat, but I think he's playing the worst defense of his career, which is saying something. He also still appears to be out of shape. I also don't remember games like last night happening so often. Sure he had bad shooting nights but he would make it up on other ways like by attacking the rim more (not less like he does now). He was also one of the biggest decliners in the league in eWins at the beginning of January, but he had a better month so waiting for the update. Harden has always been an advanced stats guy, it's interesting people defend him with volume stats now Just posting stats and making points, interpret them as you wish.
And none of the stats I posted are at odds with what you just posted. His defense is obviously been more than a negative as usual. And that will bring him down quite a bit in defensive rating. Also going from 4.0 to 4.4 turnover is not insignificant, that's 10% increase on the raw amount. Obviously another factor bringing his ortg down. His PER, offensive box plus minus and overall box plus minus are down from last year, but still the 2nd best numbers he has had in any of those categories in his 4 years here. His rebound and assist percentage are the best they have ever been. His drives are down, but by hook or by crook in the past 49 games he's scoring just as efficiently as last season. His amount of drives going down which goes hand in hand with his free throw being the lowest it's been as a Rocket are both troubling, but he's still managed to get to the line at an elite rate compared to the rest of the league. No matter how you slice it this is a down year for him after that spectacular one. It started abysmal, but all I'm trying to point out is he's turned a lot of those early struggles around and his season overall isn't nearly as terrible as people are making it out to be. Step down or two yes, but certainly hasn't fallen off a cliff.
Oops. His number of drives going down, which goes hand in hand with his free throw rate* being as low as its been as a Rocket, are both troubling.
Fair enough. One point on turnovers, his tov% has gone 14.9 to 15.7%. That's a significant leap. And that's an improvement, he was over 16 for a little while. Guys with that many turnovers usually get more assists. They are also of the variety that lead to immediate fast breaks. For example getting picked at the top where no one has a chance to get back. His shooting has come around though. He still has really good court vision but his passes now come more often without penetrating
It seems to me that when Harden plays really well (which I admit might be precious few times) he plays even better than last season. I mean, I know we can't afford to have him on the court if J.J. Redick or Randy Foye or one of the other true monsters of the league that have him totally psyched out is playing; but when he's playing well the shooting is as good as ever and the passing is much, much better and he occassionally makes a really good defensive play.
Jordannnn posted FG%,FT%,3PT%,eFG% and TS% stats. Those are not volume stats, they are ratios. He was showing that Harden's stats since the first 3 games are similar to last season. Those stats have nothing to do with volumes but eFG% and TS% are advanced stats. The big kahuna of advanced stats is TS% and Harden is inching closer to the 60% mark where he usually is. Which stats did you think were volume stats? Also, I don't think that you fully understand the meaning of the stats that you posted. TOV% isn't an actual statistic but rather just an estimate. It's an estimate of the number of turnovers per 100 possessions. Since Bball-reference doesn't track the actual number of possessions for each player they can't do an actual calculation so they do an estimate instead. The actual formula they use is: 100 * TOV / (FGA + 0.44 * FTA + TOV) http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html The NBA does track possessions and they produce the actual stat. It's called "turnover ratio" and it's defined as the number of turnovers per 100 possessions. Harden's turnover% this season is 12.6 which give you an idea of how far off the TOV% estimate is. Also, dRtg and oRtg are based on points scored and allowed by the entire team while a player is on the floor. If you look at the dRtg for our players, you'll see that Ariza has a worse dRtg than Harden does. +/- is another stat that is based on who you are on the floor with. For example Dwight had a monster 36/26 game vs LAC yet finished -4 in +/-. Against Atlanta, Dwight went for 30/16 but finished -20 for the game. RealPlusMinus is also an estimate, not an actual stat. As for Harden driving fewer times, that's more a factor of how teams have defended us this year. We got off to such a terrible start shooting the ball that teams started overloading the paint and have continued to. When we are defended like that you don't want Harden driving in and trying to shoot over 2 or 3 defenders.
With all that said he's still better than 99% of the league. That is saying somthing. His added value to wins is still top 5 in the league. On a side night note my bad about calling you an idiot last night during the game. That was immature on my part and I feel like a dick for that. I don't agree with a lot of your posts about harden but atleast your more objective than a lot of ppl around here who don't like James.
