Harden - and how to build a championship team around him

Yeah bird was actually not bad before the injuries. Not great, but I couldn't see Harden making any all NBA defensive teams

 

Has Larsv8's homerism ever taken you to the Finals?

Would be a first.

 

Most delusional, least basketball knowledge poster in the GARM

 

what are you guys talking about he's right on the money with two way players
cmon lars, show these guys up so i can post another gif

 

You're not convinced by posts that start with "good Lord" and accuse you of "narrative"?

 

I won't go that far, but most biased and ignorant easily.

Disagree with him? ---> ignore list.

Dude has no arguments and obviously joined a message board to hear his own echo.

 

Two way just means they are good on both sides. You don't have to be 2 way to be great, see Barkley or even Russell who was more defense because overall the positive impact to their teams was still huge

 

Laughable incorrect :grin:

 

Russell was a two way player...

Russell sacrificed his offensive game to just concentrate on defense since boston had so much talent...

I do agree Barkley was an average defender... But a HELLUVA rebounder for his size on both ends of the court..

T_Man

 

It absolutely is. This was the same sentiment people had about Tmac and his teams, which lead to nowhere. It was always about what these role players didn't do or couldn't do. Battier won himself a nice ring or two in Miami. Juwon Howard did as well. Artest won in L.A... build a franchise around a star player that can play both ends or we'll just end up with a bunch of "it's on me" speeches over and over again. We don't hear any excuses from guys like Jordan, Dream, Yao, Kobe, Lebron, Wade and other greats about exerting energy on one end of the court. Heck even Iverson could play defense even though it won't be what he is known for.

 

Good point on Russell. Yeah Barkley was amazing, and great offensively

 

slightly different scenario

While Harden is all healthy, Tmac had begun declining mentally and physically by the age of 26.

Role players do matter, it is about the fit rather than how good they are individually

I know Tmac was a bad leader, but he deserved at least a 2nd round

I still think he was better than Melo and Melo made it to the WCF.

 

I love Barkley, but he was lazy as hell in the off season...

Very competitive on the court, but would have been a lot better if he would have trained.

T_Man

 

Which of the following statement is more plausible?

1. Several good defensive players on the same team suddenly decided to slack off, or suddenly forgot how to play good defense for no apparent reasons.

2. One player decided not to make effort to play good defense. He is the best player on the team and the role players follow the lead.

 

Yep because Battier and Juwon at discount money at that point of their career playing with LeBron and Wade AND Bosh is the same as playing alongside T-Mac and Yao who were rarely healthy together.
It's the same being on a team paying 8mil to mo taylor, 6mil weatherspoon, 7 mil for juwan,6 mil for battier, 5mil for dikes corpse, still having matt maloney on the books for over 3 mil, david wesley for 5 mil, stromile swift for 5 mil, moochie for 4.2 mil, vin bakers paper weight body for 4 mil, etc etc while paying t-mac and yao max without a discount like lebron and wade and bosh took to play together....

Artest playing with Gasol, Odom, Bynum front line and Kobe Bryant and one of the GOAT coaches for one of the most successful franchises in all of sports is also very comparable.

It's all very comparable and solid proof that both T-Mac and Yao wouldn't have been successful playing for historically great franchises like the Lakers, Bulls, Spurs, Heat, etc. T-Mac absolutely wouldn't be a champion with Shaq drawing double and triple teams all game long.

You're just filled with hate and bias for the way it ended. T-Mac did not play like Harden on defense, as in zero effort. His 2 healthiest seasons where he played the most for us he had Defensive Win Shares of 5.4 and 4.5, around the same as LeBron and better than Wade. But you know..Wade only played under Riley with Shaq, and a million great vet role players and then LeBron and Wade and Bosh. It's all the same really. Exactly the same.


This franchise has never even won more than 58 games in it's entire existence. More than 55 wins only 5 times in our entire existence. Without Hakeem's brilliance, we would be one of the worst franchises in basketball. Maybe the problem isn't Hayes, Moses, Calvin, Chuck, Pippen, Francis, Yao, TMac, Harden, Howard. Maybe the problem is our mediocre franchise and its fans who would rather blame the players or coaches instead of the ownership and men who put the teams together.

 

Separating the emotive language designed to lead an answer for a proper question (which may be giving too much credit given how trollish the question is)

The former, because someone getting worse at defense because of themselves is just more likely than they getting worse because someone else caused it upon them, the latter sounds highly improbable and has never really happened before whilst there's been a lot of chances for it to have.

In basic terms, **** happens, but it's usually your own doing

 

Aside from his defensive deficiencies, Harden has an ugly ass game. Back when you were a kid, who would you emulate on the courts? No, you would emulate the Jordans, the Kobes, the Hakeems of the NBA. You would try the fade away jumper, the up and under, all that stuff.

Harden's go to move is a step back, and in pick up games, you can't really just run into a crowd of people and call foul all the time. Of course Harden doesn't suck like many are making it out to be but it's not that hard to see why people don't respect his game.

 

Tmac played pretty darn good on both ends of the court. And he didn't have this type of talent either.