I agree in someways.... Championships are won by good defense. It is definitely a luxury to have a guy who can create offensively such as Harden but when the defense suffers that much is it worth it? This is where I feel like management needs to get its head out of its A $$. They think allowing Durant to pick a coach is going to help lure him? A team that has only one star in Harden, no real front court/ chemistry and might not be ready to win now is going to lure Durant? He might as well stay in OKC because his chances of winning here look just about the same. The Rockets should have picked up a real freaking floor general and made this team an unstoppable force and then let Durant see that our established coach and chemistry is the way to win a ring. Phil Jackson got Kobe to start playing defense and made it work with Shaq and eventually paul Gasol. For gosh sakes Morey get a real f'in coach in here and watch your dreams come true. The JB Bickerstaff experiment is the one that didn't work. If the media needs an article to write that should be it. The best evidence is watching Lue with Cleveland right now.
Disagree with the not allowing Lawson to play his game. He has been terrible the whole season not wanting to shoot. How come it's all on Harden for a team sport. Makes no sense. The Dwight and Harden has not been working right but the line up rotation has been terrible also. To keep players like Terry and Brewer in for long stretches with no points to show can kill a team. The only player besides James and Howard that actually scores is Ariza. That's pretty much it. When Harden goes out the rest of the team crumbles. Cant blame Harden for the terrible bench and the constant wide open misses our team endures every game. They needed a stretch four and help at the PG. The ended up with no stretch and a PG who keeps passing the ball instead of creating or facilitating a play.
Getting Simmons, Durant, Curry, or maybe even Westbrook for Harden would be the only way I would say trade him and none of that will happen. Other than that giving up on a 26 yr old superstar would be insane. Ideally you keep Harden so that you can pair him with other superstars. Harden can be your second superstar a lot of people fail to see he is just a piece of the puzzle. These days you need multiple stars to win, the idea that Harden can't carry us to a ring is true neither can Curry. Curry needed Green, Thompson and AI, he also had a damn good coach to win a ring.
Kinda funny that people say the guy has no desire to win. How many games has he missed due to a cold? How many games has he missed because he had a bad ankle? How many games has he missed because of the hurt fingers he had recently? If Bulls had released Jordan in 89 when they got the 6th seed after having been the 3 seed the year before they would have never gone onto win their first of 6 rings 2 years later. Think the Bulls ever considered trading Jordan in 89?! Hmmmmm probably not! Way to soon to wanna kick Harden to the curb. You won't find another scorer like him for this team in another 30 years!
Lebron took a week off in the middle of the season last year and went to Miami for a mini vacation. LMFAO! But of course he's Lebron, the guy has the will to win! He's such a great leader.
It's a good article that's well thought out and has solid points. But it also doesn't touch on past players who went through growing pains not does he explore or analyse the Rockets Organisation as a whole. It's too simplistic to say its simply one or two guys fault. Whilst Harden has been a contributing factor to this season, how much of a factor he has truly been in what's happened remains to be seen. We can speculate and blame one of two guys but until we know/if we know more articles like this aren't worth losing sleep over.
That's a joke right? Jordan wasn't a liability on defense was he? His problem was utilizing his team mates better. Harden plays Zero " 0" defense. You can not win a championship when your star player puts no effort on defense at all. It is impossible. If our goal is to sell tickets, then Harden will do just that but winning a championship is played on both ends of the court. That was Kobe's problem as well until Phil took charge again in his second tenure. Maybe a new coach can instill some new habbits but the Harden we are watching right now is just not anywhere close to being a guy a team should be built around. Good luck Les.. it's your team to screw up now.
The only time I would be happy if they decided to trade Harden - was after a full season of disappointment WITH a competent head coach who makes things easier for him. Until that time I can't honestly fault him apart from his defense. His failures in the playoffs with personal play and turnovers etc I firmly believe is a product of the "system" Or 100% lack there of. Give him a coach who instills a system and offense Harden can trust and then see what he does.
Yep, he surely helped his team rise from the dead when it counted the most...cheering from the bench. So quit with this narrative folks, he folded against Portland and had to be benched against Clippers to give us a chance at win. He can score 40 points/game during regular season for all I care. If he folds during playoffs, he's useless.
He only folded in the final game of the post season, straight off dropping 45/9/5 on the best team in the league. He was very good in the playoffs last season.
he's still too young to trade but i do want him traded for equal value, not crap he still hasnt had a perfect superstar-like playoffs in three tries, and has proved this season he's a 2nd option
It mattered the most when Dwight and TJ went down early in the season and he put in a MVP performance to get us to the 2nd second in a packed West. You should quit the BS narrative you're peddling. Also last I checked a series needs four wins and Harden had the flu that week. He put in a damn good performance considering that. Not only that but Harden is always there for us he missed one game for us last year. He is almost never injured and when he is hurt he barely talks about it he just plays. Dude got injured twice in the off season and vowed to not make it an excuse went those injuries clearly have bothered him. Some of you guys sound like spoiled brats sometimes. Ungrateful..
I agree, He also cried about having too many minutes played last year and said the coach needed to bring it down.
