Who has been the most disappointing individual player this season?

Basically while Harden is objectively much closer to where he was last year than pretty much anybody on the team, and obvioulsy the best player by a mile/still elite/whatever - you are saying that you are emotionally more perturbed by his performance.

That is your right but it leads to you making silly claims that fail upon closer examination. And then it is a couple of short stops to HEART and EFFORT which make TEAMBALL more effective level of analysis.

 

Ty Lawson, no doubt

 

The people whose voting for Lawson are mostly the same people whose saying him being the top 10 PG at the time when the Rox traded for him.

So the real issue is not really on Lawson, its on those people with unrealistic expectations.

Its a gamble, there was never any proofs that any real ball handler can co-exit and work well with Harden, not to mention that Lawson also played for a crappy team the last few years and he may not even remember how to play with a contender.

The bottom line is, this team minus only Prig and Josh Smith, went to the west final last season, and that reason is not Ty Lawson.

As bad as he was, he is not the main reason for the collapse of the Rox, people are just using him as an easy scapegoat.

While you can say that James Harden is the most productive players stat wise in the Rockets, but its also a fact that any PG that will play alone side with James Harden will definitely have a huge drop off on stats productivities compare than before. This is really not the point to value the contribution of a player like James Harden.

 

Uhh...no?

It's not unrealistic to expect Lawson to not be objectively useless in almost every facet of the game.

 

Clearly Lawson.

 

What made him so good last year were his points and assists. Points are up by 1.0 a game. Assists are the same. Effective field goal went from 51% to 50%. He is averaging more free throws a game and making them at the same percentage. His turnovers are up half a game. His shooting is down from 44 to 42 and 37 to 34 from the 3 point. But his rebounding is up by 0.8 and he's taking one more shot per game. So some things are better and some things are worse. Even the greats never got better at 100% every single year. But none of the decline is anywhere as most make it seem. Which are you hanging your hat on? The 0.5 turnovers per game? James averaged .5 more turnovers between 12/13 and 13/14. Is it the 2 percentage points in field goal percentage? Paul is shooting 2.5 percentage points worse than he was last year? Or maybe it is the 1 extra shot he is taking a game? Paul is also taking one extra shot per game this season. The truth is, we are blaming Harden because the team is losing. He is not that worse from last year. People are just paying more attention now because the team is not winning.

 

I do not agree he is objectively closer to what he was last year. Has nothing to do with emotion.

By plus minus Harden is one of the biggest decliners in the whole league.

 

I never thought Lawson was a top 10 PG. I think I even started a thread on here right after the trade listing the PGs that I ranked higher than Lawson. This thread is not about blame. It's about being disappointed. I don't necessarily blame Lawson 100% for all of his problems but it is disappointing nonetheless. If you tell me you expected him to be playing this bad, I'd call you a liar. Again, this thread is not about the main reason for the collapse. It is about the most disappointing. If anybody is being used as a scapegoat this season, it is Harden not Lawson.

Just as you don't want to look at Harden's stats, you can't just look at WCF and not how the team got there. Remember, they were 1 game out of 6th place and didn't nail down the 2nd seed until the last day of the season. Remember that they were on the brink of being eliminated by the Clippers before LA went on to choke the series away. They had a very good season last year; one that we will remember for a while. But let's not act like they were a juggernaut. That's why they tried to get more help. Except the help hasn't been much help.

 

When your team is being outscored more times this year than last year, there's a good chance the player playing the most minutes +/- is going to plummet. Just saying.

 

Harden is still an all star amd a great scorer.
When we got lawson he was at the very least a nba player. Now hes not.

 

His real plus minus went from 8.78 to 4.74, dropping him from 3rd to 17th.

By single your RAPM he is a NEGATIVE .19, good for like 194th in the league. Last year he was +4.8 and 7th in the league. That is shocking.

His ORtg is down to 114, worst since his rookie year.

His NETrtg is +6, also worst since he was a rookie. Last year he was +15. He's never been below +10 since his rookie year until this year.

His TOV% went from 14.9 to 15.8, easily a career worst. Some say not a lot but the top 10 teams and bottom 10 teams are only separated by a couple points on this stat. It's also the type of turnovers (automatic fast break)

He's only taking 23% of just shots at the rim, easily the lowest of his career. Last year took 31% at the rim as he was easily blowing by people.

There's other stuff too, like by vorp he's gone down from 7.8 to 4.6

 

Sure, just like some people are expecting Dmo to be the next Rockets future hall of famer also.

Everyone has the right to set their own expectation.

But even like you said, Lawson is completely useless in every facet of the game this season - which is the truth by the way, what was his contribution to the Rox team last year?

Lawson has done nothing more than Alex Shved did to the Rox last year, so did we blame Shved being the reason we lost to GSW?

Sure, we should expect more from Lawson than Shved, but we all know that he is not the key for the failure of this team this season.

 

If he did everything exactly the same but his team outscored the opponents, those analytics wouldn't be as low. They are all misleading. This is the worst team he has played with, record-wise. So it is not shocking that those numbers are down.

I'm not saying he is better this season. Not at all. He was better last year. I'm just saying he is not as far off as people make it seem.

Has anyone ever asked about the ISO plays they run to run the clock down? Does Harden demand the ball or is that the coach's decision. Those plays drive me nuts and it is so easy to defend. It's gotten worse this year. At least last year, he was making the step-back threes every now and then.

 

You keep saying blame. This isn't about blame. It is about D-I-S-A-P-P-O-I-N-T-M-E-N-T

 

Funny you would like to mention its not about the WCF but how we got there.

Do you actually remember how many games we won last year? and how many injuries we got last year and who actually carried this team last years and who got voted as the second place of MVP last year?

That, all of above, are what set the standard of expectation for James Harden, which we know and expect what kind of player he CAN BE when he really give a fork about the game.

Do you know why people are laughing at LOF? Because they don't give a fork on how the team plays but rather focus on the stats of Lin and how much he scored or played in those certain games.

Stop acting like one while you are laughing at then also,

Great players never give a fork about their own stats, they always value the team wins above that.

James Harden definitely has the ability to do so, which he proved last year to some extent, and that's why the expectation was built and exactly why people are so disappointed now.

 

If this thread was made around the 10th or 11th game of the season, yes I will 100% agree that Lawson was the most disappointed Rockets of the season at that point, which actually many of current voters at that point were still in denial and saying we just need to give him more time.

Remember this, after the 10-11 games of the season, actually McHale could be the most hated and most disappointed person in the Rockets and hence lots of fans were so happy to see him got fired.

But then what? why he was not on this list now? Because people are not morons, well at least some of us aren't, we saw what happened after those 11 games that got McHale fired, which the fact that this team continue to suck and even suck worse.

So what about Lawson after those 11 games? His role got changed dramatically too, he was no longer the starting PG of this team, heck he even got deomoted to the 3rd string and missed multiple games due to suspension and even got several DNPCD also.

How does that change had affected the performance of the Rox? NOTHING!

So by all means you can say Ty Lawson sucks donkey ass this season as a Rockets, but saying he is the one who should be most disappointed (assuming you actually care about the team when you are considering this) and to be hold accountable for the collapse of this team,

is just laughable.

 

So the team did remarkably better last year. And so by virtue of the disappointment of this season, you channel your disappointment towards the leader of the team. Sure. I don't agree with that logic but I understand that some people do. As the star player, he shoulders more responsibility than the "role players". You take Harden off this team and they are worse than the Pelicans, Kings, and Wolves. You can't say he doesn't care about the game when you just said he carried the team last year and was 2nd place in MVP votes. Did he all of a sudden stop caring? Doubt it.

Please don't compare me with LOFs. This is about who has been more disappointing between Lawson and Harden. Not who is my favorite player. Sorry people were laughing at you a couple years ago. Maybe you should let it go. Back to Harden, I actually think he was overrated last year and had too much going his way for it too last. He is not that different from that player. He was frequenting strip clubs last year. He was dating Amber Rose last year. He was playing one-on-one ISO last year. His on the ball defense is still decent; it is his off-the-ball and fast break defense that is lacking. Same as last year. He was just getting more steals.

Where did this notion come from that Harden cares about his stats more than any other player? Did he say it in an interview?

 

After reading your last statement, I'm starting to wonder if you understand the question in this thread.

 

Lawson was advertised to be the last piece to a championship. Instead he was the first piece to our collapse.

 

Has to be either Lawson or Harden. Lawson gets my vote because while Harden having an off year is annoying, Lawson doesn't have any business being on the court most nights and the expectations for him were pretty high.

DMo has been disappointing in that he's been hurt and Jones has been disappointing in that he still sucks at basketball but we knew coming into the season that DMo was coming off of surgery and that Jones sucked at basketball so those are less shocking.