James has lost his team and lost the locker room. We talk about this happening with coaches. But it happens with players too. It's not just Dwight. It's the main players. They're tired of banging down defensively only to see James loafing and then when they get a stop, James gets it up the floor and shoots it before they have an opportunity to get into the offensive flow. They're tired of everything offensively being tied to Harden. No ball movement. No action to the weak side if the PnR is clogged up. No ball reversals with time on the shot clock for somebody else to create. Harden has lost Dwight, Lawson, Smoove (again, Smoove didn't re-sign here because he didn't like playing with James last year), Bev, and Ariza. He's lost his team, alienated them. If James doesn't fix this about himself, he's not going to be able to recruit good players here much longer. Players talk. Things get around. They know what's what. They know who the good guys are. They know who they'd like to play with. They've all got their own personal scouting reports. And right now, they're scouting Harden down big time because he controls the basketball too much and doesn't make plays for others first. This whole season, this whole debacle of a season.....is on James. He has sucked in every way but especially in the leadership department. No humility. The magic is gone. And he'd better figure it out or we're going nowhere for the next few seasons.
This is pathetic, so sad. Someone needs to jump through your screen and give you a big hug. Looks like you need it.
Oh hey Kwame, how is your basketball dream team of Gay / Evans performing this year? Maybe we should ask Battier, now that he is retired I hear he doesn't have much to do other than polish his championship ring.
I agree wholeheartedly.... but people keep losing their mind on the view... stats, stats, stats = James is great and everybody else sucks... People can't see that its a team sport and everybody needs to be involved for it to work right... JBB is either an idiot or being ignored - I don't know... It's not difficult to see... take the ball out of Harden's hands. Get the ball downcourt quickly, look for easy buckets early in the shot clock before the defense has fully set (ie get the ball down low to Dwight before he's been beat on and the defense is ready to collapse down on him, give Ariza and Brewer the opportunity to slash to the bucket before the defense has set...). THEN give the ball to Harden and let him do his thing if nothing is there... As a team we are a '1 trick pony.' James is a great SG but he is not a PG... Let a pg run the offense, get others involved, then give James the ball... Will get others more involved and pumped, will cut down on Harden's turnovers, and will hopefully give Harden more juice for the defensive end of the court... SOMEBODY (Bev, Lawson, Terry) has to be able to make a pass into the paint....
NBA.com tracks 3 different types of assists. Regular Secondary : basically hockey assists Free throw: a pass that leads to at least 1 made free throw They then track the percentage of passes a player makes that leads directly to one of these types of assists. Essentially how often is a player making a productive pass to a teammate to score. The league leaders in this metric. Westbrook Rondo Paul Wall Rubio Lebron Harden Curry
based on this... the whole argument that our role players suck and Harden needs more shooters is incorrect... if on a percentage basis the guys he is passing the ball to are scoring at a high enough level that HIS assist % is 7th in the league.... Add to that that if the % of times he passes the ball results in the 7th highest scoring % output in the league... unless James is top 7 for fg% - that tells me he needs to pass the ball more... People want to ride stats... cool... so when Harden passes the ball it results in top 7 points being scored... When Dwight shoots the ball it results in 60% fgm - 4th highest all time... So... Harden needs to pass more and Dwight needs to shoot more... right... or is the data skewed because James doesn't pass enough - like people want to claim that D12's fg% is a product of fewer shots resulting in only high % opportunities...?
Well yeah like usual people are trying to diagnose a problem on offense that isn't there. Our offense is fine and Harden is getting his teammates involved just fine. And like I have said before. If there is a way to get Dwight dunks, and lobs and the like to get him more shots I'm all for it. It's just not that easy to get those shot attempts consistently. But it is not in the teams best interest to just pass the ball to Dwight more in the post. He turns it over and misses those shot attempts. A lot. There is a reason Deandre Jordan has an astronomical field goal percentage. He generally only takes very high percentage attempts. Same thing with Dwight this year. Just plain feeding either of those guys the ball more doesn't mean they continue that astonimocal field goal percentage unless you are getting those same easy attempts. Giving either of those guys more post up touches is not going to help things.
This doesn't mean our offense is fine, or does it measure how much other players are getting involved. Other players getting involved is measured in much simpler ways. With regards to scorers like WB, Lebron, Harden and Curry, it fundamentally means that the ball is in their hands a lot. The hockey-assists for scorers largely shows who has the ball the most and draws the most defensive attention, such that scoring is often one pass or two passes away from them. Doesn't necessarily say anything about whether the offense gets everyone involved and is efficient as a whole or not. For scorers who have the ball in their hands a lot, it is largely a volume stat for how often they pass vs shoot.
Well there are plenty of other things that say our offense is fine. 7th in eFG% 6th in TS% 8th in points per 100 possessions And that assist stat is a percentage of passes a player makes. It's not volume specific. The argument that Harden isn't helping his teammates score or making them better is pretty bad. As a team we are near the top of the league in open field goal attempts and Harden IS making the right passes to setup the rest of the team. At a rate that is near the top of the league.
That's why i say, looking at the numbers isn't going to solve the problem... the problem is defense plain and simple... which I have to attribute to a few diff things.. 1) JBB defensive system sucks... 2) too much gambling on d... 3) guys aren't as focused on defensive end.... If the prob is #1 - new coach will solve... If prob is #2, why are people gambling so much (Brewer) If prob is #3, why? I think lack of offensive touches lead to lack of defensive intensity... If I'm playing a pickup game and I'm running my butt up and down the court, playing d, grabbing rebounds - but not getting any shot opportunities... that gets old quick... granted these guys are supposed to be pros and they should accept their roles - but its human nature... get folks more involved on the offensive end and they will be more committed on the defensive end... Which is why I say we have the pieces, but we're not playing as a team. We need more ball movement, everybody being involves and we need unselfish team ball... and prob a new coach who will make EVERYBODY play that brand of ball...
I can show you how it actually still is a volume stat, % or not. It fundamentally shows the scorers who are attracting the most defensive attention, and who get the most play calls. It doesn't show anything about the productivity of a pass, and little about whether the offense gets others involved. I don't know why you'd think that is true. It favors players playing in attack offenses vs motion offenses. It would penalize nearly every role player in a motion offense. That is, if you want to get the defense moving, motion is one way by doing 5+ passes per possession. So, only the last two guys get credit for that. That's someone random, don't you think. And as a team stat, % of passes resulting in a score would be flat out a useless stat. It doesn't matter how many passes it took to score, we only care whether the score was from a pass or not. Thus, % or not, it is a volume stat showing who has the most opportunities to be one of the last two passers in a possession. Scores (especially during ISO or PnR plays) will have a high percentage by the very nature of the play being called. And calling other passes "unproductive" is using the wrong word. Other passes are called "System." I'm not trying to criticize Harden. I merely criticizing your use of the hockey-assist.
So people on here surely know how to take the funny out threads like this one. They go into this full body guard mode just to protect a player they don't know personally. We know this team isn't **** with Harden. But those bone headed turnovers of his are terrible.
I get how the hockey assist can slightly skew the numbers for certain guys and productive wasn't exactly the right word choice, but I am not following whatsoever how it's not a percentage stat or how it's somehow not showing how others are getting involved. Harden passes the ball 51 times per game and 17.2%(7th in the league)of those passes results in one of those 3 types of assists.
Yep. Opinion and assumptions. Just because the chemistry is gone from last season on the court it doesn't mean that these guys aren't good friend and hate playing with James. I mean Trevor and Josh were hanging out with James yesterday playing fifa together. They clearly get along off the court. Bballhollic said a whole bunch of stuff with no proof. And he won't prove it either other than an excuse of having "inside ears" or something that could be completely dismissed. If hes right about it then ok that sucks about James, but don't go out saying things like that with no proof or actual believable resources other than yourself.
Didn't say one word about them hanging/not hanging out beyond the arena. They don't like PLAYING with him.
hilarious, first its a statistics driven argument as to why Harden is the worst player in the league, then it turns into rhetorical BS about him losing the locker room and being a bad leader. LOL
