Old players word is law I guess. Oscar Robertson says Steph Curry shoots so well because modern NBA defenses are trash http://www.foxsports.com/nba/story/...-because-modern-nba-defenses-are-trash-022516 Maybe you know.. not all old NBA players know what they're talking about. Have you looked at Magic Johnson's twitter? Dude is a bonafide idiot lol. Has Robert Reid even had a conversation with James Harden?
Can't disagree with you. With Harden there is obviously very few ball movement. I do think Harden can adapt to a more team oriented system, but only time can tell. I think this off-season might be the most important off-season of his entire NBA career. What he does, and what the team does will be very important going forward. I'm not ready to say this last season will define James Harden as a player. Next season could be different in a very good way or it could just be awful again. People are really quick to settle on what a player is. "You never arrived. You're always becoming." I don't think we've seen the final version of Harden. He's a work in progress, and it's foolish to think Harden will only look after Harden for the rest of NBA career when he's never done this before.
With that being said, I think a lot of blame has to go to the team he is surrounded with. There were teams this year that we could blow away by 20-30 points, and there were teams which did the same to us, which was shown by our 41-41 record. When we were blowing teams out, we played up-tempo, passing the ball to everyone on the floor hitting wide open threes and PnR's with suffocating D. When we were getting blown out, we didn't play D, the ball got sticky and no-one could hit the side of a barn. There were games where when Harden passed, and wide open threes were missed, some were made. I think the iso ball would decrease, if guys made more shots. Was it the last game where only Harden made a shot in the first quarter? It's the chicken or egg question? Upgrade the shooters, the less Harden may feel he has to do it all. But we definitely have to upgrade the shooters...
Well, to be fair. Hakeem was a center. He had to rely on his teammates to pass him the ball when he got into position. And incidentally, Reid was probably our best entry passer in his days. Harden, on the other hand, has the ball at the beginning of a possession and controls when and where he passes the ball.
Why James Harden have to look after a bunch of brickers and losers??? Without James Harden, this team is no better than 76ers. Please, if you still bash James Harden for the disaster season, you have zero basektball knowledge.
I feel bad for James Harden seriously. This dude is ****ing tired this season with playing most of minutes in NBA. But people still blame James Harden for the sucking of players like Brewer or Howard.
Not seeing eye-to-eye with Bobby Jo His eyes are paprika and fresh onion heavy, my eyes are more basic black pepper seasoned, they don't mix together well
Robert Reid was legit. .and a borderline Allstar caliber talent. Any long term rocketa fan knows this.
It goes without saying this off-season will be crucial for James Harden - Clutch Or something like this. Jerry Lin, then DMo, then J Harden
You succeed or fail as a team. I'd rather the team learn how to play team ball and have a 40 win season with the hope that they improve the season after. Sure you could make the argument that Harden has no one to pass to but I'd rather he get the team involved instead of having the entire team's chances dependent on how hot he is.
Next time your at work, walk up to the coach and tell him his strategy is bull**** and his greatest achievement (getting harden) is worthless. See how that goes.
I guarantee you Harden would love to have guys who can score next to him and would gladly give up the ball. Look how much he passed it to Beasley. Harden has understandably lost confidence in his guys ability to hit an open shot or Dwight's ability to score in the low post. Who on the Rockets has been a reliable with an open shot? Who??? You might say Ariza but what a disaster he was at the end of the season. Brewer? Even worse. Bev - ok at best. McDaniels? Nope. Beasley was solid from the mid-range, and then who? Dmo couldn't hit the side of a barn. Jones has been a disaster. I mean who did he have to score - he had to play that role or the team would never score. With him on the bench this team was one of the worst teams in the NBA. Harden took a 15-win lottery team to the playoffs. In a way it would have been better if he was injured because everyone would appreciate him more and we'd get a top 5 pick.
I agree with Robert Reid's comments 100%, however, who else on the team is going to pick up the ball and score. Every time he does pass the ball, team members more than I care to mention, miss shots, and a lot of those shots are open shots. He doesn't trust his team mates to be able to put the ball in the basket, and that includes Dwight Howard. So in turn, he's looked at as being selfish and all for Harden. He's in a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation. I'm not a big Harden fan, I'm a Rocket's fan. But I do believe that if you surround him with better players, and I mean players that can actually shoot and able to put the ball in the basket, I think you would see a different James Harden.
I don't think people realize the extent to which Ariza has sucked this year, both offensively and defensively. Get this : Ariza was our second most used offensive option, with 859 total FG attempts and 10.9 FGA per game. Ariza led the league in the total number of spot-up possessions where he was extremely ineffective, ranking just 39.2 percentile overall. Our 3rd offensive option was Dwight, and he too ranked below average in post-up efficiency. It's a miracle that we had somewhat respectable offense as a team, I can't imagine which team in the NBA would let Ariza take 2nd most shots for his team, not even 76ers would do that.
It's nothing wrong with digging Robert Reid up from the grave. He's a former Rocket and deserves like anyone else to be heard and have an opinion. As a matter of fact, the more opinions the better. This is a forum the last time I heard. Maybe the higher ups in management will look at and listen to some of these opinions. It wouldn't hurt, particularly with the state that the Rockets are in now.
Everyone is complaining about Harden now but NOBODY was complaining the 2014-2015 season! He played the exact same way!!!! If Harden was passive and the team lost games like it did then the narrative is that he can't take over when needed. His team showed over and over again they couldn't make open shots consistently and showed that there was nobody else to initiate offense so he took it upon himself to do it. It's a lose lose situation for Harden. Anything he did was gonna get criticized. If his teammates had made more of the WIDE open jumpers they had once again NOBODY would be complaining.
Harden has both a maniacal hate club and an ardent criticism deflection club here on Clutchfans. Phenomenally talented, flawed superstar gonna keep on polarizing.
