How to prevent Harden from becoming another Carmelo?

Get him some teammates. There's nothing wrong with Carmelo as a player, his teams were just never good enough. Great players don't win championships, great teams do. Hell, if LeBron never went to Miami he'd probably have just as many championships as Melo.

Have Kobe and Melo switch places and Melo has 5 rings to Kobe's 0.

 

Carmelo got to WCF too.

 

Just no... Kobe was a far more dynamic scorer.

 

James Harden is so far from being a Carmelo type of player that this shouldn't be a concern to anyone. He's not perfect, and he definitely needs to maintain a consistent focus on the defensive end. That being said, I believe that Harden's priority is winning basketball games. He's a great passer and plays the game unselfishly.

Carmelo has been an empty stat guy for most of his career. The only time he advanced in the playoffs is when he had Chauncey Billups running the show. It's not an accident that the Knicks went on a run when he was injured during Linsanity. The Rockets without Harden on the other hand...that's scary to think about.

 

statements like this, just replacing one player for another and people believing the results would be the exact same are just simply not true.

 

That is true.

I guess I'm just seeing topics that are sometimes already on the first page that are being repeated by the same poster and they'll usually be consecutive threads at the top.

I just want my coach updates and fake to potentially real sources that's all.

 

Kobe was definitely better, but the difference isn't so substantial that those Lakers teams wouldn't have won the title.

Being on a bad team impacts people's views of players far too much. Carmelo is absolutely an all time great player.

 

He doesn't take the flights and buses with the team. He thinks too highly of himself.

 

Harden is a diva. It's too late for that. We're going to find out if he's a smart diva or a dumb diva. Or should I say were going to find out whether he is a proud diva who contributed to stubbornly try to do everything on his own or whether he's got enough humility left in his persons to accept help in the form of coaching and multi-skilled teammates who are not role players but legit headline players in their own right.

Harden is a great efficient scorer. But he is not an efficient nor proficient playmaker. He needs to be convinced to accept a primary playmaker who will dish him and the other guys the basketball and diversify our offensive attack while maintaining defensive floor balance. Will he? Depends on what kind of diva Harden is.

 

Well, if Melo played with Shaq, and Kobe played with Chauncey Billups, Melo would have gotten more rings than Kobe, that's for sure.

Some people think basketball is like tennis or golf, if a player doesn't win a championship somehow that's all on himself? you never hear this kind of rhetoric from other team sports like soccer or baseball, since they know it takes a whole group of talented players and a great coach/GM to win a championship.

For any team sport, the organization has to operate like a machine from top to bottom. If one cog is not working right, you're screwed, no matter how talented you are as a player.

 

and on the other hand some people think that's just bc a player doesn't win they automatically think the teammates are to blame. They can put up all these high numbers but at the end of the day it just doesn't translate to winning. theres plenty of times where you just have to realize a player isn't good enough.

 

1. Hire coach with some sort of offensive and defensive scheme.
2. Make Scott Pera get Harden to remember his fundamentals.
3. Harden should work out in off season with his idol Kobe as Kobe works with the young Lakers.
4. Harden should again take on more leadership and defensive role with Olympic team.
5. Bring in some actual basketball teammates that Harden can trust on the court.

 

If I was GM-- Best Line up for Harden
Whiteside-Capella
Beasley-Montrell
Durant- Mc Daniels
Harden- Scrub
rookie point guard best available with 2nd pick- Bev

 

you can only come to that conclusion once all the other relevant factors are eliminated, and the only possible explanation for the team's failure is the best player.

do we have a great GM? that's highly questionable, to say the least.

do we have a great coach? haha, give me a break.

do we have a great supporting cast? we play like 76ers once Harden sits on the bench.

out of four contributing factors in winning a championship, we don't even suffice one. to put it in more scientific terms, you don't get to test the value of a variable when the constants are not even set right.

 

Some of his Nuggets teams were pretty good and he still didn't deliver

 

I'm not even talking about harden here btw. That was more of a general post that applies to a lot of players that can put up numbers that don't result is positive outcomes.

but no you don't have to go through the criteria above. you can come to that conclusion if for years results aren't showing no matter who is being brought in and out. the ones that are truly great elevate the play of everyone around them and improvement in a variety of ways show especially when it comes to winning.

 

Pretty good isn't good enough, only one team can win.

 

so with a pretty good roster around him and he still didn't win, what does that mean? he obviously isn't good enough to be the #1 guy on a championship team.

 

Did Kobe make Shaq great when he was just an average player? or vice versa? how many teams have won championships without at least one all star caliber player playing alongside their superstar? and how many do we have next to Harden? does Harden have to elevate Bickerstaff to coach like Popovich? does Harden have to make Morey to stop investing in aging/declining players and get some fresh young bodies on board?

 

that means there might have been another player with similar abilities that played for a great team, instead of just pretty good team.