How to prevent Harden from becoming another Carmelo?

Kobe and Shaq both made each other better. Wade won a title with a 33 yr old shaq as the next best player. Dirk carried a dallas team with bunch of role players to a title. It can be done. These guys at the time just simply elevated the play of those around them while being great themselves. True definition of superstars. And these guys had plenty of aging players around them.

You're still referencing Harden like I'm specifically talking about him. but since you want to bring it up Howard is that all star caliber player. They had their run last year and it just peaked. simple as that. It showed a lot of success but they simply ran into what we know now as one of the best teams in history.

 

you could say that, so what happened the years after that and all the teams melo has been the best player on those respective teams. something so consistent proves to be true.

 

some of you are talking like harden has nothing to do with this team's failure and this disappointing season. like it's all because he doesnt have things properly set up.

that's just simply not true.

btw, he's not exactly young. it's the years and mileage, not age.

 

Kobe and Shaq were great players regardless of each others' influence. That should be obvious.

Dirk winning championship with bunch of role players (albeit much better than what we have, and Jason Kidd was an absolute defensive beast in the playoffs) is an extreme outlier and those cases are very rare in the entire history of NBA. 93-94 Hakeem would be another example of that. But that's about it. In all other cases, even Wilt, Bill Russell, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Shaq, Kobe and Lebron needed help from other all star or superstar teammates to win a championship. And, of course Harden is not as good as Hakeem nor Dirk, so he cannot do it all alone. Doesn't make him a bad player and doesn't mean we cannot win a championship with him. We just need to provide better supporting cast and coaching, because we haven't done that yet, and most of all the historically great teams did meet that condition.

Howard is no longer an all star player, not even close, that is clear by the fact that he didn't play much better even without Harden. Remember when Dwight used to play early 2Q when Harden used to sit on the bench? Did he perform well in your memory? Even McHale admitted Howard's game has declined significantly and it has nothing to do with Harden, but his waning athleticism and past injuries. We will find out how well Howard can still play on another team next year, I can bet you with all I have that he doesn't even come close to making another all star selection.

 

Yes, Melo's supporting cast was consistently not even close to the best in the league.

 

I don't care if Morey has to dig through Fire and brimstone with Brewer's bare hands he has to come up with a #2 to help Harden. Also a sweet shooting 3 pointer
shooter would help.

 

1. Get a smart, strict, and highly respected coach.
2. Put some focused and motivated veterans around him similar to Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier, Mutumbo instead of free spirited and partying players like Kenyon Martin, JR Smith, Dwight, TJones, Lawson, Beasley.

The team you put around the star player creates the personality of the team not the star player himself.

 

Too late.

 

We should first examine how we can get him to become like Carmelo, because his current career trajectory looks nothing like Anthony's. Then we can discuss how to prevent a scenario that isn't occurring.

First, we'd have to make him significantly less efficient.

Then, we'd have to make him even worse at defense than he is now.

Then, we'd have to make him forget how to pass the ball all together.

Lastly, if we ask him to up his middle range shot attempts by about 50% so he can stop passing when he has a bad shot, and just take it.

So, assuming we manage all of these things, we'd then have to reverse all the intentional damage we just did to get him to play like Melo.

If anyone can do it, it's us clutch fans.

 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DEN/2009.html

7 players with above average PER, Kenyon Martin who was still a good rim protector at this point, Allen Iverson for giggles.

He had Billups (still good), Nene (prime), Birdman (prime), JR Smith, and Kenyon Martin. That's pretty good. He lost to the Lakers but that's not a mediocre supporting cast.

 

Harden is a far far better playmaker than Melo. He is unselfish by nature, just doesn't have a great team around him.

 

This is my main concern with Harden and why I say Harden will be Harden.

T_Man

 

pretty much this. repped.

 

I never said it was bad, but good doesn't mean great, and even great isn't good enough if another team is better.

You can build an absolutely fantastic team and win 60+ games, but if another team is better it doesn't matter. 2nd best doesn't count for anything.

 

That's all fine but by that argument you're basically saying there is 1 winner and 29 losers every year. I disagree. I think the Spurs, by being in the mix every season, maximize their chance to strike every year despite what their actual performance is in a given year. Similarly, Melo had the opportunity to strike several times with a good Denver team around him and just wasn't good enough to take them past the WCF. It's because he isn't a real superstar. The jury is still out on Harden. This year was an abysmal failure, but there's no guarantees in this NBA. You have to be ready to strike, and you hope that you can do that with Harden as your guy. If he doesn't sniff the Finals again, you can say he's a Melo clone. But I think Harden's a much better player. Melo never got this kind of flak for defense, but he is a worse defender than James.

 

Harden is still relatively young. He is an outstanding offensive player (both shooter and passer) but neither a good defensive/hustle player nor a good leader/role model who drives teammates to be their best. You need all three pieces to be a superstar able to lead a team to a championship as the #1 player.

 

We need a coach with an imaginative offensive scheme.

I know this is a video of the Spur's offensive evolution from 1999 to their most recent title. However, if you watch it, their sets from 2003 on are beautiful to see. We need someone to get that out of these players. You can also see numerous sets with a ball dominant guard (Ginobili or Parker). Heck, let's just steal some of these and it will be the most impressive the offense would have been since Adelman.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MgwZYsXCcVY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://youtu.be/MgwZYsXCcVY

 

I would think we'd want Harden to be like Carmelo. That would mean he was the Key to a Championship Formula.

 

Harden will probably never change. Even if he wanted to get out of the stripper world, he couldn't. There's a strict code and you're bonded for life.