you think klay and butler are better facilitators than harden? LOL butler is harden ISO X 2 and without the passing while klay relies on passes from steph, draymond, bogut and iggy you think suddenly pbev is going to be a better pg and ariza and howard are gonna be better passers? others are not making their shots or turning the ball over harden is the solution not the problem
LOL how many minutes does harden avg for the reg season and play offs?? hes a low energy guy? you're comapring klays 1 game to harden's season would you trade klay or kawhi for harden straight up? problem is expectations from haters he's playing with scrubs while playing 40 minutes a game and carrying the whole offensive load
I'm going to ignore the whole stat padding thing because that's just dumb lol. All-Stars Dwyane Wade Kyle Lowry Lebron James Paul George Carmelo Anthony Chris Bosh John Wall Paul Millsap DeMar DeRozan Jimmy Butler Andre Drummond Isaiah Thomas Pau Gasol Al Horford Stephen Curry Russell Westbrook Kobe Bryant Kevin Durant Kawhi Leonard Chris Paul LaMarcus Aldridge Anthony Davis DeMarcus Cousins Klay Thompson Draymond Green If the name of the game is winning then only 8 of these players should be commended because they made the conference finals. (fun fact: those 8 guys played on a combined 4 teams.) Guys like Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Anthony Davis, Isaiah Thomas, Andre Drummond, and John Wall should be treated the same as James Harden or even worse since they all either ended up the same or even worse by not even making the playoffs. All of those guys were out in the first round to inferior teams or didn't even make the playoffs. Are you going to say that Paul George is much better since the Raptors whose two star players played like booty let the series go to 7? Or how about Jimmy Butler the guy a lot of people say is a better two way player than Harden? He couldn't get his team into the playoffs. The name of the game is winning, right? He won them a lottery pick. How about Anthony Davis or Boogie Cousins? What are their excuses? They were injured or their rosters sucked? Had terrible coaches? What are their excuses lol I guess the guys Dwyane Wade, Paul Millsap, Al Horford, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kawhi Leonard are all completely better than Harden because they actually made it to the 2nd round. If only we had Dwyane Wade instead of Harden. The name of the game is winning and Wade right now is clearly the better winner despite playing with Dragic, Deng, and Whiteside and against a team whose best player was Kemba Walker. Maybe if we had Millsap instead of Harden? Do you think he'd bring Horford along? Since, you know, they play on the same team together. OK, I'm nitpicking now. I'll get a guy who played by himself. Kawhi. He was DPOY, and all-NBA 1st team. Surely he's the lone reason the Spurs made it the 2nd round, right? He did it on his own. Not like he played with another all-star or all-NBA player. Nope. All by himself, and he did it because he played defense and that's the only reason. All-NBA Teams Kawhi Leonard Lebron James Deandre Jordan Stephen Curry Russell Westbrook Kevin Durant Draymond Green Demarcus Cousins Damian Lillard Paul George Lamarcus Aldridge Klay Thompson Kyle Lowry How about these guys? 10 of the 15 guys made it to the second round so I guess you have a point. 10 guys on 6 teams. In the conference finals it reduced to 6 players on 4 teams. Does this imply that good teams have multiple great players? Should we #BlameHarden for not being able to make two of himself? Still, I'd take Harden over at the very least 10 of those guys. I'm not even going to do the All-defense teams. Avery Bradley doesn't stat pad. He just goes out there and wins! Playing defense and wins!......right into a first round lost to the Hawks who have better players....... Look, I hate defending James. I wish he did showcase better effort. He'd be a lot better if he did, but what could he absolutely become better at other than defense if he showed more effort? Would he rebound better if he played with more effort or ate breakfast with his team mates? We all know Harden's flaw. He lacks focus, and loses his man. He's not held accountable for his mistakes. He is a flawed player, but even when flawed he is still a damn good player. He does make his team mates better even if it didn't show this season it showed last season and the season before that. This season was bad all around, and yes Harden should be blamed, but it's not completely his fault. It's people like you who do the most and make this seem a lot worse than it actually is. The Rockets aren't in this terrible position even with the MDA hire. Coaching matters a lot, but sometimes talent prevails as well with so-so coaching. What we all want is for Harden to be held accountable. That's why I wanted Thibs, but maybe MDA could do that or one of his assistants. Perhaps we sign a player that is known for holding players accountable. Harden doesn't need to be a leader. Curry isn't the leader of the Warriors and neither KD or Westbrook are good leaders either, but there were both in the WCF while Duncan was sitting at home watching the game. Harden is good enough to be the player we rely on to win games, and he started the season awful but mid-way he got back to his Harden ways. It was too late already with a fired coach and a team that faked believed in each other. This season won't happen again. It won't. Stop demonizing Harden. He's a flawed player, but he's not the worse thing to happen to the Rockets. the 2015-2016 season doesn't define us nor Harden. Stop acting like it does. If next season is the same then yeah you might have a point then, but I highly doubt we will be this disappointing. The game plan is centered to James Harden because he's our best player and the only player who can create for others on this team. Motiejunas was out for the entire season pretty much and Lawson was a shell of his former self. Ariza-Brewer can't handle the ball very well other than straight drives for a lay up/dunk or fast breaks. Our guards were Beverley-Terry-Thornton. I can't even begin to imagine the person who would trust them to run the offense.
Chris Paul never even made it past the second round and he had Blake Griffin. Yet if you hear the media tell it Paul is the best pure scorer/passer pg since Nash. Hell people on this site hold players with much less success in higher regard than Harden even those who've had more help.
Klay is playing his specific role to perfection. He's not asked to be a facilitator like Harden. I do believe he could if he had to. Harden was part of the problem to. Defense took a big hit because of Harden's lackluster effort.
Dude said he'd trade for Butler and expect the same results. Doesn't he know that Butler is a worse ISO player than Harden? Ask any Bulls fan ha. They'll tell you the thing they dislike about his the most. "He ISOs way too much (and isn't even that great at it.)" Some people truly do just have a vendetta against Harden. I understand that you think he could do a lot more, and I agree too but when we say asinine things like Butler or Klay being able to produce the same as Harden then that's when we get lost in this type of discussion. Harden is the much better player compared to a ton of players, but yes, he can be better and everyone on this forum can agree on that. It's the people who say dumb things like Butler being able to produce the same that ruins this forum though. That's just wack.
I always get the feeling that Harden has ADD sometimes. It's like walking my dog; walk, walk, walk, OOH! BUTTERFLY! walk, walk, walk, OOH! TENNIS BALL! In this case all of those are distractions would be the basketball. The amount of time he gets caught ball watching on D... SMH
Fans of any star player are going to be biased to a certain degree and defend/praise their favorite player - it's not just Harden or Lin. But there are definitely very few similarities between HOFs and LOFs based on just those two players. HOFs can be reasoned with.
one is a franchise player the other is a role player one is top 5 starting SG the other is a top 5 backup PG one is a max player the other a min player
Some idiot repped me in this thread saying: "I'm giving u rep so I can spread some to OsTrig. Don't think you did anything to deserve this because you didn't" What's the point of giving out rep if you're just going to give rep out to people who don't deserve it? It kind of devalues rep on this forum. I keep saying, man, this forum is filled with weirdos.
Yup, the thing that makes J Lins fans so weird is that he isn't a franchise player but they act like he is and they act like he should be one when he's not at that level.