Klay Thompson: I'm the best shooting guard in the NBA

If Harden kills the flow of offenses, why do offenses turn into straight garbage when he leaves the game?

Why do they go from among the best in the league to NBDL level?

You know who killed the flow of an offense?

Yao Ming.

 

I mean his style of play will not fit into what GS tries to do. Even Dray Green killed their flow when he went "the man wannabe" mode. Warriors beat you by ball movement and the threat of quick relentless threes by the splash bros. With these threats, everyone get into a flow and u'll see more bogut dunks iggy layups etc. the only iso player that breaks from that mode is Livingston when he leads the second unit, even then he only does it at the time both splashes sit or when the plan A isn't working at the moment.

Harden will have to change his game to fit in and I don't think it will work, esp with his ingrained habits and chilly ego. His play would likely always be a flow killer if he's on the dubs. I also don't think dubs GM would have any interest in Harden and his "superstar" attributes of resting on D and holding the ball on O.

 

Another reason team doesn't flow when a star sits is because they're not conditioned to play their own game due to star hogging.

It also applies to Yao, when all the practice time you spend is dumping it in to the middle, you never even get a chance to practice playing to the strength of other guys.

Putting all eggs in one basket, so to speak, can work for you or against you, it's as simple as that. If Yao was more dependable like Shaq, then we'd not have the headaches. But at the time the team still gambled on the chance that Yao can bring the team home the goods, I can't hate on that trust. It's all JVG really, Yao would be perfectly fine playing his old way of mixing it up and high post passes with a bit of fancies here and there. He might not break his foot so soon too.

As for Harden, it seems that the management is pampering Harden so much to a point other players get disgruntled. You can argue Howard causes as much problems, but it is James who gets pampered, Howard is asked to do the dirty work just like the rest of the team while Harden needs to do zip. Mchale had implied so many times in play harder clap clap ball sticky to no avail...

If you can't even play hard and the coach can't even reign in, you can't improve a championship team like Klay can.

 

Klay is Peja Stojaković V2.0

 

Nonsense. Harden had no problem sharing the ball with Parsons & Lin when they were still here & they would be the 8th/10th men on the Warriors.

 

Let's clarify - post isolation plays kill the flow of offense unless you're playing purely inside-out ball, and the last team to do that well was the 08-09 Magic. Defenses are too smart to get beaten by teams that rely on post scoring.

But Adelman used Yao to great effect from 2007-9, and the year prior Yao Ming was having an MVP season. He had assist percentages in the double digits during most of his prime - i.e. he assisted on about 10% of possessions in which he was involved. His on/off numbers for his career are slightly positive, but during his prime were stellar - and defensively he was underrated.

Yao did not kill the flow of offense, but the offense did have to be tailored to him. JVG, ironically, got the past single season out of Yao before the foot problems crept in.

But similarly, Harden does not kill the flow of offense. Bad coaching kills the flow of offense. Lack of other movement kills the flow of offense. Harden doesn't hold on to the ball when Beasley is on the court, for example. Beasley is constantly moving to his spots, and Harden finds him. But guys like Ariza just sit waiting for a kickout 3. That's fine - I don't want Ariza handling the ball any more than he has to - but stationary teammates aren't going to help the flow of offense either.

And yes - you want to see bad offense? See what happens when Harden is sitting.

 

Except that the Rockets offenses frequently got better when Yao was out for long stretches of games. They were pretty easily able to adapt to a less-plodding style despite "conditioning" - this excuse for Yao's effect is bogus. He dictated the style of play you had to play and it was far from flowing.

Harden meanwhile is about as flowing a player as you get, being gifted in all aspects of offense (including moving without the ball) And when he leaves, the flow stops.

 

Still plenty of time to **** this up.

 

Where are the Klay stans at? Garbage defensively (most overrated defender in the League) and exposed offensively when his 3's aren't falling yet again.

 

True. We're talking about different Yao teams. When Yao was worth it, he rightfully dictated the offense style, and as a result the personnel was put together and practiced to dump it in/ play inside out. When it was worth it, we might be talking about 2 seasons.

In other seasons, particularly post Morey, utilizing other players seem to work as well, so it'd be nicer for team success if Yao was used in the '05 way instead of '07 way.

Warriors are good because the top two players create spacing for role players, and everybody have opportunities to be maximized. I believe the modern game also made post play obsolete, and Yao's strength gig caught in a transition period. Yao's offense would have been more valuable in the illegal D era.

Btw Klay was asked in press "who's to blame?" His answer: we all are. We win together, we lose together. Nice answer.

 

LMAO, Harden put up more points, rebounds, assists, better PER and Box Plus Minus than Klay in that series while being guarded by Iguodala, Draymond and Klay in turn. He single-handedly carried our entire offense since nobody else - including Ariza, Beverly and Terry - couldn't hit a single wide open jump shot to save their lives. In the midst of this overwhelming adversity, Harden still managed to pull off a single win against the best regular season team in NBA history. Harden didn't lose to Klay in the 1st round, his team did.

Exactly. I will say this again since so many people have deluded opinion on this guy. Klay is not a true 2-way player, period. Tonight was the clear example of how worthless Klay can be when his shots aren't falling. Had 1 assist and 2 turnovers, while scoring just 10 points on FG 4/13 and 3P 1/7. His on/off margin was -27, the worst among all GSW players. When he can't score, he contributes nothing offensively to help his team win. That's why passing and play making is a HUGE part of what makes a great offensive player, and Klay definitely has a glaring hole in his game in that sense.

Even defensively, Klay couldn't stop Kyrie going off 30 points on him on 12/25 shooting. In fact, Lillard and Westbrook all put up better numbers against him than they did in previous series. Again, Klay plays decent on-ball defense when matched against smaller guards, but outside of that his D is nothing special, and overall he's far from an elite defender since he doesn't stop or lock down anybody like Kawhi or Danny Green regularly does. I would say Klay is the single most overrated defender in terms of the size of the gap between his reputation as a defensive stopper, and actual performance on that end as well as his defensive stats.

After all, Harden still put up better individual numbers and performance than Klay did even during his relative down year. Honestly, this wouldn't even be a debate in any other year.

 

man, yao would've loved the illegal defense era. no help defender standing in the lane when he's fronted? which probably leads to people mostly playing behind yao where entry passes would be easier. because as much trouble as we had getting the ball to yao, once yao actually fought through all the fronting and other defense and got the ball, he was a beast.

 

On topic, cannot even believe Klay is whining about a "dirty" pick by cavs. AYFKM? Dude's ascendence relies on illegal picks! LOL

 

This is why I can't stand the Warriors. They whine and b**** when anything bad happens to them, but don't realize that they get away with EVERYTHING. I wonder what Klay would think if Mozgov kicks him in the balls in a "flailing basketball move."

 

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That elbow by Channing Frye seemed a bit dirty. Not sure how Klay was called for a foul.

 

I had it on mute so didn't hear the talking heads, but what's dirty about that pick? Maybe he wasn't set, but it looked much more textbook than a Bogut pick, TBH.

 

Because Klay fouled him before the elbow. Channing got T'ed up, as he should have.

 

I honestly don't see nothing dirty. The only thing I could possibly think but didn't seem like it, is if he poked his knee outward a bit instead of locking his knee and standing straight up. As to give a good Charlie horse, but that's jus a far fetched idea because I'm trying my damnest to figure out how it possibly could be construed as dirty.

I also listened in mute BTW so idk about the talking heads

 

Channing should have gotten a flagrant 1 for that, it was an intentional elbow to the face, not a "physical taunt" or whatever nonsense they called it.

Regarding the pick, I didn't think it was dirty. The extra leg motion makes it look like a kick, but in fact the contact occurred before the leg movement.