DMO's agent "Rockets not doing enough to re sign him"

I hope Dmo stays. We need the depth to our front line and he has a skill set and versatility that this team needs. However, he needs to hurry the f**** up.

 

Yackity yack yack.

Turnovers and net turnovers are critically important in championship team building. Watch it unfold. See my signature. At some point we'll have to quit kicking the can down the road or settle for being also-rans throughout Hardens prime.

 

Well, i'm not saying holic is right, in fact i'm not sure Harden's turnovers are that big of a problem but, we do know that we traded for Lawson, and we do know that Morey wanted Chris Paul here (and maybe Rondo too if some rumors in the past were true)...these guys are all true point guards so...

 

There is room for him on the bench if he can't consistently hit 3s and stay healthy. I think D-Mo has a lot of potential and his post game is top tier but guys like Harrell and Wiltjer are going to make him obsolete if those guys maintain an upward development.

Ryan Anderson will always get the bulk of the minutes and he is a far superior offensive player compared to D-Mo. What MDA needs coming off the bench at the PF spot could probably be someone that could defend, hustle and finish strong around the rim (like Harrell) or someone that could consistently space the floor (like Wiltjer). D-Mo is stuck in the middle of these two and with guys like Gordon, Capela/Nene, Brewer/Dekker coming off the bench, his skillset may be made redundant.

 

Saying this in a Dmo thread, but yeah, I doubt that the term Mini Lebron fits Harden, this is thrown around too much.

People wish he can impact the game on Lebron's level when Lebron was in his prime, I think he is still half a step below.

 

Over a 64 game stretch prior to his injury last season, DMo hit 3 pointers at a clip above 40%. I'd call that consistently spacing the floor. On defense, he's been better than anything I've seen from Harrell (defense is 80% being in right spot). On finishing around the rim, DMo may not get the style points Harrell for finishing strong....but he's better at scoring around rim in most situations just because he's taller, has moves, and has touch. If he's healthy, DMo is valuable even if he likely has a higher injury risk going forward than most players (Rockets are trying to mitigate injury risk by making future years non-guaranteed). There is not anyone the Rockets have that can defend 4s reasonably well and not cause a huge drop off offensively from Anderson.

Only reason not to keep DMo at this point is if another team offers him a big deal with many guaranteed years, and Rockets are scared about his long term ability to get on the court healthy. Dmo is fine as a backup at the price he'll likely get.

 

DMo and Anderson recently have both been injury prone. What do you do when both are out?

 

Nothing has changed since last season, turnover wise. Harden's turnovers the last three games, 5, 8, 5. That is HIGHER than last season. The reason "everything looks good" has nothing to do with Turnovers, it has to do with us actually having decent offensive players on the court now. What is best for the team is Harden handling the ball as much as humanly possible, because he is far and away the best player on the team, and one of the best 3 in the league.

Joatmac's position is laughably comical because Rubio is more turnover prone than Harden is.

Holic isn't right, he is absolutely 100% wrong. The coach couldn't have been more clear in directly refuting this.

Morey wasn't trying to get a PG, he was trying to get TALENT, which is an actual problem this team has, unlike Harden's turnovers.

 

I guess that's fair enough.

 

Assuming they are both out at same time, Rockets would likely go with some combination of Capela, Harrell, Onuaku, Dekker, and Ariza. Odds are much greater Anderson and DMo aren't available for Rockets on the same day if the Rockets don't keep DMo.

 

Sometimes I really think it would suck to be James Harden. All-world numbers...no all-nba team. Drag a team to the playoffs that hadn't been there three years in a row...lots of Houston fans still try to hold you up as the example for the team's failure. A bit of a confrontation avoider...crushed in the public eye.

I know...blah blah blah millions of dollars...blah blah blah never lead a championship team...blah blah blah flaws in his game...

If I were him I really think I'd go nuts. I have genuine admiration for how the man handles himself despite so many negative voices trying to drag him down. That is a tough thing to do.

Sorry, thread derailed. Back to your regularly scheduled D-Mo programming.

 

Harden is much more turnover prone than Rubio is. And when you consider NET TURNOVERS he's even worse. His turnovers are a problem. MDA has already said he has to improve his turnovers. Only ignorance says otherwise.

 

The question is If Harden's turnovers are a bigger problem then Rubio's historically terrible shooting, as he would be playing off the ball for the vast majority of the game.

Of course, I would love to snag Rubio on the cheap, even just for a different option.

 

That's an interesting question but a foolish one. The reason it is foolish is simple. We will never trade for Rubio to be the off guard. IF we ever trade for Rubio it will be for Rubio to run the offense from the top and get the basketball to Harden and the others so he and them can score the ball.

Right now for the moment we are committed to Harden at the point. So a trade for Rubio is highly unlikely, unless we bring him off the bench and slowly work him alongside Harden. But remember the words "right now for the moment". Because those words are for today, not tomorrow. The situation is dynamic. The key is Harden of course. He wants this thing for now. But MDA and Morey have the metrics staring him in the face every day. It's not going to go away. He HAS to get his turnovers DOWN. Or else he'll finally have to accept the "help" he really needs to be able to lead us to a championship.

Harden averaging 32 points with 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 turnovers is championship worthy.

Harden averaging 27 points with 10 assists, 5 rebounds, and, and 5 turnovers is not championship worthy.

 

Now you've got it!

 

I've always had it. Go back to home room before they pull your hall pass.

 

Much the same with Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, I don't think a ball dominant PG is going to fix anything.Rather, a great system with great talent around Harden certainly will.

It's like putting a modern day Oscar Robertson off the ball. It ain't happening.

 

If you believe it then that's all that matters.

 

Damn, I just saw that Harden had 19 TOs in the preseason. He's seriously got to work on getting that rate down to about 3.5 per game or so. Also, the assist/to ratio needs to climb above 2.7 to make some real noise in the playoffs. (His preseason ratio is 2.3)

 

I find bballholic's sig to be both correct and hilariously wrong. Harden's already one of the best playmakers in the league, he led the league in creating open 3s for other people. If you can find somebody who is better and more creative than he is than by all means make that guy the primary ball handler, that'd be like saying if you can find a better scorer than MJ then have MJ be the playmaker instead and give it to that guy. While Harden's TO does happen to be high at only 1 more turn over on average than a guy like Curry it's not gonna make a huge impact, that's just a 2 pt swing every game on average and will hardly make a dent as few games are decided by just 2 pts.

Net average TO FOR THE TEAM may be a critical factor to success, but James Harden's TO isn't the Rocket's TO even if he becomes best turnover-less player in the league with only 2 turnovers a game it's not gonna lead to a Rockets championship because the Net TO rating of the team will hardly move. It's a pretty dumb argument to be honest like saying the Rockets will win multiple championships if Ariza becomes the best stealer in the league by increasing his steals from 2 steals to 4 steals a game.