I won't be surprised to hear Moray on radio taking credit on this: "...... Harden wanted help @point guard position for years ,but statically and analytically he was the best out there"
i got the calculator out o fmy crotch pocket, wiped off the grease, crunched in the numbers, and came to the conclusion that he doesnt need any help as long as he's surrounded by shooters and defenders
Tiny Archibald, during the 1972-73 season, scored 40+ points 18 times and he averaged 11.4 assists per game. He might have done it, but I can't find a game by game breakdown. I'll keep looking. Edit: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199104020PHO.html (Kevin Johnson with a 37 pt 20 assist performance) In my research, I noticed that a lot of the players that got 20+ assists in a game had single digit scoring. Including Magic Johnson with a zero point performance. I also noticed that our own John Lucas is the only player in history to come off the bench and get more than 20 assists. Someone might have 20, but not more than twenty. Also he has the record for most assists off the bench. It was for the Spurs though. Gervin era.
Imagine when the offense actually starts to play more up tempo. Right now the team is still playing a bit slow. When the pace starts to get even faster, I think they can do even more damage.
The only way the Rockets make noise in the playoffs, should they make it, is when the sum of the parts exceeds the expectations of the individuals abilities. That will take an all out brain washing on both the offensive end (D'Antoni's offense) and defensive end (Bezdelik's defense). Anything short of these guys becoming a physical manifestation of the minds of these two coaches and the Rockets won't make it past the second round. They just don't have enough balanced talent.
whacu talkin bout we got kj and brewer. no but we got ariza, bev, dekker, anderson, and nene's mid range jumper. thats enough.
So you think hiring another coach would've fixed everything? The biggest barriers why the Rox won't win a ring: 1. Lebron James with Cavs, GSW with KD and Spurs with LMA -This is the single biggest reason, there are factors outside anyone's control that resulted in these three teams having a collective 95% chance of winning the championship this year. To say that Houston is wasting Harden's prime is pretty dumb, I mean what was the Rockets supposed to do? 2. Mess that was last year -The disaster last year had multiple implications, it came at the worst possible time and the fact that we still made the playoffs was bittersweet as we lost the chance to get a lottery pick. More importantly, the bad blood between Harden and Howard I think really tanked the Rockets' attractiveness as a FA destination, nobody wants to be part of drama like that. Morveover, JB resigned and we took too long to find a replacement, by the time MDA was hired most of the superstar FAs already dismissed Houston. Those are the top 2 reasons, not because MDA was hired. Defense isn't really on the coach, it's on the players. Rockets even brought in a defensive coach as an assistant, so to say the coaching don't care about D is just dumb. The problem is the players are either too slow or too unwilling to play D, at the end of the day the coach can just motivate the players but the players still have to execute. We can see this because on the offensive side the players have really embraced MDA's system and Harden specifically has started to compile MVP stats every night. If they can embrace the offense this well, there's nothing preventing them from embracing the defense also. I'm really sold on MDA, he's clearly a top tier coach and he showed he isn't afraid to mix it up and play rookies. He knows what he's doing on the coaching side.
Research shows, there's only been five 30pt-20ast games... Bob Cousy ('59) - 31-28 Abdul-Rauf ('95) - 30-20 Magic ('88) - 32-20 - Barkley had 31pts/23rebs same game Kevin Johnson ('91) - 37-20 Kevin Johnson ('89) - 31-21 Magic ('88) went 39/17 vs the Rockets Magic - 33-19, 31-19
I honestly can't believe what I'm seeing! Harden is absolutely beasting this season, putting up gaudy numbers like it's nothing. I hate how he's not getting talked about more. Dude deserves his credit, especially after the media snubbing/**** show he copped last season.
Yes, most likely. But our brand of play could set us up to have other superstar players want to come here. It's bigger than this year. Let's say Blake Griffin says "I want to play for Houston". Are you telling me a Harden/Griffin duo isn't championship worthy?
We have shooters and defenders. What we don't have is rebounding. THIS is what we need more than anything
I have not yet seen Blake really deliver in the playoffs as everyone has expected him to. He really is weak against real big men, especially when the big man on his own team is not doing the best job. That said, I'll watch every single game if Griffin joins the Rockets.
Trust me, the Rockets would be a contender with either Blake/Cousins. I can see both wanting to play w/ Harden in a MDA system.
I think at this point Anthony Davis would want to play with anyone. That poor guy, team is soo scrub.
