Harden has been amazing - the system along with some competent scorers is doing wonders. My only worry is how terrible the offense is without him there - I am hoping some of that is alleviated once Bev comes back and we dont need to worry about Ennis being the primary backup PG. I do think if we had more of a tougher interior presence defensively especially on the boards it would help even more. Right now my biggest fear is Harden not being able to handle all the responsibilities over the course of the season. His minutes are slightly down from last year (which is expected since he led the league in minutes played). I would be happy if the staff can get him around 33-34 minutes per game without effecting the team's chances to win. Also I do believe we will see a 40/20 game from Harden this year.
I see a lot of you saying who cares we're wasting his prime years. So I ask what would you guys have done? Traded him to a better team? Tried to get thibbs? Sign some different guys? I think the MDA hire is interesting but not terrible. Now the signings I think are very good. We still have assets to trade to get max money slot. Having a team with harden/star/Anderson/Gordon as your core is very very good and can be a contender no doubt. And we should still be able to retain one or two or bev Kj Dekker Ariza Capela Harrell. Those are pretty good role players that outside of Ariza and bev should all be getting better because there so young. I think maybe it was luck but who cares I think we're in a position we're we need one star level guy and we're good to go. Sure we might need to add some low level guys like the Cavs did in getting Richard Jefferson and Channing fry but those are easy to do once you have your core.
No I do not think it would have changed everything. I do not think we would have won a championship this year anyway. However to me the MDA hire means that we are going the direct opposite direction we should be going. I wanted a defensive minded coach with some defensive players and some shooters. While I do agree MDA is a good offensive coach (altough I am not fan of his style. I hate smallbal, I prefer to go big). He does not care about defense, and I do not see any team winning a championship with his as a coach. I do like the Gordon signing, and am indifferent with the Nene signing. I do not like the Anderson signing. And I really hate hw soft we are inside. When Capela is on the bench we put out a red carpet to the rim. So for me since the organisation is going the opposite direction that I want us to go there is nothing left but cheer for Harden stats and the development of our younger players. I am having more fun than last year (when there really was nothing to cheer about). But to me the MDA hire is throwing away years.
Well I can totally understand where you're coming from but honestly you're really selling MDA short IMHO, that PHX team should've won a championship they just got a horrible call made against them that fouled out Amare and caused a Spurs playoff win. Not only that PHX fought against prime Spurs so many times, if they were playing in a different time they would've won something by then. I think that regardless whether you're offense oriented or defense oriented a championship team will be well rounded, Pops is definitely a defensive coach but his team also is extremely explosive offensively. In the same way, if we can have two way players even if we're running MDA's offense we can still have good defense, we've seen small flashes of that this season against a couple of teams. Also, regarding the wasting years thing, if you're gonna be realistic there is no coach out there which would've made the Rockets a contender anyway because Cavs, GSW and Spurs are just too talent rich. With things they way they are the Rockets are far below these 3 teams to be considered anything more than a long shot so unfortunately unless you want to follow these 3 teams any other team in the NBA is just wasting the year. We'll see what's available at the deadline but I'm not holding my breathe.
