[Feigen] D'Antoni said Harden is "devastated." Open to considering strategic rest.

love him or hate him at the end of the day we are all Rockets fans and want to win a championship. it's become painfully obvious a second star is going to be a necessity to make that happen.

 

Are there people who truly, honest to God, are just now figuring this out? Seriously?

 

Sure, Pete.

But a second star barring any major injuries would give us a better chance, still nowhere close to a sure fire thing to beat the Spurs, or even Memphis or Utah for that matter.

I will be interested as always to see what they do during the off season and after the preseason.

 

Man I can't believe you guys still complain about this. Did you guys really think rockets had a chance to win this year?
I would be upset if we did but it was clear we did not especially after we lost one of our only two centers.

The 11 games in 29 days doesn't mean anything. These guys work hard when they are not playing, they train and they never put the ball down especially this late in the season. on top of that, poppavich had a great game plan of posting up harden with aldridge and making him fight for rebounds and pressuring him when he brought the ball up. yeah I think he got tired in the last game and we did not adjust. It's over.

i don't care what any of you say. It was just one game and we were outcoached and undermanned. you can literally cover for any position in the NBA except for the center spot.

 

I'm surprised anyone thought we'd get past the Spurs with just James Harden. I mean sure, after that first game it looked possible but now does it really?

The Spurs were just beating down the Warriors...they lost Kawhi...and still almost won that game.

Sure Harden was pathetic in game 6, but people were really not giving enough credit to a 60 win team. That first game proved to be more about hot shooting and exactly what Manu said after that game that they weren't prepared for the Rockets after playing the Grizzlies. Once they adjusted they played significantly better.

I mean we had maybe 1% shot at winning it all this year and that 1% was basically everyone getting hurt so that they too would become one superstar teams.

Harden is just not elite enough to carry his team by himself to a championship. Not many guys in NBA history have done that.

 

how many times has this been brought up. Nevermind, the fact that houston lost. that's the real issue. It's the fact that houston's mvp/leader quit, gave up, whatever you want to call it. He left nothing on that floor in probably the biggest game of his career thus far at home. People want to make these excuses that houston needs this and that. Everyone knows that already. It wasn't a championship or bust thing. At least not for me for sure. None of that matters if your best player decides to forget how to play basketball for whatever reason. Had harden played game 6 like it was his last, hardly any of us would be having all these issues about what happened. If the end result was still an L, then so be it. We just accept the spurs are better but we wouldn't be questioning wtf happened to Harden. The laziness, decision making, effort, indecisiveness and so on were not characteristic of what we've seen from Harden all year long. It was simply a inexcusable showing from the start and maybe years from now we'll finally hear about what happened.

lol at outcoached and undermanned in a game 6 where houston all of a sudden loses by 40 without their best player and TP. where they've actually blown them out twice and were 30 second away from beating them a 3rd time. That's basically just throwing in the towel led by the "leader"

 

This isn't a bad thing. Some of y'all gotta realize that after the 1st round, unless you're Golden State and Lebron, there's no such thing as a "sure fire thing". You get the best team you can and see what happens.

 

I have no clue . . . but this is precisely the point of the list of Harden conspiracy theories @ROXTXIA made up. We don't know if it was sulking, the flu, a concussion, a deliberate attempt to sabotage the game, someone slipped him a mickie, exhaustion, or anything else. Sulking is as good a hypothesis as any at the present moment. We honestly do not know what caused Harden's collapse in Game 6. What's your theory?

 

Right - this was always the case. We can't take our success this season as evidence that we can do this with Harden alone.

 

I think I have stated my theory in one of the 101 Harden threads.

Simply put, I don't buy any theory that blame something outward of Harden, conspiracy, point shaving, MDA's short rotation, physical exhaustion, strip clubbing, etc. I believe it is something inside. Sulking is one "inside" theory. But I just don't see what he was sulking about. I think the simplest theory would be that Harden is just weak minded. It probably has some overlapping with the sulk theory. I think he just can't handle the pressure of carrying a team. If it was fatigue, it ain't physical fatigue. It's mental fatigue. He has a strong body but a weak mind.

 

I buy that . . . sorry I didn't catch it in the other thread. I really think putting the list in a separate thread and letting people vote on their pet theory would be a service. If I get some time later I might do it, I wouldn't want anyone to interpret it as James-bashing, and I know I'm accused at times of starting stupid threads--but I think that one would be a good one.

 

Deserves its own thread.

 

Two things from my point of view, which obviously means my opinion.

1. Harden shouldn't need rest. His pace of play is much slower and less intense than many others. I buy that he was fatigued at the end of game 5.
2. Let's say the season and banging down low at the end of game 5 made him tired. I still can't see why it would make him come out from the get go in game 6 the way he did. I can understand if you come out and things just don't go right. You get discouraged, your body language shows it, which it does on Harden plenty. Then you quit, or are spent.

I think it was SAS that said it, if it was Westbrook (or really any other star you can name), they would have gone out and TRIED to score 60. I was only slightly concerned when Harden faltered down the stretch vs. the Warriors two seasons ago. I was slightly concerned again, when Harden couldn't hit the game winner in...game 3? Hey, you miss some, you make some. Again, I was a little concerned when he faltered down the stretch in game 5.

But when he came out with that, not going to take a shot, lazy passes, blame others for his own mistakes...now I'm very concerned about who we have leading this team. Maybe something was wrong, but he himself said, "I'm good."

 

Right..no one is comparing Harden to Kobe and Bron as it comes to their resume...at least I'm not. However, the point is they both laid eggs and still raised the trophy. The only redemption left for Harden is to raise that trophy also and watch how quick the mainstream media narrative changes as it did for Lebron and Kobe when Kobe Lakers beat the Celtics as a TEAM...but comparing resumes that's another topic all together

 

He started after you and your boyfriend had the kiss in demonstration.

 

Got his azz lolol

 

You mean two other all stars

 

I believe definitely he is afraid of the big moment

 

Lebron got lots of flaks in his first Cleveland stint. He quit on several occasions in the playoffs. Then there was The Decision and he deserved plenty of disrespect. Even after he formed the superteam in Miami and won a couple of chips, people still thought that he needed the crutch of two other stars to win.

The real redemption for LeBron, IMO, was last year when he beat the team that had broken the winning record with an inspiring performance.

 

Harden needs rest when he is hounded defensively out high. The Spurs turned him into a spinning top out there. He needed another great ball handler/distributor out there alongside him to relieve the ball pressure. About 15 possessions a game where he spots up weak side and lets another creator create strong side would do wonders for Harden's stamina down the stretch.