Speaking of our GM, check what he posted on twitter. I'm hoping this is a hint that he's going to grab star #3. Doesn't really seem to be his style, but I'll grasp, **** it.
No amount of rationalizing or amateur talent scouting will ever justify the idiocy of even thinking about trading for Harden when in his prime. It makes about as much sense as trading a dollar for 3 quarters hoping that those 3 quarters might appreciate in value.
This thread sucks. I never saw something like this for TMac, Yao's predictable season ending injuries, or Steve Francis. Who is our replacement? What can we trade for? Could we even land CP3 or similar by trading Harden? Harden is who he is. Instead of building around his weaknesses, people focus on it as if 95% of all the other stars don't go through the same growing pains. Newsflash, you don't have singular talents that can dominate the playoffs without the help from another superstar. Nowadays, there are 3 or 4. Do people even remember LeBron playing in Cle the first time, and how bad he was shat on by the media for his chokes? That's not Harden's fault for getting overwhelmed. If anything, it's Maurey's. Bless both of their hearts. It's frustrating to be close, but dems the breaks. If you want a 5 year rebuild, Sixers tickets are still cheap.
Sorry, but it's far more juvenile to want one of the greatest Houston athletes of all time traded every single year for the same ridiculous and obviously worse trade packages just because we're salty we got eliminated. We do it every single year and every single year it is tired and dumb. Some of these dudes wish we would have traded Hakeem Olajuwon in his prime.
Because he rarely if ever has a bad regular season game?? Lol. Because regular season games aren't quite as important?? Because you actually don't see those threads bumped ever? Because it just isn't logical relative to human psychology? I think you're asking, to the extent there are HARDEN IS AMAZING threads, that when Harden has a bad regular season game, then if someone bumps a HARDEN IS AWESOME thread that was created some time in the past to say "see y'all fools are crazy, he's clearly NOT awesome!!", why don't people like me respond in those threads saying it's dumb to bump? I just don't see all those events happen that often. What's more, the analogy in this case would be better if we're talking about original threads created after playoff performance. But if it does start happening, I'll try and chime in noting thread bumps like that are dumb
I guess the general consesus is that the better posters who recognize, that Harden isn’t perfect but he’s been amazing for this franchise, that we should take the higher road & stop bumping these type of threads to prove posters who are already considered idiots, wrong. I can see the logic in that.
Super reasonable and logical response. Thank you. And hopefully, if anyone has read through my posts in this thread or other similar ones post last season's playoffs, you'd note that I'm not some crazy "trade Harden" hater. I love Harden, root for him hard, love games like the other night... I just am trying to be logical about it. If you read through my posts, you'd note I pointed out things like: - EVERY playoffs, not just once every few years, Harden has at least 1 game, usually an even more important one, where he just craps his pants performance wise. We know which one was the main one last year. Though there was also 4thQ+OT of game 5. 2 years ago was a forget season, though he had bad games (game 1) and good games in that first round loss. 3 years ago, we know which games were problematic for him. Games 6 against Clippers, games 3 and 5 against the Warriors. 4 years ago they lost the first 2 games at home against the Blazers with James putting in pretty horrible showings on the whole on the way to getting upset in 6 games. 5 years ago he struggled against OKC. 6 years ago isn't super relevant. He struggled in the Finals but that's ok. - If it seems like I'm being extra critical of him... I AM. If you are going to bring up names like Lebron and Kobe, then it means being extra critical. - I didn't have the time to do it then, nor do I now, but I do recall looking and noting that on the whole, Harden's performance (as measured by GameScore... not the be all end all, but at least a quick 1 stat look) in the playoffs, relative to the regular season, was both lower, and more volatile... relative to other "superstars" - Even the superstar best of the best have a few flaws... except maybe MJ (though for a while there it was make him shoot outside). Lebron can't hit free throws, and is more willing passer perhaps than you'd want down the stretch. Kobe was a ballhog and an inefficient one. Durant shrunk repeatedly in big games. Hakeem didn't trust his teammates much of his career. Dirk didn't play defense. Curry didn't play defense. Wade wasn't a great outside shooter and relied too heavily on FTs and was oft-injured. Shaq couldn't hit free throws. Etc, Etc... - But the problems with Harden, which CONCERN me relative to playoffs, in a repeating pattern, as I noted: (i) relies too heavily on FT shooting, (ii) tries to be too much of a volume 3 point shooter and doubles down for some inexplicable reason when he's shooting worse, hence the multiple 3-10, 2-11, 1-7, 3-14 type 3 point games, (iii) is a liability, sometimes a HUGE liability on defense, (iv) struggles when guarded by strong, capable, athletic wing defenders in the playoffs, (v) can be a turnover machine, and (vi) mentally shrinks at times. - On top of all that, the GSW factor is HUGE. I'm not in favor of everyone just throwing in the towel. That wouldn't be exciting. But you'd be insane to think that even with Harden, CP3, and even getting another star you'd be anything other than an underdog and likely a big underdog against the GSW for the next 3 years. But look, I haven't given up on Harden. Of course players can change throughout their career. Maybe he gets hot for 2 months, every game, one year in the playoffs. And if he does that, and ESPECIALLY taking down GSW, oh man that would be legacy defining. And the addition of CP3... well, I have hope... though I think I tend to be a little more realistic there than most as well... adding a 32 year old PG who has struggled in the playoffs as far as winning himself, that pushes Harden back to a position where he wasn't quite as good, and is also a ball dominant guard... well on paper it will require more work than the seamless mesh I think many hoped it would be. That's ignoring the injury part that has reared its ugly head. And of course its fun to at least be in the race, see what further tricks DM pulls out of his hat, etc. I think we're all Rockets fans. We all (generally) root for them to succeed. I try to be as optimistic as the next guy, I just eschew blind optimism. And oh, btw, Randle/Russell/Tatum for Harden is generally laughable, indeed. HOWEVER, count me in the boat that sees Tatum as ultimately having real superstar potential [though, absolutely, that's where Harden already is].
I think at a minimum it makes sense to wait until after the next year's playoffs, since this thread was created to point out how Harden shrinks in important moments in the playoffs. When Harden is consistently amazing in the playoffs this upcoming year, that's when you should bump threads to prove idiot posters they were wrong. I'll happily be that idiot poster then!!
I could definitely adhere to that. Although best case scenario, we win the title & everyone forgets about all this.
You do realize that some of the "for trading Harden" posters do NOT have a reputation of being juvenile on this board. I am not saying that I agree with everything they say, just that these are respected posters. In every aspect of life, be it politics, religion, or sports, there will always be reasonable advocates and mindless extremists on both sides of an issue. Gloating after some anecdotal "victory" does not convince people on the other side. And it certainly do not make the community more civil.
Sorry. Late night. I guess it's pretty obvious that it's just a reference for our team's philosophy. Thanks for calling me an idiot though. Appreciate that.
2016 was a throwaway year that I don't take much away from. 2015, you bring up a lot of examples of bad games while ignoring the good games... Harden played absolutely incredibly in games 1, 2, and 4 against the Warriors, for example. You could argue the law of averages got to him in other games. His overall playoff stats in 2015 were truly stellar. By many metrics, even better than his regular season, shoulda-been-MVP performance. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Selective memory. He generally dominates on the whole in the playoffs at least about as well as in the regular season (notsomuch last year, largely because we played two top five defenses in the playoffs), but because the Rockets don't come out on top (just like 29 of the 30 teams in the NBA every year), people amplify in their memory the games he sucks. Especially since those games [naturally] line up with games that we lose, being that he's our franchise player. Look at someone like Kobe Bryant's career elimination game performances, and tell me how well he played... Everyone has wiped that from their memory because Kobe won a few rings, so all was forgiven, but he was quite often trash when the Lakers weren't winning. Sometimes even when they were (game 7, 2010). When bringing up those other superstars I mentioned, I wasn't trying to imply that Harden was quite as good as Lebron or Durant, but just that if even transcendent, all-time talents like them are capable of major playoff failures and then bouncing back, maybe we should try to think bigger picture with Harden.
just curious, how many wins would Kobe have single handedly (without Shaq, Pau, Odom) carried the rockets to last year?
On the contrary, I specifically noted that, too me, Harden seems to have lower lows, and more volatility in his playoff games compared to regular season, and probably more so than some of the other elites. I didn't do any analysis, mostly eye test... but I did some real quick just now. Using GameScore from bball reference (simplest game performance score in one stat I could easily test), since Harden's been on the team, he's had: 2012/2013: - Regular season. Average 19.8, Min 2.8, Max 35.2, Standard Deviation 9.4 - Playoffs. Average 17.5, Min 3.9, Max 25.8, Standard Deviation 7.9 2013/2014: - Regular season. Average 19.6, Min 0.0, Max 41.3, Standard Deviation 8.9 - Playoffs. Average 17.4, Min 4.4, Max 31.3, Standard Deviation 8.6 2014/2015: - Regular season. Average 21.7, Min 2.3, Max 42.1, Standard Deviation 10 - Playoffs. Average 21.3, Min 1, Max 41.0, Standard Deviation 9.6 2015/2016: - Regular season. Average 21.8, Min 3.5, Max 41.0, Standard Deviation 8.4 - Playoffs. Average 19.1, Min 2.6, Max 26.7, Standard Deviation 8.7 2016/2017: - Regular season. Average 24.3, Min 4.8, Max 48.7, Standard Deviation 8.7 - Playoffs. Average 20.5, Min 1.4, Max 31.8, Standard Deviation 9.9 That might be hard to read, so let me summarize. Every one of the 5 years, his playoff average gamescore has been lower. In three of the five years, including his last three, his playoff low gamescore has been lower... meaning in the 5-17 playoff games each of those years he put up his worst performance of the whole season, playoffs or regular season. Also of note here, some of those lows are really pretty bad games. A gamescore of 1.4 is horrible. A gamescore of 2.6 is horrible. A gamescore of 1 is horrible. In every one of the five years, his best performance (max) was in the regular season. Standard deviation is about a wash. The last two years have been more volatile in the playoffs, with the 3 prior being slightly more volatile in the regular season. Would love to see this or similar performance for other greats. But who has time. I know Kobe dominated throughout the 09 playoffs basically. In 10 was the year he kind of sucked that game 7 win vs Celtics, but that was still a gamescore of 9.9. 05/06 and 06/07 were the years he lost in the first round against Phoenix, including one game where he "gave up", and he still didn't post gamescores nearly as low as James' lows. But sure, I'd have to check against the all time greats across the board. Also, bear in mind, in my opinion, gamescore, like most stats, is offense heavy. If they truly factored in defense well, Harden would slip a little more relative to his superstar peers. Point is, I absolutely agree he plays AMAZING at times in the playoffs. But the stats support the eye test. His lows are VERY LOW, and happen every year. He has to have a year (or two, or three) where that doesn't happen in the playoffs.
Yes, you get it. They fear the beard. They want the Rockets to trade Harden to set the franchise back years. So that whatever crappy team not named Houston Rockets can gain ground or get them off their backs. Guessing Warriors, Spurs or Mavs trolls start these dumb*** threads. Or bitter Jeremy Lin fans
