Its not about if you fail, its how you look doing it. If you blow a 3-1 lead as the inferior team to a team without its top scorer and rebounder. After playing amazingly for the first 6 games, you take 2 shots in the second half of game 7, where you would face a 6 seed if you win and therefore an easy path to a conference finals, and demand a trade out, you didn't quit! You simply couldn't handle carrying all these scrubs! However, if you lose a game 6 as the inferior to a team without its top scorer, after playing very well for 4 3/4 games, and take only 8 shots in the elimination game that would have set you on an easy path to the Conference Finals, then its obvious that you quit, and no excuses should be made. Honestly, I think both Kobe and Harden simply checked out, but since Harden never played with prime Shaq, this defines his playoff career.
or howbout since Harden didn't have a prime shaq or at least another superstar last year, he single handedly carried the heaviest burden to the most wins which simply exhausted him physically and mentally this is how morey, les, tilman, mda, cp3 saw it.. not by rockets hating media or lofs or kmart fans or dwert fans or jeremy lamb fans
does driving to the hole agressively and relentlessly a clear sign of lack of effort? and who for the whole regular season and playoffs could have single handedly carried the rockets farther than harden
To imply Harden is without fault is ludicrous, we should have gotten past the Spurs and while I don't know if he was concussed, I do know what checking out looks like (he could have done both). We have underachieved in the postseason before, most notably in 2014 against Portland. Yes Lin and Jones were god-awful but Harden was underachieving as well. We lose in 6 to the clippers if Smoov doesn't turn into Curry for a quarter and a half, and underachieve our seeding twice in a row. If Russ had even a modicum of self-control and situational awareness last year in the first round, that series goes to 7. Harden is irreplaceable and untouchable for this team, nobody outside of LeBron can even come close to what he can do on offense. But Harden is no LeBron. James Harden in the playoffs is like Russian Roulette, five times out of 6, nothing much is going to change, one time out of 6, either you get shot and die (15TOs, Game 6, 2012 finals), or your opponent gets shot and dies (45 against Warriors, Coming back from down 3-1, 2012 WCF). This game becomes more unsustainable as you have to hope your opponent loses 4 times, you can only lose once.
yeah harden's not perfect.. but all the rockets teams he's been on has more flaws than him.. harden didn't hold back the rockets from a chip. its the other way around.. LOL now its hardens fault OKC didn't win a ring? he's the reason they got to the finals.. and they never got back there without him
