Stars will not want to play with Harden

The thing that drives me crazy with Harden is those damn lazy ass turnovers. He needs to evolve them out of his game. But lets be real, he could have evolved us right out of the playoffs when they were 11-14 and $250 million worth of contracts ( Capela & Paul) were on the sidelines. These guys should evolve into better ( Capillow) and more reliable ( Paul) players in the regular season so we can " load manage" Harden about 20-30 games to reduce his mileage for the playoffs. Let the team carry the load. Gordon should evolve those 2 prolonged shooting slumps out of his game every year. Dantoni needs to evolve away from playing Tucker at Center and four guards under 6'5 on the floor at critical moments. Morey needs to evolve and stop telegraphing every move in the media and get bigger wing players that can help rebound, defend and win 50/50 balls. Fertita needs to evolve his big talk into some big spending for a title.

Point is there is enough blame for the whole organization. But I agree if you are saying everyone needs to get their ish together.

 

That is quite possibly the biggest reach I've ever seen on ClutchFans.

And of course it would be in a DaDakota thread.

 

This is all about Money ya'll. CP3 came here for 40million/yr + tax incentives.

 

Yes but Westbrook doesn't pout when somebody besides him has the ball, especially in the playoffs. Plus he competes EVERY possession unlike James. Westbrook's a better teammate

 

Forreal

Rocket River

 

Your story is factually incorrect.

For those too old to correctly remember back to the '90s, here's what happened

Olajuwon fractured his orbital socket in January of '91. He came back and later in the season the team had a 13 game winning streak. Olajuwon played in all 13 games of the streak. During that year, Olajuwon averages 21.2 pts on 17.1 FGA and 25% useage.

1992 - the season following Hakeem's supposed "learning to play more team oriented". The Rockets win 42 games, a drop of 10 games games from the previous season's 52. They end up not making the playoffs that season. Olajuwon averages 21.6 pts on on 16.8 FGA and 25.6% useage. This is the season that the Rockets accused Hakeem of faking an injury and suspend him. Olajuwon then demands a trade, calls owner Charlie Thomas a "coward" and said that the team was being run by fools.

1993 - The Rockets open the season in Japan for two games vs the Sonics. On the long plane ride, Olajuwon and owner Charlie Thomas talk and smooth things over. The Rockets go on to win 55 games. Olajuwon scoring average jumps to a career high 26.1 pts on 19.5 FGA and 28.8% useage (career high).

1994 - The Rockets win 58 games and the NBA championship. Olajuwon is MVP putting up 27.3 pts/game (career high) on 21.2 FGA (career high) and a useage of 29.8 (career high).

1995 - The Rockets only win 47 games and are the #6 seed but they end up winning the title again. Olajuwon averages 27.8 pts (career high) on 21.5 FGA (career high) with a useage of 31.7 (career high).

1996 - The Rockets only won 48 games and get swept out of the 2nd round by the Sonics. Olajuwon averaged 26.9 on 20.8 FGA and a useage of 31.9 (career high).

So basically, after you say Hakeem learned to play more team oriented, his shot attempts and useage steadily went up. Our championship years were career highs in shot attempts and useage. In '87 Hakeen averaged 2.9 assists. His career high for assists only ended up being 3.6. In the playoffs it was even more of a 1 man show.

'94 playoffs- Olajuwon averages 28.9 pts on 22.3 FGA and a useage of 31.4

'95 playoffs - Olajuwon averages 33 pts on a whopping 26.2 FGA and a 35.9 useage. Just for comparision purposes, Harden averaged 24 FGA in last season's playoffs.

Sounds more like "Give Hakeem the ball and get out of the way" which is really what it was. Here's a great quote from George Karl in '93 :

"The Rockets are pretty simple," Seattle Coach George Karl said. "It's Hakeem right, Hakeem left, and Hakeem down the middle."

Hakeem was at his most ball dominant in our championship years. I'm sure that you remember it differently but it's simply not true. Many people tell similar stories of Jordan learning to trust teammates and share the ball. Then you go look at his stat in the last 3 championshiop seasons and you see that he was at his most ball dominant.

 

I only wish these complaint threads were actually researched. Time of possession stats for every individual player are available since the 2013/2014 season . The idea that Harden has the ball soooooo much more than other ball dominant players in the league is straight up ignorance of reality.

Do Portland or Dallas or Philly or Atlanta or whatever Lebron team run an offense not conducive for teammates to thrive? They all have extremely ball dominant players.

 

All this evolving you’d think they’re Pokémon.

 

Thank you for your service.

Rocket RIver

 

Obviously Morey basically not working on signing any more.

Rockets FA signing is over.

Saving money again.

SMH.

 

Meanwhile, he's posting **** like this instead of working on strengthening our lineup:

 

I want the DD rebuttal on his falsified timeline of events.... b****ES

 

Take that b****ES!

 

It doesn’t fit his lame narrative so you won’t get one. The hilarious thing is we got better because we gathered more talent and shooting (Horry, Cassel,Ellie) Hakeem just like Harden made the pass out of the double team we just had players who made them pay.

 

But did Hakeem ever QUIT in a playoff game like Harden did in game 6 at HOME against a Spurs team without Kawhi and Parker?

Hakeem was a playoff monster, Harden regularly goes meek come playoff time even when Rockets are favored

 

Morey actually spoke to Capela and EG prior to the start of the FA signing period to let them know that if we had the chance to sign an A-level star, they would likely have to be dealt to make it happen.

I'm sure some of you will spin that as cold and heartless, but in reality it's a pretty player-oriented thing to do, to let them know that they'll be hearing rumors and that it could happen, even if we value what they bring to the table. Often this kind of thing is never even discussed with non-superstar players. The fact that Morey made the effort to talk this over with them in advance will hopefully help them reinvest with the team by the time training camp starts.

 

As long as it's not his attitude, I think any fear on free agents part would be wrong. We just need to emphasize an offense that doesn't rely so heavily on iso.

 

I wouldn’t call players not signing with rockets because they don’t want to play with harden. It is more like they don’t see a fit with a number of things, every player wants to be the man and it is more of an ego thing on their part. The organization has backed harden to a fault, back their philosophy and back our coach. Players don’t see how they can fit it. The rockets have staked their ground and not everyone will come to it. Such is everything else in life. To blame this on Harden is wrong. Because we do things differently than everyone else people bash it because they don’t understand it and at the end of the days, players are scared because they are resistant to change and will challenge the way they play basket ball. But look at all the players that have come and left, they either thrived or got exposed.

 

Regularly? Really? I think that this is another case of Perception vs Reality.

Here's Hakeem's stats from our two championship years:

'94 - 28.9pts, 11.0 reb, 4.3 ast, .568 TS%, 22.3 FGA
'95 - 33.0 pts, 10.3 reb, 4.5 ast, .560 TS%, 26.2 FGA

Here's Harden's stats from the last 5 playoffs:

'15 - 27.2 pts, 5.7 reb, 7.5 ast, .620 TS%, 17.3 FGA
'16 - 26.6 pts, 5.2 reb, 7.6 ast, .555 TS%, 20.0 FGA
'17 - 28.5 pts, 5.5 reb, 8.5 ast, .583 TS%, 19.8 FGA
'18 - 28.6 pts, 5.2 reb, 6.8 ast, .548 TS%, 22.6 FGA
'19 - 31.6 pts, 6.9 reb, 6.6 ast, .567 TS%, 24.0 FGA

Here's Jordan's stats from his final championshp 3-peat

'96 - 30.7 pts, 4.9 reb, 4.1 ast, .564 TS%, 22.6 FGA
'97 - 31.1 pts, 7.9 reb, 4.8 ast, .524 TS%, 26.2 FGA
'98 - 32.4 pts, 5.1 reb, 3.5 ast, .545 TS%, 25 FGA

That's Harden's last 5 years vs 5 championship years and finals MVP years of Olajuwon and Jordan.

Are you seeing a huge difference?

I understand what the narrative is, but Harden has a higher career playoff TS% than Lebron, Jordan or Olajuwon.