Saturday's game was ESPN, right? Monday's is TNT, and I highly doubt those crews have any overlap, so she shouldn't be there.
RIght now imo the best duo doing games is Spero Dedes and SVG. I am hoping the get the game on TNT today. I think Doris is a decent color commentator but she is has a hard time holding back her biases. Normally its not a huge issue but Saturday's game was not her best game. She is much like Hubie Brown in that she roots for the "underdog" (which is a bit ironic since if anything Houston should be the underdog in this series - same record and missing Westbrook) but with OKC down 2-0 she (and for that part ESPN/TNT/NBA ) did not want to see OKC go down 3-0 and pretty have at best a gentleman's sweep of a series. The thing that she said that really bothered me during the broadcast wasn't the rant about a double foul at the end but in the middle of the game Harden was shooting free throws and she brings up how James "is right we are probably going to look back at his career once he is retired and appreciate a whole lot more than we do now" -- That bothered me because how James is portrayed and perceived fall squarely on the shoulders of the media which she is part of. She could do her part to help change the narrative but does not and admits that there is a negative bias against James. The game is over - I was more annoyed at the missed 3s (Looking squarely at Gordon here) and lost opportunities there. Hopefully Doris does look back and see how she called the game Saturday and improves because I do believe she is one of the better color commentators in the bubble right now. I would much rather have her than Greg Anthony, Jim Jackson, Chris Webber thats for sure.
The narrative of Harden being a foul baiter is on him, not the media. He's notorious for attempting to foul bait on clutch game moments when most players would just care about getting a clean shot attempts off.
I wasn't talking about "foul baiting" but more the downplay of his offensive accomplishments (scoring and passing) and the lingering narrative of him being an extremely poor defender.
If I say Donald Trump is a narcissistic idiot, it would be predictable also but the statement is still accurate.
Defense? That part is semi-undeserved. Yes the media narrative lags behind in terms of Harden's defensive effort. He's definitely improved that quite a bit the past few seasons and parts of the media still pretend it's 2016 still.
You still wrap it up in a vacuum to talk about Harden. In this SPECIFIC instance, it was Rockets ball on an inbound after OKC scored 2 points. There's almost 0 reason for Harden to try to bait a foul, and he wasn't trying to get in the face of Chris Paul to draw that foul, he was clearly trying to get open for the inbound pass. And now we arrive at Chris Paul, which NONE of you want to discredit, who does an even WORSE job at foul bating and you'd rather protect Chris Paul and Doris Burke over James Harden and the Rockets on a Rockets fan forum. This is ridiculous.
defense...inflated stats...selfish player...ball hog...manipulator of the rules with his stepback when what he’s doing is perfectly legal all part of his narrative, all undeserved
ugh, I hope not it’s not even her bias which is bad enough...she’s just extremely boring to listen to...every game she calls, she makes less exciting...she and her partner are the ESPN C-Team for a reason her voice is like a human sleep aid
thats the most stupid thing i've ever read here bro. Wow! You might want to save these kinds of opinions for the Texans room. SMH. Incredible. You're a 50-70 year old white male right?
Regardless, Harden has often gotten called for the foul in cases like that. We can complain about whether that's fair or not, but the question remains whether there's a smarter way for him to deal with that kind of defense so he doesn't depend on the refs not whistling him for the foul. I think what @fchowd0311 is arguing is that Harden should try to be less dependent on the whims of referees, because you never know whether calls will go in your favor or not in pressure moments. That's my feeling, anyway.
