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James Harden's Brooklyn Nets

Discussion in 'NBA Dish' started by jerryclark, Jan 13, 2021.

  1. RHU525

    RHU525 Member
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    Why did NFL decide to squash it? I'm just saying the NBA has bent to their players more than any other sport and I believe it's because they know it's possible. Even in a strike Lebron could go play in China and get paid double what he currently makes I bet.

    Because fans want to watch the best players at the sport. Otherwise we'd all watch the g league which we don't. If the top 30 players rallied the rest of the players they could easily start their own league today. 20-30 years ago this would have been impossible but with the amount of money available and social media and all these players business connections they could get it done. What does the owner really provide nowadays beside a stadium and they get 50% of the profit. College players would choose to play in the league that pays. In a new league where 100% of revenue goes to players they would make a ton more.

    Sure history and branding but would you really watch the Rockets if they just promoted the g-leaguers?
     
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  2. jordnnnn

    jordnnnn Member

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    I will agree. He is/was not “bad” compared to league average. But he wasn’t good either. And not close to the area where it’s viably efficient to go to regularly. I think the overall strategy of his shot selection was 100% the right thing to do in 95% of the cases. There were absolutely some times where it really didnt make sense to not even consider the shot.

    I know CP3s mid range attempts took a dip when he was here but he by no means abandoned it. I think they encouraged him to turn some of those attempts into more 3s but I don’t think they said don’t/you can’t take them, because he is one of those guys who hits the shot at the right %. And for the guys that we had that didn’t hit them at that right % we very sternly encouraged them to NOT take them. I also think we targeted cheaper players who weren’t great shooters period but could play a role in a switching defense to fit our strategy which exacerbated how few overall midrange shots we took. I think we learned that having a reliable mid range guy was almost a necessity to hit that last level. Paul was that guy and Harden wasn’t.

    Maybe Harden could have been better at it if he didn’t abandon it to the level he did, but from the hundreds of attempts we have on record over his career he was pretty average at the shot.

    I have never bought the football team abandoning the run analogy. It’s just not the same. The low number of possessions a football team has per game necessitates prioritizing first downs over going for the most efficient per yard play every time. There aren’t enough downs to let the math play out over a larger sample. I could go on…The games are just entirely different.
     
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  3. wekko368

    wekko368 Member

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    That's Lebron. What about the rest of the players in the league? That's what you're not getting.....the owners have so much leverage b/c of the players that aren't Lebron.

    No they couldn't. Where would the money come from? Who would fans root for? Individual players? That's all the more reason why most players would stay in the NBA with their guaranteed salaries.
     
  4. RHU525

    RHU525 Member
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    Obviously they would get money from TV deals. If Lebron and Curry went to ESPN and told them they are starting a league they would
    Jump all over that considering they already own ESPN.

    Heck they do pay per view or even social media. YouTube would pay them million. There are soo many platforms to get content out now a days and they all are sitting on a wad of cash. If they had this opportunity they would jump all over. The players could still rep cities in the new league. Honestly if they were smart they would rep areas. So like instead of OKC they pick 3 cities in Midwest and rotate generate a bigger fan base.

    But what you don't get is in the nba the other dudes don't matter. Do fans really care if Trevor Ariza isn't playing and replaced by James Ennis? They can find role players anywhere to fill up teams if everyone else isn't on board.

    Personaly I would enjoy this more than current NBA of super teams. Cuz if all the stars basically owned their own team their would be more loyalty and more parity in the league
     
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  5. wekko368

    wekko368 Member

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    I feel like you've put 2 seconds of thought into the logistics of forming a new league. It's a lot more complex than you think.

    This is a terrible idea. Can you imagine Houston and Dallas "sharing" a team?

    What you don't get is that not a single replacement level player would want to leave guaranteed NBA money to potentially earn LESS money in a players' league.
     
  6. Easy

    Easy Boban Only Fan
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    The football (or most head to head type of sports) analogy is valid in that the more predictable your offense is, the easier the defense can stop you. If your opponent finds a way to stop what you do best, and you have no other way to beat them, you are dead.

    I understand that football plays have a lot to do with the yardage you need to gain in a particular situation. But to simplify the analogy, from the efficiency POV, all 1st down plays from your own side of the field should always be passing plays, correct?
     
  7. RHU525

    RHU525 Member
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    Big cities with rivalries would stay the same. But smaller market teams should pick
    Up a bigger fan base to make it more equal.

    Even if non of the replacement level players played. They could just get guys from Gleague or whatever. Then what does the NBA have left? I'm just saying that it is more possible than you think. Of course their are complexities and things to be worked up but these guys have million dollar empires built up and full teams to run all sorts of stuff. I'm pretty sure they have the resources to make it happen.
     
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  8. jordnnnn

    jordnnnn Member

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    Agree to disagree.

    I don’t believe that him abandoning his mid range to the level he did made him so predictable that he could be reliably stopped. You can point to the small sample of playoff games but I personally attribute the teams failures in most of those scenarios more to roster limitations that forced Harden to do more than he was capable of…. Until we got CP3 and injuries did us in, not Hardens shot selection.

    I don’t think in the scenario you laid out that you should always pass. Because the games are different. You only have 3 downs and if you haven’t moved the chains then you punt and lose your possession. And I think football defenses are much more capable of recognizing what an offense is trying to do and reliably stopping them in a way that a basketball teams defense can’t reliably do against an all time player who has plenty of viable weapons to turn to other than the mid range.
     
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  9. DreamShook

    DreamShook Member

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    We all have best friends but this is getting weird. They're a couple. Harden needs to come out already, we support you! lol

     
  10. Salvy

    Salvy Member

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    The rumors are pouring in now, either they are totally dating or trolling... I wonder how @HP3 feels seeing Harden with another man....
     
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  11. TEXNIFICENT

    TEXNIFICENT Member

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    For real man. This is a tad strange.
     
  12. aelliott

    aelliott Contributing Member

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    Midrange is an incredibly inefficient shot. In the 10 seasons where Harden averaged at least one 3pt attempt per game, his best year was 42%. I'm not sure why you'd want a player taking an inefficient shot that he isn't good at.
     
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  13. aelliott

    aelliott Contributing Member

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    Not really. A 3 point shot is a much more efficient shot since it counts 50% more. Harden's ability to create open 3's is a huge advantage. Few players can generate the large number of open 3s that guys like Harden and Lillard can. At that volume, league average is pretty amazing and it's a big advantage.
     
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  14. aelliott

    aelliott Contributing Member

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    Not sure what you're basing this on.

    Harden was never a good midrange shooter. He was below average on a really inefficient shot. Not sure why you'd want him to take more of those. Even if he were average (last years midrange avg. was 41.1%) compared to the rest of the league it wouldn't matter. It's still a really bad shot. He might be above average from 3/4 court shots too but that doesn't mean that you want him taking those shots on a regular basis.

    Why do you say that Harden "stopped shooting the midrange"?

    Here's his 3 seasons in OKC:

    2010 38.6% on 1.5 attempts/game
    2011 40% on 1.2 attempts/game
    2012 40% on 1.0 attempts/game

    He wasn't really shooting midrange in OKC and he shot a bad percentage on the ones he took.

    His first 6 years in Houston, his attempts were 2.8, 3.1, 3.4, 3.9 and 2.0 midrange attempts per game. His percentage was still bad and he started reducing the attempts the next 3 seasons (1.8, 1.0, 0.3).
     
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  15. Sanctity

    Sanctity Member

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    There were and are gay players that remained anonymous their entire careers and lives according to Barkley. Seems more likely true for Harden. Perhaps his over indulgence in Strip Clubs was to masquerade his true sexual disposition?
     
    #5715 Sanctity, Sep 23, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2021
  16. TEXNIFICENT

    TEXNIFICENT Member

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    So the strip clubs are his real beard?

    Lmao! Gotcha! Maybe man, at the end of the day , whatever floats his boat!
     
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  17. Easy

    Easy Boban Only Fan
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    1. "Stop" is of course a bit of an exaggeration. His attempts did drop significantly in the last 3 years as a Rocket.

    2. He is below average, but only slightly in the 10-16' range. His 3pt percentage isn't elite either, just right at the league average. I was responding to a post that said he "sucked" at midrange, which is not true.

    3. I was not arguing that the midrange was an efficient shot. My point was that having more variety of shots might make the overall team offense more effective. It would be difficult to prove because there are many other factors that contribute to team offense. His TS% has not changed much over the years. So apparently the number of midrange shots does not really affect his individual efficiency. So saying that taking less midrange makes him more efficient is also not totally correct.
     
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  18. steddinotayto

    steddinotayto Contributing Member

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    I don’t think I came into this conversation advocating for James Harden to shoot more midrange. But if that’s how you interpreted my responses then I’ll say 1. You do you and 2. You’re interpretation is incorrect.

    I was responding or inserted myself in that conversation to defend that Harden wasn’t bad at the mid range and that’s been statistically proven. If you think average or slightly above average is bad then we can agree to disagree on that.
     
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  19. HP3

    HP3 Member

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    2. He is an elite three point shooter though. When you take into account the volume and shot creation, he's incredibly efficient.

    3. Never really been true either. Dont know where you are getting this from. You arent taking into account usage.
     
  20. Easy

    Easy Boban Only Fan
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    What does volume and shot creation has anything to do with what we are talking about. He is not a 3pt shooting specialist like some one-dimensional players. He is also not a 2pt shooting specialist. Both kinds of shots need to be created. You can't say his midrange is bad because the percentage is lower than the league average, and then turn around and say his 3pt shot is better than the percentage show.

    Again, what does usage has anything to do with this. We are talking about shooting efficiency.

    His TS% hovered around 60-62% in his last 5 years as a Rocket.
    In 2015-16, 22% of all his shots were midrange (from 10ft to 3pt line).
    In 2019-20, only 2% of all his shots were midrange. His midrange attempts dropped 10 times in 5 years, yet his TS% has not changed much. So arguing that shooting more midrange would make him less efficient just cannot be substantiated by data.
     
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