Nah. Still too expensive and out of shape. We can't have a guy Udoka is yelling at to play defense AND he's too fat to keep up AND he has an attitude about it. You don't know anything about team culture if you think it wouldn't matter that your lead ball handler is the anti-christ of your team culture. Don't @ me either, that's still my second favorite player in Rockets history and it hurts me to say all that about him. I'd love for him to retire here once he's getting paid a logical number like $10-15m.
If the Rockets really wanted Harden, they would have signed him over VanVleet in '23 in the first place, without loss of assets
23/9/5 on 46/39/91. Still elite at 36 years old and looking the best he has in years. Adding him to KD, Sengun, and Amen would elevate this offense to levels it hasn't seen since...the Harden Rockets. Get it done, Stone.
How is he out of shape when he's moving the best he has in years? He's shooting 75%(!) at the rim currently. You think he's beating his man and finishing consistently because he's fat? C'mon, you're better then this.
It is more some die hard Harden fans' wishes .......Harden played with Durant and for Ime as assistant in Brooklyn, he never made it to the Finals either. Since then OKC found 3 Harden successors in Shaivonte thru a fleecing trade, JayDub and Ajay Mitchell......and Topic is not even healthy. It is uncanny and Houston fans still yearn for an aging guy.
Sorry dude but I can see he's fat. That's a fact. His belly is protruding out more than ever, and in fact he got fat exactly when I predicted he would (the summer after he secures a contract). The entire Clippers fanbase knows it. The NBA world knows it. I know it. Your eyes know it. The only thing is you're looking for an excuse for why it's ok to be fat. Your explanation is: it's ok because he has a good small sample size. For me, being fat in athletics is a sign of the person's mental state and it is a physical drag that is costing opportunities - I have zero interest in trying for the millionth time to make it work with a fat player only to realize they get crushed when games get serious late in the season or playoffs. Charles Barkley, Daishen Nix, Usman Garuba, Chris Paul (season 2), you name it, we've tried it. We're not psychologists and we're not dietitians. It's not our place to fix these problems. This guy has made the second most money in NBA history of all players to have ever played. If he can't fix this, there's something really wrong with his mentality. I love what he gave us, but he doesn't understand that the little things count and talent doesn't fix everything. If in your principles about debate, it's ok to favor a small sample size over the universally understood and historically proven fact that being fat slows you down, then it's just not possible for us to debate this. Our debate rules are just too far apart and it's ok to agree to disagree here.
I'm actually not using small sample size stats as the basis of my argument, it just happens to back it up as well. The basis of my argument is eye test. You say his belly is protruding, and I say his first step looks the best it has in years. Does that look like a fat man blowing past Zion Williamson here?
A fat man can blow past a bad defender. I've seen it hundreds of times. You're changing the goal posts here. I'm saying he's fat. Being fat is an objective thing. If you are heavier, bigger without being stronger then you're fatter. If you want to have a debate about whether a person who got fatter can get better at driving, that's a separate discussion I have no interest in and for which there's no evidence except a small sample. I'm being honest with you. Not being combative. I'm sincerely not interested at all in that discussion about whether it can be ok for a 30-something $40m guard to get fatter in basketball because he had a good few weeks. I understand your perspective, thank you.
I don't understand this thread. Our young kids are finally graduating and you want to bring in someone to teach 3rd grade math and throwing spitballs.
