dayum. Yep. I don't understand folks around here that wanted him back. James Harden is a false prophet.
As the old Irish joke goes, "oh I just Fed one sheep and now I'm a sheep Fer?" That said, Harden's playoff failures didn't happen just once. He's got a string of playoff failures. And it's not just that he had some bad luck. When it comes to Harden, don't look at WHAT happened ...look at HOW it happened. If all you look at is the final results and box scores, you are missing a lot of important context. Context matters.
If Harden was trash in the playoffs because he was old then there's no reason to trade for him. He's not getting any younger, nor is his salary cheap. He disappeared in playoff games in Philly even with MVP Embiid and Maxey doing a lot of heavy lifting. Now he's three years older. I was all about adding him in free agency over FVV. He could get us to the playoffs and give the young guys valuable playoff experience, but we're beyond that point now. It's one thing to use free cap space to sign him, trading future assets for him at this point is crazy.
Noted clutch playoff performer James Harden. Never quits, always balls out. Carry us like he did on the bench against the clippers? Or against a parker and khawi-less spurs? or up in game 6 against the warriors? The dude is a CHOKER. no amount of glazing removes that.
It's not hard to figure out, the Rockets are a win-now team but they have an absolutely alarming lack of organized playmaking and perimeter shotmaking, and Harden provides both at an all star level literally straight out of the box wherever he goes, even at age 36. What is hard to understand about that?
The Rockets are a win-now AND win-later team. With such a young team full of talent, Stone has said as such. It's a balance of being competitive right now but remaining so. There's only so many old dudes you can take on. See the last quote below. Here's a couple quotes from Stone at presser after the GS loss. “I will give you an inside betting tip that I think continuity is very, very likely,” the Rockets’ GM said, according to Lerner (subscription required). “Last summer, we didn’t make changes because we were really comfortable with where we were, and we’d seen really good things from our team in terms of kind of a good progression. And I think we saw more of the same this year. So I think the bar to make changes is very high.” Stone also observed that trading for an impact player doesn’t guarantee he “will be the same player in our environment that (he was) in the last one,” meaning the Rockets would proceed with caution and would be seeking the right fit if they go that route. As for whether or not Houston would target a player who fits the timeline of its young core in that hypothetical scenario, Stone confirmed that would be a consideration but not necessarily a deciding factor. “It’s more important how good you are and what you can bring,” he said. “But we do want to be very competitive for as long as we possibly can.” Rockets GM Stone Talks Green, Continuity, Adams, More | Hoops Rumors
You asked why people thought Harden filled a need and I don't think there's any better answer than last night when the Rockets coughed up a lead and a game bc they couldn't even get the ball up court to run a play in the second half and had to resort to Sengun as the point guard That said the last thing any of us need to hear this AM is Stone talking up the value of his own book to justify sticking with an obviously flawed team. Teams that are equipped to win now and later are OKC and SA - neither of them requires a 37 year old to play 40 minutes carrying the offense to eek out wins (or an injured backup C and PG both past 30) I'm well aware the Rockets *think* they are sitting on a gold mine of talent and that Sengun is the next Jokic and Thompson is Magic Johnson - but, it doesn't seem that way after having to watch them this year.
Harden wasn't the answer this season but he damn sure should have been signed instead of Fred. He would have accelerated all of our youth players development. FO was afraid he would negatively impact their work ethic but that always felt like a straw-man argument to me. James would have made Alperen look amazing and the brand of basketball we would have played with him throwing lobs to Jalen and Amen would have been absolutely electric to watch.
You make sound points. ...and relying of KD and Alp to be the PG is flawed. They need to get FVV back, not mortgage the future with Harden. As I said, Harden is fools gold. His stats look good but the guy is a trojan horse. I totally understand the argument FOR Harden. It just comes down to team strategy and culture. Harden doesn't fit the strategy or culture. Could he come in an contribute? Definitely? But it would clearly be a sacrifice. The only way to prove who is right is to run a simulation in two alternate universes. Without that, you just gotta make a call.
Jarrett Allen is averaging 24 ppg on 81% shooting his 1st 3 games with Harden Sengun has 55% TS on the season which is way below average…imagine what it would be next to James instead of having to create, he can just catch a pass off a scrambled defense in the PnR and go right up
People forget that this rant also was the catalyst to the Mavs organization going downhill as well less than a year later LUKA was traded away don’t care about them “being awarded” the number #1 pick. Most Mavs fans still don’t care about the team since Luka left lol. The nba can magnetball 40 point games for cooper Flagg all they want doesnt matter, Luka was that special to them
It's very clear that Ime & Stone don't want anything to do with the Harden show 2.0, it's a fair argument! But, they look pretty silly when the team has had a year-long deficit in Harden-centric skills, they're voluntarily roped into 2 more years of KD and they say things like "well this isn't our year let's try again next season" in their press conference. This is probably the best possible year they're going to get out of Kevin Durant, and they effectively gave up on it after Fred got hurt - maybe that's even the right move, but it doesn't look great and honestly makes this season (which will end in a first or, if we're exceedingly lucky, a second round out) seem kind of pointless, a lot more pointless than last season. Meanwhile the team gets more expensive and the "young talent" gets closer to just being "the guys here" It's weird to be upset with this current Rockets season after years of hitting rock bottom but something about this one is not super enjoyable despite the ostensibly good record.
As Fred said during the Clippers game the other night, the team is positioned where they need to be. If they can get healthy before the playoffs, there is no need to panic.
“Doesn’t fit the strategy or culture” lol Think their “culture” and “identity” walked out the door and is now in Phoenix. What is their “strategy and culture”? Not putting the ball in the basket, rebounding said misses Blowing leads; Watching teams go on 20-4 runs while you watch Iso Durant, Iso Sengun Struggling to score 95 points “We don’t want Harden because he isos too much and we want a “team game”” … Depends on iso Durant and iso Sengun to make something happen 90% of the time. Oh, we’re still pretending “they’re building something special with this core 7” and “Harden would disrupt that” Oh, we’re still pretending they’re a “tough hard nose team no one wants to mess with and no one wants to see” Keep on sucking the Ime/Fred dick krossfire. All fluff, all fake and everyone knows how it’s gonna end. “Top 5 offense” - fake “Top 5 3pt shooting” - fake “4th best team” - fake Watching Van Gundy ball and struggling to score 95 each night is not an “enjoyable” product. Maybe it was in 1996 or 2006 but damn sure not 2026. And after every loss, same ****: muh physicality, muh toughness, muh rebounding, we were soft
I love when you go on your rants we already play Harden-ball, just without James Harden 27th in apg 28th in pace 23rd in passes made per game 4th in isolation frequency but instead of Harden orchestrating it, we have KD and Sengun doing it dudes acting like we play like GS and Harden wouldn’t fit or like we’re set at PG, just wait for obese Mid VanVleet to come back Cavs play a fast paced, assist heavy style, and Harden fit right in Ime doesn’t even have an offense…the offense is so bad already, but imagine how cooked it would be if we weren’t some all-time great offensive rebounding team we literally rely on hustle, offensive boards off the bricks, and 37 y/o KD heroics just to scrape 100 points
I mean, FVV is out for the season (or on the small chance he's not, will be creaky at best on a reconstructed ACL) and Stephen Adams is out for the season; it's not an "if" it's a "when" the playoffs roll around, 2 pillars of the Rockets team vision (minimizing mistakes, FVV's primary value, and huge interior presence to compensate for lack of shooting/playmaking) won't be there. Hard to see a high ceiling or even getting out of the first round with those 2 things being true, which is fine if your top player is 23 not so muich when he's 37.
