Yep, he's getting nervous, you can tell. Much as I'm usually a cheetah critic, he nailed it this time.
Actually you can. One of the oldest teams in the league, the Clippers, was on the 4th game in 5 nights on the road and we smashed them. And the Magic are the worst team in the league. Those are good wins, but hardly excellent basketball.
The Harden stat padder thing is making sense since I just saw the biggest irrefutable piece of evidence... He is 5 in the league in scoring Ground breaking revelation, if you score that high you are clearly a stat padder. Harden isn't even that good of a player, he just makes shots. Anyone can make shots. Even in the season high 46 points you guys can't sit there and tell me it wasn't just because he was making shots. He was just lucky they went in.
Maybe he's coming back fast and wanting to play because he enjoys playing? I dunno, I'm going to go with that.
I don't think the Rockets were better off without Yao, but Tracy McGrady and Dikembe Mutombo were the reason for very little dropoff. T-Mac's decline and Deke's retirement had a big say there.
Crap if someone says his name one more time "He-who-shall-not-be-named" will show up in this thread and derail it...
Rockets actually made to 2nd round without Tmac contributing anything positively. Just like Tmac and Deke had a big say, Asik and Lin also might hold this team above water for a certain period of time. But for the entire course of a 82 game season, Missing Yao or Missing Harden will have the same effect: A lot more losses and a lot less wins.
This thread is so full of awesomeness and sarcasm I couldn't hold off posting any longer. I've lurked here for a while but this season all my coworkers can't discuss the games (no Comcast) so I've found myself here a bit more often. I'm pretty sure I just saw a troll trolling a troll that pretended to be a LOH. Inception at its finest? I'm looking forward to getting into some heated troll...er.... discussions about our favorite team in the future. On a side note, if you think it's bad here you should check out the chron.com forums. What's a fancy word for amazingly sad? Abominable?
LMFAO #1 Harden wanting to come back is bad? So the fact he is a competitor and wants to play is a negative.... just wow. #2 He cares a lot about his stats? Pray tell that you know this? He is the Rockets best offensive player (not even close) and our most efficient player, he should be shooting the most. #3 He will comeback to keep the team from winning without him? Pretty sure he is confident in his status on the team. Beating a gassed Clippers team and a crappy Magic team doesn't threaten Harden's status. You sound very petty.... further you pass off your biased opinion as fact.
I can't recall the other 3 games, mainly because I didn't watch them, but yesterday's game was horrific. I am still in denial about this being a non-trolling thread... if serious, I must never return unless I want to get stupider. Oh nooo! It's already happeniiiiiing!!
This is the case with most NBA players... you haven't said anything new here. It's not always skill that separates the superstars from the role players. It's mentality (i.e. confidence) that makes the difference.
fair argument. with yao and without yao, our play style was changed. could we say same with harden and without harden?
of course you can. You can make several arguments Without Harden, our play style changes, and our opponents don't know how to adjust exactly. Without Harden, we don't have anybody to rely on to step up day in day out. Every game is up in the air based on whether or not we show up With Harden we have a Star that can will us through games when nobody else has shown the capacity/capability So on and so forth Bottom line, without a star, you can't win. I'm sure this has been shown in many other threads, but has there ever been a Championship team without at least 1 all star on the roster. Harden is the only All-Star on the team.... regardless as to why, it is a fact so there is no argument to be had (looking at you LOFers).