-can't draw up plays -sucks at substitution patterns -doesn't take any blames -blames others -rather win than have 29pts and 9 TOs oh wait
exactly....and you remember how much critics and hating comments he received.... 100.000 X times more than harden
really i mean nobody really hates him - it's just that a few people posted irritated comments -being dissapointed with the loss and what they expected of Harden and spoke negative of him
I posted this in another thread on the Chron article about Lin's leadership. I think this belongs here as well. My main issue with Harden is that he seems to consider himself the leader of this team, yet he does not really behave as a leader should: It's an obvious and natural tendency in sport to want to label the most talented/'best' player as the automatic leader of the team. And it seems in basketball, this is further reduced to the most talented scorer (not necessarily the most talented offensive player even). But being a real leader is so much more than that. If you look at a wide variety of team sports, you will often find that the captain/leader of the team isn't always the best scorer/player. In fact, in football(soccer), a lot of the time the team captain tends to be the strongest defender. In basketball the coach has a much more direct influence on the game so the role of the leader is diminished somewhat. IMO the most important thing a LEADER should do is LEAD by EXAMPLE. This means being willing to get into the nitty gritty of things. It means always giving 100% effort defensively as well as offensively. It means being willing to sacrifice your own stats (be that points or assists) and your body to help the team win. A leader also has to be aware of the overall tactical flow of the game and get his team to adjust in order to maximise themselves. Often the best player gets anointed the leader for political/ego reasons, and more often than not, that hurts the team concerned. Harden is a great young player. He has that unique ability of being able to take over a game offensively and turn the tide of the game. That might make some people feel that this makes him the de-facto leader of the team. It does not. It makes him a match-winner. Which he is. But if he wants to lead, he has to make himself the most hardworking defender on the court first. How many times has Harden taken an offensive charge for the team and put his body on the line this season? Even once? Parsons, Lin, Delfino, Beverly have, multiple times. Out of this roster, I do feel that Lin is the most natural leader. It's one of the things that made me a fan of his in the first place. He always works 100% on both ends of the court. He's willing to give up his body and draw the charge and has done so on key possessions. He reads the game tactically and sees the overall flow/floor really well. He will pull people up when they're being lazy but equally he is very encouraging to his team mates. He also showed last season that he has the ability to take over games and be a match-winner, something we've only glimpsed from time to time this season. And I think if the coaches put more faith in him and give him more freedom we'd see it a lot more. It might not be the most politically correct viewpoint on these forums but Harden has a long way to go before he can be considered a real leader of this team, even if he has already been anointed as such by the coaches and 'overtly' by the other players. I've noticed sometimes Harden calls himself the leader of the team in press conferences. A real leader doesn't need to do that. I've also never really seen him take responsibility for defeats. When someone has a 'we won because of me and lost because of the team' attitude then you know they will never make a good leader. Though I'm not sure if it's fair to attribute this last point to Harden yet, but it does seem to be going that way a little so far.
If Lin was averaging 26 ppg with a 60% TS, then everyone would be saying we should ISO Lin. That is the essence of a LOF.
Does it really matter if he's labeled leader or not? Without him we are probably under .500, you can have all the leaders in the world but that won't make you a good basketball team. He's one of the few players in the NBA who you give the ball to at the end of the games and he goes and gets you W's. I'd say he's leading by example by leading this otherwise lottery team to victories on a regular basis.
So Lin and Harden is on similar level on defense but Bev is way better than Lin? I know you hate Lin fans, but.
Nah, Lebron Iso is very effective because no one can guard him on the floor in the entire league. That's why he's Lebron, because if you need 2 points you can give him the ball and get out the way. Oh...thats part of what makes these guys so good. It's like Garnett said in the huddle of a playoff games one time "Get paul the ball and get the **** out the way." that's what ISO is and sometimes when your team is struggling to score it's nothing simpler or easier than just clearing out for your best scorer to go to work. ISO has been part of the NBA forever now, if you have a mismatch it's best to ISO and let your best player go to work. It really is no different than throwing it down to your best post up player over and over again and letting him go to work. Either the opposing team has to send a double team or they get scored on. That's the power of the ISO, it's simple but when a player is on the only way to stop it is to double that player.
If Harden's ISO has 60 TS%, I'm all for it. The problem is, Harden scores more efficiently when playing within the flow of the game instead of ISOs.
