As I've posted elsewhere, Harden was already playing at an amazing efficiency up the ASB (before his first injury). No way he could elevate his game much higher, so only way to go is down. Bigger question is how much will he improve in the coming years. Is he really #1 franchise player? Or does Morey have to look for someone superior to Harden? Those are long-term concerns.
He played poorly tonight but he was probably the best Rocket on the floor tonight. Probably why we got blown out by 30.
Now that JR Smith got 6th man of the year, any of you guys think he should get a 5 year 80 million dollar deal?
JR Smith isn't 22 with an absurdly high true shooting percentage and top level playmaking abilities like James Harden was last year.
Holy ****, it's resurrected!!~~~~ Um......so this notorious thread was actually started by someone who is "Since: Sep 2010", can't really call him a LOF I guess? Wow~~!! three months before the Rockets claimed him~~ Prophet!! Um......
Harden is playing like the player who choked in last year's Finals. The last 2 games he has shot: 9 for 24 6 for 19 You can't win playoff games when your best player chucking the most shots is shooting under 40%
You can't look at it strictly on that. He got 36 points on 24 shots. I'll take that any day of the week.
He's the lone superstar on a very young, inexperienced ballclub. Harden does have areas he needs to improve. His turnovers, defense, and tendency to ISO all have to be worked on. But he's only 23 and clearly has superstar-level talent. And he can hit clutch shots which not every star is capable of(see David Robinson). I don't think he's overrated as much as he's just underhelped if you will. As the roster improves and the supporting cast gets more experience, he'll emerge as one of the best players in this league.
Agree on his areas for improvement. But he is NOT clutch. There is an article recently that Harden has one of the worst, least clutch shooting% in the last 5 minutes of close games, something like 25% shooting. He did hit that one shot on the Spurs, but I can count at least a half dozen games this season where he took over every single possession of a tied or close game for the last few minutes and played horrible with bricks and/or turnovers to lose the games.
His shooting numbers are down because he is obsessed with getting a foul call. I've never seen a player more focused on getting a foul call. Fratello even pointed it out last night that he missed a shot because he was trying to create contact. The only problem with that is that refs swallow their whistle. They also aren't likely to give him 30 free throws a night like he tries to earn.
well, he's the best scorer on our team and the guy defenses key in on, so we live and die with him. overall, he's been great for us. hopefully we can surround him with the right pieces for next season
The Spurs game isn't the only one he won late for the Rockets. He also put us ahead in Minnesota in late December and hit a clutch shot against the Thunder in that home game where we came back from a huge deficit in the 4th quarter. And obviously there's that stepback 3 he hit last year against San Antonio in Game 5 while still with the Thunder. I won't count the goaltended 3 against the Suns since that was a bad shot that likely wasn't going in had O'Neal kept his hands off the rim. But when you put the ball in one player's hands late in games, he's going to miss shots and make the occasional bad play.
I've been impressed by how much he has deferred in the first two games, even though his supporting cast has been shooting poorly. He knows how to lead a team. Spoiler
Yeah Yeah Yeah; he's young.. Look at Curry; the guy has been carrying the Warriors offensively and he has been in the NBA just as long.
At this point I simply have to believe that Harden is hiding an injury. It's the only thing that makes sense that wouldn't make me tear out my hair.
He's hardcore slumping. This isn't indicative of his normal game, but this is pretty unacceptable. I think it's just due to him being overworked and maybe nursing an injury, but either way it's just been bad. I look forward to seeing the team getting a full offseason of work together. Things will get better. It's only the first season together.
