Do the Rockets really have a superstar on this team?

The Rockets have the best SG in the NBA (24 years old) and the best C in the NBA. Only injuries or incompetence will keep them from doing very well.

 

This post perfectly personifies half the brain dead posters in this thread.

LeBron, Durant and CP3 are three of the top 25 players to EVER play. LeBron is the best EVER at his position. CP3 is one of the top 2-3 EVER at his position.

Dwayne Wade is having a poor year. He is under 20 points a game, is shooting 27% from 3's and 66% from the line. Further his defense has not been anything great either, he is taking many chances and routinely letting his man get to the basket.

James Harden will not be a star because he doesn't defend? Kobe hasn't defended since the Bush administration. Last year his defense was WORSE than a beat up Harden's this season. Further, Kobe hasn't even played a game this season and is coming off of a major injury, in his upper 30's.

If you don't consider Harden and Howard to be stars, then you better only have 4-5 stars in the NBA, because there are not many players that meet the criteria folks are pushing.

Hell, Kevin Love cannot defend a fence post, but no one seems to think that keeps him from being a star.

 

How long it took Lebron to add the post up in his game?

When did MJ add that lethal fadeway to his strong game?



Plus Harden did work with the Dream this summer. Give the man time, he will add other weapons to his game.

 

I guess players in the NBA, some sports writers, ex NBA players are brain dead too. Some of them consider George and Harden superstars.

Wade is playing hurt right now, why you think he doesn't play in back to back games. But you can best believe if he was healthy, Wade would be balling his a** off.


I guess players like Vince Carter, Penny Hardaway, Karl Malone and a host of other players that wasn't good defensively aren't considered Superstars in you book.

 

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My bad Nook we are in agreement.

 

This is the NBA, Stern's NBA, we're talking about. I will take the fanfare superstars any day over the lunchpail superstar. Harden over Paul George. You know why? Because superstars get calls in the crunch. Period.

 

Would you trade Howard or Harden for Brook Lopez, Ryan Anderson, Mike Conley, Michael Beasley, Jordan Hill, etc. straight up? cuz they all have higher PERs than Harden or Howard

 

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How about when it counts?

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can we stop with this Harden vs Jeremy Shet

They are on the same team you douchewads

 

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Speaking of Jordan... Jordan had no problems guarding guys like V Maxwell, but you didn't see his @** running out there trying to guard Clyde for 48 minutes... He sent Pippen to do it... Lol... I remember watching Jordan trying to guard Penny during the playoffs... SMH... Penny made change out of him... I'm not worried about Harden's offense _ just want him to be more disciplined on defense.

Anyway, people around here act like Olajuwon was the same player when he entered the league that he was when he lead the Rockets to Championships... I thought Dream was gonna catch an assault case when he first came in the league. Took him a while to mature and get his game together. It seems like a lot of Rockets fans seem to forget that. It took guys like Jordan and Olajuwon 7-10 years before they got their games together _ But people expect Harden to be able to do it after having only one year of starting time at 24 years of age... They forget how long it took guys like LeBron, Shaq, KG, Dirk, etc. It's going to be hell on Harden around here with these fans...

 

Howard is a super star in this league, he is one of the very few guys who can change the outcome of any games.

Harden is a star.

Everyone else is just fill-ins.

 

Show the playoff ones.... that's what I believe he meant by "when it counts."

 

He sure can... Especially when he's not hitting free throws and or his post game disappears and he lets guards box him out.

Howard is still on Harden's level in my opinion. But Harden is still young _ I don't have an excuse for Howard.

 

DH hater sighting
Shaq hit a great clip from the FT line DH is improving on this, but it will always be hit or miss. Hell, even great ft shooters miss when it counts.

Shaq had great post moves He bullied and lowered his shoulder into his opponent and put them in the basket. Besides that, he had a clumsy looking hook shot/shovel shot hybrid. Dwight has done the power move I referenced twice this yr resulting in a thunderous dunk with the defender and the ball dunked thru the hoop - foul was called. That crap was not called on shaq.

Howard lets guards box him out? mmmkay. right.

 

So you're comparing Shaq to Howard... Shaq went out and put up 28 points per night despite his poor free throw shooting and lack of post moves... He was unstoppable. Bad comparison...

Go watch the Lakers vs Rockets game again... Shaq even pointed out and showed where Steve Blake was boxing him out. That could have had something to do with Howard not wanting the ball tho... Which is just as damn bad...

And criticism doesn't make me a hater... I see all of this criticism on Harden on this thread and he's just 24 with a lil over a year worth of starts under his belt _ but people act like Howard and is perfect _ so I'm just being fair and evening out the criticism

Howard is the veteran star player on this team _ no way I bypass him and throw all the criticism on a bunch of youngsters... You guys can tho...

 

On the value of PER: It can be overrated, but there is currently no better all encompassing stat. Once the player tracking stuff is more in vogue and in use for a couple of years, you will likely see a better all encompassing stat come out of that, but we aren't there yet. PER undervalues defense, and overvalues "chuckers". High volume scorers. I've gotten into long debates on here with some about the later, but definitionally, you can take players and just have them shoot more at an otherwise below average %, and their PER will go up. PER doesn't adequately (or at all) penalize missed shots. For more interesting debate on this see this thread about AI or read Wages of Win, which prefers the Wins Produced measurement... itself a flawed measure.

That said, isn't the easiest thing to do to go back and look at past champions or conference champions and see what they looked like from a PER perspective? Having taken a quick look, there are definitely teams that have won, recently, with their best PER player being in the 22-24 range. The Mavericks, Lakers, Celtics and so on. Of course the Pistons whose best player had a 18.6 PER, though they are an anomaly. But it does seem like, especially since the Celtics started this "Big 3" trend, that the model has been the Pistons model, to the extreme... which as at least a little bit lessened the need for reliance on such a dominant PER player. The Spurs absolutely should have won last year, and they had both Parker and Duncan with 23-24.5 PERs.

On Howard + Harden combo and PER: That being the case, I'd agree that yes Harden and Howard's are a little low. But I'd like to think that Harden will pop back to where he was. With Dwight, it is purely a function of FG attempts, imo. He had a 24.2 PER his last year in Orlando. But Dwight is rebounding better than that year (per 36), shooting a higher TS%, and in line on blocks and assists. he's just shooting 2.5 less field goals a game.

On Harden being clutch: Wow, talk about short-term memory loss. If anything, Harden was way above average last year in the clutch. He scored 5 points in the final three and a half minutes against the Bulls in a four point win on 11/21, including 2 free throws with under 6 seconds left. He put the Rockets ahead with just over a minute left against the Lakers on 12/4 - a 2 point win. He scored 6 points in the final 2:15 on 3-4 shooting against the TWolves on 12/26 - a 3 point win. He scored 4 points in the final minute of a six point win against the Bobcats on 1/21. He scored seven points in the final 2:20 against OKC (in the Lin three point shot game) in a three point win on 2/20. He scored six points in the final three and half minutes against GSW on 3/8 in a six point win. He scored 4 points in just over the final minute, INCLUDING the game winner against the Spurs on 3/24. Lucky, but he hit the game winning three against the Suns on 4/9 when Jermaine Oneal goal-tended his shot.

I didn't use a fine tooth comb, but there are 8 examples of clutch performances down the stretch by him. I am POSITIVE he had some non-clutch moments as well. I'm equally POSITIVE that other players on the team have had their clutch and non-clutch moments as well.

But to say Harden wasn't clutch last year was to not be watching the games.