Do the Rockets really have a superstar on this team?

How much of Harden's poor defense can be attributed to his foot injury?

Surely one of the most important aspects of playing good D is lateral quickness, which will come back to him once he is fit?

Or is it more defensive IQ he's lacking?

 

How about you show me just one 3 points clutch shot that Harden made from last regular season and playoff with Rockets uniform? (don't show me that lucky shot from half court)

 

Don't expect too much on his defense. He didn't play defense when he was fully healthy last season. Think like you buying a product "as it"

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You do know that he took the Magic to the final, right? The guy can literally change how the opponents can play the game.

 

How about that same OKC game you linked from Lin? He nailed a 3 to tie the game over Ibaka. Harden has done it on the biggest stage, you can't even show me any Lin playoff highlights.

 

How could I show you Lin's playoff highlight? He got injured and the first playoff game he didn't do well.

 

Exactly. We're neck deep in the instant gratification era. If you don't win a title in your first few years you're not clutch and a failure. I too watched MJ and Dream in their early years. Raw talent, not much craft. What makes players like them special is the ability to recognize their faults and the work ethic to correct them. The knock on MJ was that he had a poor jumper. Then it was his lack of defense. Dream was indeed a brawler on defense. Those guys addressed those issues and became hall of fame legends.

If Harden is still out of position on defense and making bad decisions late in the shot clock after two or three more seasons, then we can start discussing this.

 

Do me a favor and smack yourself.

 

I thought Lin didn't get injured until the 2nd playoff game... Right before half time... Just the same I think he'll do better this year... Hopefully...

I tend to believe Lewis, Turk, and the rest of those boys carried him to the finals over in the LEASTern Conference. And once he got to the finals _ Bynum and Gasol took turns destroying him... He only scored over 20 points once in 5 games... Had two games in that series where he only scored 11 and 12 points... Yikes...!!! But I see some good signs with his post game... Hopefully Olajuwon and McHale can get thru to him...

 

Exactly, he hasn't done anything compared to Harden. You are doing him no favors by comparing him to Harden, he just isn't the same caliber of player.

 

Why does it have to be a 3 point shot...??? And last time I checked both Lin and Harden are on the same team and we got our butts kicked in the playoffs.... You're more concerned about meaningless individual moments. I'm concerned with them getting their ish together and being championship contenders.

 

I was talking about clutch shot. And you are talking about something else now. Anyway, if you are talking about Harden's playoff performance last season. I wasn't that impressed. I was more impressed with Garica. He was the key that we didn't got wipe out.

 

Agreed. I love Jeremy, but I have no delusions of him being a "star player." I think if you were to post a poll over who is more of a "superstar basketball player" over 60% of the forum would vote Lin over Harden and Howard.

 

Absolutely, I root for anyone who is on the Rockets and have no problem with Lin. He has played very well this year, I just find it hard not to respond when people start comparing him to perennial all-stars.

 

I guess you ignored the posted that game you eight examples of Harden's clutch shots? "Clutch" is such an ambiguous term, but if you loosely define it as scoring at the end of games in high pressure moments, Harden has had his share as the earlier post indicated.

 

this team has a few stars, but no superstars yet.

 

I was pointing out Harden cannot make clutch shot. Why are you so mad? I think it's a must for our 1st option player.

 

yah bc THATS what people base their voting on ... defense.

 

Can we get a little less pessimism on this board at least until after we have a sample size longer than, let's say 25 games. There is plenty of room for negativity on the Texans' board if you wanna go over there.

If the premise is that we don't have nay superstars, then that means only Miami, OKC and LAC do. Ergo, that means we're still able to make a deep playoff run when only two teams in our conference have better talent then we do.

 

Phoenix Suns