Do the Rockets play better basketball without Harden?

Harden + better ball movement + Harden plays defense = Lebron

He is not made that way.

 

Well, I guess I have higher expection of him and the Rockets then :grin:

I aslo believe JH have higher expection of himself as well. He will get better and the whole team with get better. You got to have a little faith.

 

I agree. If you add all that stuff to Harden, then you'd basically be talking about a completely different player.

 

The funny thing is, wait until we play a good team and get our ass handed to us without harden, how quick these threads will change.

that's clutchfans for ya.

 

This theory predicated on the lie that we are going to shoot terrific night in and night out? Harden manufactures points like no other person in the league. I am just not going to look up stats but I think it is pretty safe to say if he is not tops in the league he is damn close to it in amount of FT taken per game. When the team is having a bad shooting night, can anyone else on this team get 20+ FTs in a game? Oh you are all happy with ball movement and Lin/Parsons jacking threes. Does Harden need to work on sharing the ball? Of course he does, but to say we are better off without him is absurd.

 

It would be nice with the solid play w/o harden if Mchale could bench Harden in game when he gets little effort to send a message.

 

Well. If we don't think JH and the Rockets can do it, we might as well stop talking about championship. Otherwise, we're simply fooling ourselves.

 

Nice dig at the Spurs

 

the spurs are a good team when healthy. Come playoff time i'm sure that'll change. But we played a depleted spurs team who got destroyed by the bulls last night. They're missing key players that they need. Good for us because we got the win, but not good as far as in our experience we need against elite teams to prepare us for the playoffs.

 

I love Harden. In my mind, he's our closer, he's the guy who should have the ball in his hands in the final seconds.

Do the Rockets play differently without Harden? Absolutely.

Better? No.

 

Yes because SA, Dallas and Memphis aren't good? Or are you talking about playing a team like OKC or Indiana- both who have kicked our butts WITH Harden playing?

 

Didn't we beat an healthy Spurs team twice one coming by blowout. So what does depleted has to do with anything. We didn't have 4 of our rotational players either one being a Superstar. That same Spurs team are 1-11 against teams with teams above .500.

 

I don't think most people are saying that. I think that most people are saying that we are good when we move the ball around and with Harden buying into that we will be even better- thus giving us a better chance at a championship.

 

Yes and no. Howard gets more looks usually and lin gets to control the ball more and tbh makes his full potintial more accessible. It would be silly to say rockets play better without harden though. I think of harden took less shots and let lin actually point guard and respect his game the whole team would be better off. Cuz how is a duffrent point guard going to change the situation? If harden is still demanding it so much. Howard should get more looks and lin should be running the show while sharing it with harden equally if not a tad less.

 

Yep...

 

Obviously Harden isn't on LeBron's level, but to say he doesn't make his teammates better is ridiculous. Harden literally single handedly dragged this team into the playoffs last season.

 

Was pretty shocked to see this conversation happening off-topic on an MMA forum too. Clutch fan members also on MMA.tv?

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/thread/2282466/Are-the-Rockets-a-better-team-without-Harden/?pc=20

 

Even if this Rockets team may play better without Harden during the regular season (which is debatable to put it mildy), they are no where near a title contender without him.

A committed Harden is this teams only avenue to a title whether you like him or not.

 

James and Jeremy reaction to this thread.
Chandler: *Look at that ass though*