Dwight and Harden...Rockets bench has been garbage and all their best players aren't vets. Thunder are a deeper team that has been together a lot longer. It's interesting to see how far a Westbrook led team would go, it's not as easy as one thinks though. To carry a team's offense night in and night out.
Houston lost to a Portland team that was LESS experienced and LESS deep. Think about that. We will never know how far Westbrook can take a team. But he's a top 5 player in this league, and borderline top 3. This guy can carry a franchise. He does EVERYTHING. Dude is a machine.
As we saw in Harden's first year here. By the time the playoffs came he was spent. That may also have been due to McHale playing him 40+ minutes though.
2 all-nba players in their primes a legit 3rd option Do you know how far Houston would have gone if McGrady/Yao had a Parsons-like player when they were healthy?
Yeah, Thunder have a legit big three. Rockets don't even have anything close to that. They don't even have a starting PG, a SF whose best attribute is his contract, and two PFs who can randomly be good or bad. The best player coming off the bench is Jeremy Lin. Outside of that, good luck! Any one else is a wild card. They need a lot of fine tuning and experience.
That=stacked? C'mon now. We have 2 all stars that everyone else relies too much on and when they can't going our whole team falls apart. Don't get me started on the non existent bench. Parsons, while good, hardly makes this team a "stacked" team.
Jordan Hamilton, Francisco Garcia, Josh Powell, Donatas Motiejunas, Omri Casspi, Troy Daniels, Isaiah Canaan, Robert Covington---STACKED I TELL YOU! STACKED! :grin: (Of course to go along with Lin/Beverley, Harden, Parsons, Jones, Dwight/Asik) Of course it's absolutely disappointing they lost in the first round. Stacked team? LOL Stop it.
Give me 2 all-nba players in their primes + a guy who gives me 17-18 points per game any day of the week.
We really don't know that though, it's not some easy task that should just be taken for granted and really no player should be asked to carry a team by himself. Competely different for every night you have the opposing team focused on stopping you and you only and not worrying about Ibaka or the MVP Durant. Parsons is a legit 3rd option? Tmac and Yao had enough help to get past the 1st round at least...
MVP voting. This proves the WB love is just a kneejerk phenomenon: 1. Kevin Durant — 1232 (119 1st place) 2. LeBron James — 891 (6 1st place) 3. Blake Griffin — 434 4. Joakim Noah — 322 5. James Harden — 85 6. Stephen Curry — 66 7. Chris Paul — 45 8. Al Jefferson — 34 9. Paul George — 33 10. LaMarcus Aldridge — 26 11. Kevin Love — 25 12. Tim Duncan — 21 13. Tony Parker — 21 14. Dirk Nowitzki — 7 15. Carmelo Anthony — 4 16. Goran Dragic — 3 17. Mike Conley — 1
So a guy giving you 17 points a game on 47% shooting isn't a good 3rd option? That's news to me. 3rd best player during Tmac/Yao era was freaking Rafer Alston for god sakes.
Oh hell no What?? At least Battier played defense. I'd take Harden over WB. Problem is, Durant>>Harden. Westbrook about equal to Howard Ibaka >> Parsons. And Caron Butler has played better in the playoffs than anyone else besides Howard/Harden/Parsons
Pretty much. I'm not arguing if Westbrook is better than Harden...he is...but it's not certain if that will always be the case. It's not like Harden isn't even in the atmosphere of the best players in the NBA. He's young, needs more focus, needs better stamina and a better mental approach to the game. But Westbrook is on a stacked team. A truly stacked team. No telling what he'd do if you put him on the Bucks. Not saying he couldn't do it, but I don't think you can assume that he'd all of a sudden pull a Lebron and carry them into being a contender. FEW players can do that any given generation.
Luis Scola? No, Parsons is not a legit 3rd option. A legit 3rd option is a guy like Bosh, Ibaka, Manu... You need 3 guys that can make a all-star team to be a contender in this league. Look at all the teams that usually win and go far...they always have 3 guys that can legitimately make the all-star team every year. Parsons is not that. He's a solid player but the best part about him is his contract.
