Harden: "Dwight and I are the cornerstones of the Rockets. The rest of the guys are role players..."

All last season, I kept on thinking he was capable of playing D but was just conserving energy. But then the playoffs happened and he kept on not trying on D in a closely contested series when a little extra effort might have made the difference. If the playoffs didn't motivate him to "take it serious," what will?

The defensive problems are not overblown, it's very real. The analytics show it (For example: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM), Kelvin Sampson talked about it as did Zach Lowe and other commentators. Harden's defense being a joke in the NBA circles isn't something that fans created.

Harden's act is what's getting old. You people can keep on living in denial. I will live in reality. I will believe Harden can improve when he does improve.

He might get better. If so, good for him. But the reality of his defense and his lack of care means that one must account for the risk that he may not get much better.

 

Yeah that's the first thing I noticed when I read the actual quote. OP should work for FOX News.

 

harden , dwight and assets

 

He played in OKC for 3 years. Did we ever hear these issues then? He played important minutes on a contender. Did we see this lack of D then? If not that means he is capable. Case closed.

 

Is he capable of playing at least acceptable D while also carrying "cornerstone" level offensive burden 36+ minutes per game? We have not seen it.

 

Has your boy Kevin Love proved it?

 

Cant believe some of yall are knocking on James Harden for stating the truth.... He and Howard are the cornerstones of the team, everything is going to be built around them. People have short memories on this board of having Chuck Hayes at center and Scola as the leading scorer most nights...... Sure they hustled and sure they were underdogs but I rather have James Harden and Dwight Harden any day of the week x100000000.... We haven't been relevant in almost a decade and even when Mcgrady was here he was already past his prime. We are lucky to have James Harden and extremely lucky to have added Dwight Howard...... Because those two guys are here does not give us the right to act like spoiled little girls bit$hing about other "stars" we would rather have that play defense and $hit.... Howard and Harden is who represents The Rockets today and we haven't had a team this good in a very long time...... Support your team, support your players....... Stop crying..... I hope we don't lose any of these guys, I personally do not want to go back to those dark days of Kevin Martin and Steve Francis.......

 

In the last 2 games of the playoffs I would say Harden did step his D up. His D went hard in those games.

 

Nobody talked about it but if his defense was that amazing I'm sure okc would of never let him go. His lack of defense was a reason why Thabo started and he came off the bench.

 

We have seen it, just not consistently throughout the season.

 

Substantially more so than Harden.

The problem is that we didn't see it in the playoffs, either, when the stakes were high and there was no "conserving energy for the playoffs" excuse.

 

You have to stay on the court to do that Carl but maybe you think Yao is better than Dwight too...

 

HAHAHA... It is a good one.

While I am trying to give up my CF account, this really comes as a gem.

From a player who claims himself a cornerstone but failed to to take his team out of the 1 round in the play off 2 years in a row, while being the net negative commodity on the court.

Welcome Mr. Harden.

 

Love the comments by Dwight and James.

You just know that these two comments have smacked Chandler's ego around a little bit, and knocked him back down a peg.

It's good to know that the actual players believe Morey made the right decision in letting him go.

The more I see, the more I start to believe that comments made towards the end of last season by Dwight weren't actually regarding James - but Parsons.

 

Come on, Carl. You make such good points and then say something like that. Love plays as much defense as Harden.

He hasn't been able to get his team to the playoffs with a similar cast as the one James had in his first season here.

 

His defense doesn't have to be amazing. That is what Ariza and Beverley are for. He just has to be average not amazing.

 

I need "it's happening.gif" quick.

 

He'd better buy a rolex for everyone after saying this...

 

Minnesota is consistently a bottom 5 defense. The difference is Harden is capable of better D with more effort. Kevin Love is not due to his limited athleticism. Any other take on that is asinine.

 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2014.html#misc::9