So replace Kawhi with Harden and what would he achieve? For those who don't know, this is what it would look like: Lowry / VanVleet Danny Green / Powell / Meeks Harden / McCaw Siakam / Boucher Gasol / Ibaka To me that's just a clear championship contender and the idea that Kawhi dragged some shitty roster to the Finals and got lucky against Warriors is nonsense. They had some great young talent in FVV & Siakam, an All-Star in Lowry and just made some amazing trades for Gasol, Ibaka, Green and the man Kawhi himself. Gasol was an All-Star before and Siakam was playing like one in 2019. So that's basically 3 MVP players on one team. Pick and roll, pick and pop with Gasol & Ibaka, Siakam actually doing work in the post and outside, Green, FVV to shoot threes, Lowry to also take turns handling the ball and some serious clutch performers. Forget about it! Compare this to the roster Harden is carrying right now, even with some great talent outside of Westbrook, is just not nearly as good as those Raptors. They have size, athleticism and they just had several guys stepping up as the play-offs went on.
Hypotheticals are exactly that remember the Tmac era? Like 100% of the threads were hypotheticals After the first round was over @Zboy @CometsWin
the Raptors roster is stacked...it’s not GS level stacked, but still, it has everything needed for a superstar to lead to a title without question the Raptors roster can win 55+ games and make the ECF The Rockets without Harden? They might not have even been invited to the bubble...
Doesn’t matter if we have 12 all stars Only one or two will come off the bench and our starters will play 90 minutes a game
we had a budding star in montrez harrell, and mike would never play him even when he dominated. Meanwhile he plays scrubs like clemons and frazier. harrell never saw any meaningful minutes after this performance im not saying Ihart would be a star, be he dominated the g-league and had a great game againist the timberwolves in a breakout performance. Any other coach would give a young player consistent minutes after that to build their confidence instead ihart got no minutes the next 5 games, mike just depends on harden to cover his coaching mistakes. Nick Nurse would actually make Harden a better player( which is scary to think about), and put him in positions where making adjustments would help his game( especially the deeper you get in the playoffs). I would argue most of those losses that harden has deep in the playoffs with mike is due to mike not making adjustments. His motto, "is teams will have to adjust to us." wtf kinda approach is that, you are a coach. Do you job, this is why tillman isnt as dumb as Les, tillman knows harden can get any coach to the playoffs, just like how nash got to the wcf in 2010 with alvin gentry. Great players can win anyone( Lebron coached by mike brown), but it takes a decent x' and o's coach to elevate that player to new heights as defenses become harder and harder each round you advance
Thanks for noticing the coaching moves I’mma going to say it like Kanye @Reeko Mike D’Antoni hates Big Men
That's the difference between Masai Ujiri and Daryl Morey. Ujiri hired Nurse. Morey let Nurse go. Ujiri has late draft picks, the same draft picks that Morey trades away for cap room (I blame TF/Les for this, not Daryl) Those late draft picks = Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Fred VanVleet. Key contributors. While the Rockets pick up G-League scrubs like frazier.
to the op do you really believe mike dantoni would play a young player like siakam and og annuoby. i think mike if he had that raptors roster would rely on lowry, serge, marc gasol and the vets on that team
Nick Nurse is the next Popovich. we had a guy who won 2 g-league titles with our team, and let him go. Its crazy because i think nick nurse wanted the rockets job too
Better question...If we got the same kind of "lucky" with GS, and made it to the finals. Would we win against Kawaii's Raptors? I wasn't really feeling the chemistry between Harden and CP3. Rest of the team too complacent...
Harden has not been bereft of talent. Spoiler Chris Paul - Russell Westbrook - Patrick Beverley Eric Gordon - Lou Williams - Austin Rivers - Gerald Green Trevor Ariza - Chandler Parsons - Danuel House - Luc Mbah a Moute PJ Tucker - Robert Covington - Josh Smith - Ryan Anderson Dwight Howard - Clint Capela to name a few... _______________________________ 12-13(45-37; L 4-2 Thunder 1st round) Jeremy Lin - Aaron Brooks - Patrick Beverley James Harden - Carlos Delfino - James Anderson Chandler Parsons - Francisco García Donatas Motiejūnas - Terrence Jones Ömer Aşık - Thomas Robinson - Greg Smith - Tim Ohlbrecht 13-14 (54-28; L 4-2 Blazers 1st round) Patrick Beverley - Jeremy Lin - Isaiah Canaan James Harden - Jordan Hamilton - Troy Daniels Chandler Parsons - Francisco García - Robert Covington Terrence Jones - Omri Casspi - Donatas Motiejūnas Dwight Howard - Ömer Aşık - Josh Powell 14-15(56-26; L 4-1 Warriors WCF) Patrick Beverley - Pablo Prigioni James Harden - Jason Terry - Nick Johnson Trevor Ariza - Corey Brewer - Kostas Papanikolaou - K.J. McDaniels Donatas Motiejūnas - Josh Smith - Terrence Jones Dwight Howard - Joey Dorsey - Clint Capela 15-16(41-41; L 4-1 Warriors 1st round) Patrick Beverley - Andrew Goudelock James Harden - Jason Terry Trevor Ariza - Corey Brewer - K.J. McDaniels Donatas Motiejūnas - Josh Smith - Terrence Jones - Michael Beasley - Sam Dekker Dwight Howard - Clint Capela - Montrezl Harrell 16-17(55-27; L 4-2 Spurs WCSF) Patrick Beverley - Bobby Brown - Isaiah Taylor James Harden - Eric Gordon - Lou Williams Trevor Ariza - Troy Williams Ryan Anderson - Sam Dekker - Kyle Wiltjer Clint Capela - Nenê Hilário - Montrezl Harrell - Chinanu Onuaku 17-18(65-17; L 4-3 Warriors WCF) Chris Paul - Aaron Jackson James Harden - Eric Gordon - Gerald Green - Markel Brown - R.J. Hunter Trevor Ariza - Luc Mbah a Moute - Joe Johnson P.J. Tucker - Ryan Anderson Clint Capela - Nenê Hilário - Tarik Black - Chinanu Onuaku - Zhou Qi 18-19(53-29; L 4-2 Warriors WCF) Chris Paul - Austin Rivers - Michael Frazier - Chris Chiozza - Trevon Duval James Harden - Gerald Green - Iman Shumpert Eric Gordon - Danuel House - Vince Edwards P.J. Tucker - Gary Clark - Terrence Jones Clint Capela - Kenneth Faried - Nenê Hilário - Isaiah Hartenstein 19-20(44-27) Russell Westbrook - Austin Rivers - Chris Clemons James Harden - Ben McLemore - Michael Frazier - David Nwaba Danuel House - Eric Gordon Robert Covington - Jeff Green - Thabo Sefolosha - DeMarre Carroll - Luc Mbah a Moute P.J. Tucker - Tyson Chandler - Bruno Caboclo
D'Antoni played Capela. As a starter even. And he played Dekker. And Trez. And he would have played Melton. He played Clark over Melo. So when MDA actually had young talent, he played them. But continue on with these half truths.
lol dekker had 30 againist memphis and never got consistent minutes after that, who knows what dekker could have developed into if he was given consistent minutes. trez harrell's failure to develop here proved that mike cant coach, sure he can coach guys that are already developed. But if you are asking him to coach up young talent.. forget it, thats why the 2018 team was so successful, you had a coach on the floor in cp3 surrounded by a bunch of vets