Right, but it wasnt because of Harden. It was because we died any time Harden sat, hell if Dantoni had just called a time out, we probably win that series in 5 games. He was worthless relative to his role on the team. He was worthless in the playoffs. Highest scoring duo...dosent mean anything. The Lakers bounced us in 5 games. And he was one of our worst players in the playoffs. Even during his hot stretch is was Harden carrying and getting worse when he got on the floor.
Dort was being left open, what the hell. He didnt outplay **** So overall Harden's game 7 performance was adequate. What's the problem here, what is the point being made here. The guy had one sub par game out of 7 after he had been consistently let down by his team. Im glad other Rockets stepped becaue they had been useless for awhile(specifically Gordon). And Westbrook was the only reason it even went to 6 in the first place. The dude broke plays and tanked that game for us. That's not what I'm saying, im saying if we had lost game 7, it would not have been Harden's fault. I blame Westbrook for being so god damn useless that we still kept it close even when he came back and we even lost a game. Not only that he continued his uselessness into the Laker's series and was the main reason we lost. He's not good enough. And that is my point. Harden was phenomenal this post season.
When you are talking with HP3 you can't point things out like "Harden was 2-13 going into the fourth quarter." Not only does he deny evaluating a player's offensive performance by how many times he put the ball in the basket, but he apparently disregards any statistic that won't support his narrative.
So essentially you are capable of denying all factual evidence presented to you because of an imaginary reality where we know for sure things would be better for Westbrook if Harden would do A, B and C.
I've noticed that lots of people, when talking basketball, have WILDLY different opinions on how they value scoring. I can try to help you out here. I've got a feeling you're going to disagree, which is fine, because this is an opinion thing. But I'll try to explain it the best I can, from the "scoring is sometimes worthless" perspective. To some people, being able to "get you 30" is very valuable, and to others it means next to nothing, or literally nothing. I'm mostly in the second camp, and here's why. There are a limited number of possessions in a basketball game, and a limited number of shots. So if one guy is taking 35 possessions to score 30 points, that's cool that he got you 30, but so what? What if you spread those 35 possessions evenly among 6 other players on the team, and they each got you 6 points? You didn't have a "guy that got you 30" but you scored 36 points on 35 possessions instead of 30 points on 35 possessions. That's obviously better. Now, I know it's not that simple. You don't have to say it, but that example is just to demonstrate the different ways to value scoring. If Russ plays for 25 minutes without Harden, and the team has 50 possessions, I care about how many points the entire team scores during those 50 possessions, the amount that Russ scores himself is close to irrelevant. This is part of why people have such different opinions of Chris Paul, if you look at the total team scoring while he's on the court, its very very high, but his personal scoring is lower. So people try to bad mouth him saying that he can "only get you 18-20 points", but does that matter? I don't mean to make this about Chris Paul, I'm just trying to say that more individual scoring isn't always a good thing. An example that comes to mind is the last game of the season in our 65 win year, I remember we sat our starters and let Gerald Green play the Harden role against Sacramento. He handled the ball, he brought it up the court, he got to run the pick and roll, all that. He ended the game with 31 points on 11/22 shooting and 0 assists. The rockets lost to the Kings by 13. He only played 25 minutes, I don't mean to say this game was his fault, but from watching this game I suspect that Gerald Green could average 25+ ppg over an entire year if he was given this opportunity to run this team and play with the same usage that Harden does. But I also think that the rockets would win like 20 games. I think there are a lot of players in the NBA that could score a bunch of points if their coaches let them shoot the ball that much. So we can look at how well a team performs when one guy is running the show. We've seen over the past few years that a Harden led team, where he is taking a ton of shots and has historic usage rates, produces a top 3 offense in the regular season. If you look at those OKC in Russ' MVP year, where he was doing similar things, they had the 16th ranked offense, then 7th the year after that, and 17th the year after that. Just because a guy is scoring you a ton of points doesn't necessarily mean he's producing a good offense. The same was true for most of this year, when Westbrook was on the floor the offense wasn't very good. Anyway all these words can basically be boiled down to this - scoring means nothing (or almost nothing) in a vacuum. There are a lot of Gerald Greens or Dion Waiters in the league who could probably average 25-30 ppg if someone gave them control of a team, but those teams would be in the lottery. So it kind of rings hollow when people bring up "but look how many points he scores." If you are not scoring efficiently, and the team is not scoring efficiently, then being able to get buckets doesn't really have a whole lot of value.
I'm saying the data regarding Russ and Capela is "inconclusive" considering the context laid out. You can remove how "Harden should have played to compliment WB" from the equation and it's still half a season of data. What we know for a fact is that it's half a season of data includes WB adapting to a new team plus an oft injured Capela.
I know exactly who you are talking to dude, its a waste of time. Dude denies evidence even when its presented to him. He has doesnt have a clue no matter what you say.
Luguentz Dort held the best scorer in the world to 4-15 shooting in an elimination game, and he had 30 points on 10-21 from the field and 6-12 from the three-point line. Dort was the best player on the court in game 7 for either team, regardless of what plus/minus says. Also, both of these statements are true: James Harden was magnificent in the first six games of the Thunder series and was the reason the Rockets were tied. However, his poor shooting for the first three quarters of game 7 nearly sent the Rockets home, and if the Rockets had lost game 7, it would absolutely have been fair to blame that specific loss on James Harden’s poor shooting night. Also, Russell Westbrook was not the reason the series went six games. He didn’t play in the first four games, and the Rockets split those games with the Thunder 2-2. You cannot blame a player that didn’t play for losses. That’s utter bullshit.
I think folks are underestimating "efficient shots" in the playoffs where defenses take those away....
You know, I get all that, but at the same time... Russ did run his own team and it wasn't a lottery team, he got his team to the playoffs in the tough western conference, being the first option, so would you say it is fair to compare him to Gerald Green or that his stats and numbers are worthless?
For sure it changes a lot in the playoffs. But there are still ways to produce efficient shots in the playoffs. I think people look at D'antonis system and it's failures in the postseason and think "well, I guess this means we have to take inefficient shots", but that's faulty logic. There are other teams, other coaches, other systems that are able to find efficient shots in the playoffs. It just looks a lot different than D'antonis offense.
All 6 of those threes were coming from him being left wide the **** open. He had a great performance. Like what do you want me to say, Harden had a bad game. Iguadala got Finals MVP against the Cavs ...does that mean he was the best player on the court, does that mean he outperformed Lebron. ...of course ****ing not. Im using plus minus to illustrate that Harden was a winning player on the court and the rest of the data reflects that, not just that single plus minus. It should not have gone to 7 games in the first place. On that loss, sure on the series(which is what matters) it would not have been Harden's fault at all and that is what my larger point is. game 7 is what it is, one game out of 7. Sorry, i mean to say Westbrook was the reason it went to 7 games. He was complete garbage in game 6 and that's why went to 7. At no point during these playoffs did he ever perform like the second best player on a championship squad. At no point did he add real value to our playoff fun. He has the second lowest net rating on our teams for the playoffs. WE ARE NOT WINNING WITH HIM
True, I didn't mean to stick him in that category. He's obviously not in that tier, he's much much better than those guys. But he's also not in the Harden tier, his teams have never made it out of the first round. He's somewhere in between.
I won't disagree but it feels like we've taken things to the extreme and end up limiting ourselves when the post season rolls around.
Before any of you goofs...tell ME LOOK JIMMY BUTLER HAS NO SHOT HE GOOD Jimmy Butler is a better scorer, passer, defender and overall decision maker than Westbrook. He's amazing at drawing fouls and hasa 64 TS% this post season.
And that's fine, I've never said he's Harden or one of the best players. I've even said CP3 is better. I just don't think he's worthless, I think he can contribute positively. Is it harder to build a team around his strengths, yes. I mean normally you'd want Russ and have your 2nd star player be a knock down shooter that can play off ball, like Durant, or Klay, and not another ball-dominant guard like Harden. All I've been arguing that Westbrook is a good player, I know his numbers don't always represent that, but somehow the guy gets his teams wins being 1st and 2nd option. It's like Ben Roethlisberger or Eli Manning, it might not always look pretty, but...there that guy is, in the middle of it...and yeah I know those guys have won championships but it's always on specific teams. The truth is like @dmoneybangbang has been saying. We have Westbrook, unless they plan on trading him, we have to find a way to optimize his play while also getting the most out of Harden. There might not be an easy solution to it but it starts with experimenting with things. Obviously standing Westbrook behind the three point line waiting for a drive and kick pass is not going to work out. I honestly understand we would be better with CP3. I do get that, had Butler chosen to come here and we had CP3+Butler, I think we win a championship this year, maybe years beyond that...but we got Westbrook, it is what it is, we have to find a way to optimize him. I just don't think he's worthless. I think if you put him on a team where he can dominate the ball he'd drag that team to the playoffs, they won't win a championship, but that's still not worthless.
I wasn't really clear on this, but I don't think he's worthless either. Looking back I can see how it looks like I was trying to say that because of the part that I responded to. My post was only meant to say that scoring alone isn't necessarily valuable, and you have to look into it more. The value of a high scoring player has a very very wide range.
Yes, that’s exactly what everyone debating with you in the last couple pages of this thread is waiting for you to admit. You harp on @fchowd0311 for his constant negativity in regards to anything Harden does or doesn’t do. Do you not realize you are the exact opposite? You might as well be James Harden’s PR representative with how you defend him whenever he has a bad game. There is a middle ground between being completely negative about a player and being completely positive about everything they do, even when they clearly have an off night. Also, Dort made the open shots the Rockets gave him. That doesn’t cheapen his 30 points in game 7, at all. He stepped up and had the game of life on both ends of the court.
