Harden the YO-YO can take us down or bring us up by his ridiculous excessive 3pt shooting. Everyone else needs to start taking more of the 3 pt shots because Harden is our worst shooter from behind the arc right now. Thornton 7/15 .467, Lawson 3/8 .375, Beverly 5/14 .357, Ariza 7/23 .304, Terry 1/4 .250, Brewer 2/10 .200 Oh, and Harden 7/44 .159 He will tell you great shooters have slumps, but I say, until he can consistently shoot better than anyone else let the best take the highest amount of shots from behind the arc!!!!!! All those missed shots killed us during the playoffs last year and in our first 3 games. Be a team player and do what you do best, assists, drawing fouls, and making free throws, until you can shoot better than the rest from behind the arc.
First of all, my personal opinion is that James takes the toughest shots and you can't compare him to the others. A lot of the shots are at the end of the shot clock, since no one else wants to take the last shot, or step-backs when James tries to get us going. If Ariza took the same shots his percentage would be even worse. I am not defending him, he should drive more instead of wasting the shot clock and jacking up threes, but you can't say that he should stop shooting threes and the others should do it more.
Huh? Harden shot 38.3% on 3 pointers in last year's playoffs. In the WCF vs the Warriors he shot 42.9% from behind the arc. How does that kind of shooting kill us?
100% truth. To expand further on this comment: OP, you realise Harden made 208 threes last season right? Good for top 5 in made threes. He is a borderline elite three point shooter (when considering volume and difficulty of most attempts). Sure, he's not shooting 42%+ like Curry, Thompson, Korver and Gordon, but very few do. He is one the top three point shooters in the league.
Harden is not an elite 3 point shooter, but he's the best we got. On any other team Harden wouldn't be allowed to shoot so many 3s, because a) he's not amazing at it b) it makes it easy for defenders, when you settle for a contested pull up step back whatever 3 instead taking it to the rim. We got what we got. A combination of average 3 point shooters in a "system" that forces them to shoot it anyway. Deal with it.
I agree with the OP. Dwight and Terrence were our best c&s 3-point shooters. So stop shooting it Harden, you scrub, and give them the ball!
I agree with the level of difficulty he has on these shots but still making a respectable percentage (or better if he had wide open looks). Sure he could dance a little less but our current system has other players mostly sitting pat trying to spread the floor so he can drive or PnR. A lot of times our other guys aren't hitting consistently so the D is allowed to pack the paint a bit more making it tough to drive through especially since he's not getting as many calls right now.
He literally only played 4 games and is clearly in a slump. I'm not defending him bc he does take some questionable shots but it's way to early to be saying this.
You should be allowed to give a thread zero stars, and when it receives enough of them, it's automatically deleted. "The best player on our team, and MVP-runner up, will tell you that he's just in a slump, but don't believe him!!! Believe me instead, some scrub on the internet, who thinks he knows more about basketball than professional players and coaches!!!!11lol!!" Harden has had a rough start to the season, but I'm putting the ball in his hands 10 times out of 10.
I agree that this thread is premature but I think Harden and our offence makes all of us a little frustrated sometimes. The ball gets sticky and everybody just stands there while he does his dance and either drives or does a step back 3. If we could only run some plays and he could practice some catch and shoot, we wouldnt be so predictable. Keep the ball moving, make the opposing team work on D and maybe we can get some open looks. When he's on fire no problem with iso but we need a plan with plays when we in a shooting slump. AND we alwasys have a quarter where we slump and lose the lead or dig a hole for ourselves
38% with over 200 made is nothing to sneeze about tho, and to an extent I agree he's not great if u compare him to korver curry and klay. But when u factor in curry is the only elite 3pt shooter in the game taking the same type of shots harden does it makes harden a better 3 point shooter than his % says. But I disagree on the last part whatever team harden would be on he would have the green light to shoot however many 3s he wants because he would still be the best player on the team. It's not like hardens a scrub or lillard type Allstar he's an mvp type player top 5 overall in the game right now.
Hope the YO-YO leads us to the playoffs personally, as the MVP, but for now he is shooting miserably from beyond the arc, and 11 shots a game is too many at that percentage.
If Steph Curry went on a shooting slump shooting 1/15 from 3PT line, I would still give him the last posession shot. Same thing with Harden. If Dwight suddenly hit 10/10 fts you wouldn't say he's suddenly a great ft shooter. Variance.
The last two possessions when we were up 108-102 were cringe worthy Basically Harden dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble and then jack up a 3 which were bricks He has to play more teamball and less jacking up of 3's esp when he is shooting atrocious
Right now? Not even close Curry, Durant, Westbrook, LeBron, Blake Griffin..../ And he wouldn't be the best player on an team that has Durant, LeBron, curry and maybe even AD or Westbrook
