[Zillgitt] Harden's style created tension between players

I wonder who is the brave soul who would give Harden a very much-needed talking to? Ariza? Terry? JB? Morey? Last year Harden would still listen to the Jet. He needs to have the fear of God put in him. Fast.

 

pretty much and your best player cannot play defense like he does. that's unacceptable.

 

Harden isn't a true leader. He is a fake MVP candidate. One of the laziest players I've seen.

 

Harden's "style" took us to the playoffs three years in a row and got a horrible coach extended, I would say his style is amazing. What they mean is hard is on a slump and he couldn't stop the rest of us from looking like crap for once.

 

Would bet he's like; I just got $200 mil, y'all can't tell me *hitz..

 

this.

 

It's not just about him holding the ball too long, he gives no effort on the defensive end.

 

...and then yells at a player for a missed rotation or missed assignment.

"You have the nerve to yell at me or call me out when you ain't doing jack ****? Hahahahahahahaha

 

It's the wrong mix of players.

For Harden's play-style to work (and I'm assuming this is what the tweet is referring to and not his off-court personal style) he has to have space. He has to have 3&D players at the 1,3, and 4 spots.

This mix of players simply doesn't have that. You put our best shooters out there around Harden (Thornton, Ariza, Terry) and that's 3 poor defenders (Harden, Terry, Thornton) all on the floor together. And frankly we don't have any other shooters other than those I just named. The next closest thing to shooters we have is Bev and he's out hurt and his D hasn't been solid in over a year now. Next closest thing to a shooter is Lawson and his D is non-existent. Brewer can get lucky on D sometimes...but he's not a floor spreading shooter. Neither Terrence nor Harrell can spread the floor. And they're both subpar defenders and rebounders.

A Harden-style offense is simply too easy to defend without shooters at the 1,3, and 4 spots. It's simply the wrong mix of players around Harden. Can they play better? Yes. But they're not going to be able to play good enough to beat the Warriors and Cavs even playing their very best. Because they simply do not have the proper skill sets to make a Harden-style offense super efficient the way it needs to be for us to win a championship and there's not enough D in them either.

 

People say this but this is a myth. Harden appears to "carry" the team only because we force feed him the ball EVERY game. Harden ISO is what we choose to live & die pretty much every possession. I don't like this but it's what Morey wants. Even with Ty here Harden STILL unnecessarily dominates the ball smh

 

Seems like the LOFs were wrong on Lin but they were right on Harden.

 

Harden's style also saw us get beat badly by Portland and the Warriors, and almost led to us getting beat by the Clippers. Without Josh Smith and Brewer owning that Game 6, we don't even get to the conference finals.

Harden has feasted on the crappier teams during his tenure here but has been completely bipolar against good teams. Sometimes he shows up and gives a great performance, but there have been an equal number of games where he's been a negative on the court (particularly with his horrendous defense and turnovers). This has been especially frequent in the playoffs - James didn't even show up until the last game of the Portland series and was about 50/50 in all three series this past postseason. This is not how a real superstar plays - this is how a Mad Max or a John Starks plays. You can't win with these kind of guys as your first option in an Iso-centric offense (they'll shoot you out of a game) and you really can't win when they give lackluster effort and play no defense.

I'm not suggesting we let everyone else runs bunch of iso plays (hell no), but management has to recognize James on-off play against good teams in crucial games. So the best way to minimize this is a better system that doesn't leave the ball in his hands so often. We brought in a good PG - it's time to have James play off the ball for the bulk of our plays. We can still give him the ball for end of period and end of game possessions, but better to have Lawson run the PnR with Dwight and our other bugs. If Harden can't do that, then we aren't going to win jack with him and should explore new directions for the team.

I've said before that Harden is fools' gold (after the Portland series) but that may not be the right analogy. There are times when he is a platinum player and there are times when he's not even lead. But I definitely no longer feel that he is a franchise player - he's just a more skilled Steve Francis with less heart.

 

I don't think bad attitude is a slump.

 

Sincere question. Do you see any issue at all with the way Harden is playing this season?

 

Harden, this season, has refused to evolve.

 

you need to post harder. clap clap.

 

Maybe it's because there wasn't a proper coach to guide him.

Put Harden under Popovich and things will be different.

 

Agree 100 percent.

Just that if we had a better coach the past few years, maybe Harden would not have developed his bad habits. Like we keep preaching move the ball, but he stops it. Or his defense. McHale was not able to instill any discipline in him. I wonder whether it's too late.

 

So true

He really is a mentally weak, attention craving, beta-male.

He makes a nice number 2 or 3 guy on a championship team, but not leader.