For one thing Durant + Harden is way worse than Durant + Westbrook. This has to be obvious to Durant.
I was also thinking of this. Two years ago, Harden was almost like an equal to Lin and Parsons, in his attitude. Now he is way detached from the rest of the team on some level.
KlutchQT is the only person making sense in this thread. The rest of you are being really weird interpreting Terry/Bev's quote. I don't see how y'all are reading that much into "Not the same group" by saying it's literally a person or two...and further, that there are conspiracies to freeze out teammates so they have to be traded. really weird stuff in this thread.
Worst of all, the current team member being marginalized is the one of the two that's done more for this team's progress in the playoffs than Harden himself has... To say nothing of the "role players" who also contributed more to that success than he has, and who are paying the price for his poor attitude, if Harden is indeed doing what's being theorized here...
Holding our players accountable was one of the biggest gripes I have about our coaching staff, and I don't think allowing Bickerstaff to be interim coach will change that. Harden was never held accountable for his poor defensive effort on the Rockets. Harden benefited greatly from playing in the Olympics under Coach K and Thibs, but now he's back to Haren with our coaching staff. Real coaches would never allow Harden to be such a sieve on defense. I seriously hope Harden doesn't have or develop a primadonna attitude. That will doom our franchise.
What a weird season for the NBA ... its not just us in a funk look at the Clippers too and it feels like no one is winning **** this year but one team unfortunately ..
so weird. KlutchQT made it clear she doesn't buy the argument, but entertained it for argument's sake to illustrate how unfathomable it is. Then you respond to her as if y'all are in complete agreement. so weird
How so...? I didn't present the hypothesis or contribute to it's design... I merely highlighted the incomprehensible gravity of such a thing if it were true...
The thing is what can even a disciplinarian coach do to Harden with all the power he wields on and off the court, with all the money paid to him. You want discipline him, you're going to lose games since everything is centered around him and they "supposedly" become the worst team in the NBA if he's not playing. I remember during his first or second year as a Rockets, he had to rest a game or two, and the chemistry, ball movement etc. looked amazing. The minute he came back, they reverted to sticky ball. I'd love to see what Dwight/Lawson and the "brick squad" can do for a couple of games without Harden. I almost guarantee you'll see a much different team, win or lose, they'll look cohesive and happier.
I'm in no way defending Harden with this stat, but thought it was interesting for this game: Harden played 41 minutes and was +1 Rockets lost by 9 points that means in the 7 minutes that he didn't play, the rest of the team got beat by 10 pts.
I am sure the lakers and cavs are -x when Kobe or Lebron were sitting, but they were +XXX when their guy was in. That's not happening - we should be more than +1 with Harden in 41 minutes. What's scary is that he scored 40 pts on nearly flawless offense (a couple of turnovers away from flawless). But he's not leading. Leading is more than what happens on the court.
I will say the poster earlier made a good point. You see Steph and even KD/Russell and they seem to have an awesome relationship with their teammates. It seems like Harden is kind of buying this mindset that he's better than the rest of his team so he doesn't have to get along with them or hang with them. That's how a team builds chemistry. Even a team like the Mavs which doesn't have in-their-prime superstars is doing well because they have great chemistry from always hanging out and enjoying being around one another. Maybe Harden needs to check his ego a little bit and get back to being a good teammate.
Damn DD went IN on Terry lol. Oh and yea it's pretty clear that his quote was referring to guys that were here last season but don't have the mindset/attitude they had last year. As for Durant, yea he ain't coming here. Only way we had a shot is if we went deep in the playoffs again.
Maybe it's paranoia, I don't know, but it sure seems like there is more going on than just "we're all shooting really poorly and committing too many turnovers." It looks like something personal is involved, even if it's just players being mad at each other for our poor record. Players met to "work on things" and then they got our coach fired. Now they're having meetings to "come together" and still can't win games that we would definitely win last year. I think they want Bickerstaff gone now but I can't imagine who they want as coach.
Did it ever come out, why Smith left? Bigger role? More $$$? LA lifestyle? Old teammates? New teammates?
