Harden is a lead star. Someone like Klay Thompson is a complementary star. If you're not running your offense through Harden, you're wasting his talents, since he can drive and kick or create for himself. Klay can also score going to the hoop or, obviously, shooting it, plus he can pass a bit, but you don't start the offense with him, he creates his opportunities off the ball. Whether Harden is a "leader" or not, he's the guy who drives the offense unless you get rid of him and replace him. He won't work alongside another ball-dominant star like Chris Paul, for example. So either devote your thoughts to what complementary players would work next to him or how you'd replace him as the leader star, not whether he's a "Batman" or a "Robin."
It's funny and pretty sad how far this current Rocket's team has regressed since last season. That's kind of what happens when your team goes from really desiring to win then some starts feeling like things should be entitled to them. This isn't really surprising though, we don't have enough consistent positive factors on this team and I think we were really lucky to get as far as we did in the playoffs. Things just happened to start clicking for us when we got near the end of the seasons with the additions of Brewer and Smith.
We don't have Robin. We have Batman. And we have Superman. But Robin ain't on this team. And that's the biggest reason why our offensive is one-dimensional and our defense sucks even though we have the best paint defender in the business. We are asking Harden to be both Batman and Robin. And it is killing us and killing him. James Harden is a scoring, shooting guard. A great scoring, shooting guard. The best scoring, shooting guard in the business. He's got a great handle............for a shooting guard. But not for a point guard. He's got great vision.......for a shooting guard. But not for a point guard. He's a great passer.....for a shooting guard. But not for a point guard. There's a quick, dirty formula that I use get a quick peek at the efficiency of playmakers. Here it is: (ORBs + STLs + Offensive fouls drawn)/Turnovers You can even shorten it for convenience to (ORBs + STLs)/Turnovers since you have to go to nbaminer.com to get the offensive fouls drawn numbers. What this simple formula does is tell us what percentage of turnovers does a player make that he offsets by getting a steal or an offensive rebound (which gets his team extra shots for the shots he costs his team by turning it over). You can see logically that a 1:1 ratio means a player offsets all his turnovers (which costs his team a shot) with enough offensive rebounds and steals that there is the same amount of shots. So at 1:1 his turnovers aren't really costing the team because he offsets them by creating extra shots through steals and offensive rebounds. Anything less than 1:1 and the player has a deficit of turnovers. Let's look at some of the top playermakers (ORB+STL)/TO ratios for this season: Jackson .599 (.686 including offensive fouls drawn) Wall .636 (.675 including offensive fouls drawn) Teague .654 (.707 including offensive fouls drawn) Dragic .670 (.760 including offensive fouls drawn) Rajon .755 (.830 including offensive fouls drawn) Lebron .822 (.895 including offensive fouls drawn) Steph .877 (.969 including offensive fouls drawn) Wade .889 (.929 including offensive fouls drawn) CP3 .960 (1.0476 including offensive fouls drawn) Russell .977 (1.03 including offensive fouls drawn) Lowry .933 (1.144 including offensive fouls drawn) Conley 1.15 (1.43 including offensive fouls drawn) Kemba 1.154 (1.364 including offensive fouls drawn) Rubio 1.286 (1.581 including offensive fouls drawn) Bev 1.74 (2.02 including offensive fouls drawn) (but Bev IS NOT a playmaker) Harden .521 (.584 including offensive fouls drawn) As you can easily see here, Harden turns the ball over almost twice as much as he steals and rebounds it on the offensive end. And that's troubling because Harden is #1 in the league in turnovers. But the thing is he doesn't even have a 2:1 or better A/TO ratio like the other guys that have the most turnovers. And he doesn't offset his turnovers with nearly enough steals and offensive rebounds like the other guys that lead the league in turnovers. This is precisely why Morey goes out and gets guys like Brewer, Bev, and Ariza. Because he has to have guys that are ultra-efficient at creating turnovers defensively to offset all the turnovers Harden makes offensively!!! But none of those guys are efficient playmakers. So we don't have an efficient playmaker/creator out there. We have James scoring and attempting to be the primary playmaker by throwing the ball around when he can't score it. And he's simply not good enough throwing the ball around to warrant carrying the mantle of Robin and Batman both. And that limits us on offense because none of those guys can handle save for Brewer and Brewer dribbles around like a chicken with his head cut off. He's not going to make a play for anybody. He might score the ball...or he might just burn up shot clock seconds and pass it back out after meandering around with the ball from corner to corner for 5-8 seconds. Those are band-aid solutions. The real solution is to get a TRUE PLAYMAKER that is proficient with his passing and efficient with his turnovers. Harden is neither. Once again, James is a great player. But James IS NOT a great playmaker. And the sooner Morey, Harden and this organization figures that out and gets something done about it then the sooner we'll be able to really move up to championship contending status. WE NEED ROBIN!! We need that guy that 's gonna feed both Batman and Superman and do it at both highly efficient and proficient rates. You'd think that guy would be Lawson (at least offensively) but it isn't. Lawson simply isn't a good enough defender at the 1 to be able to play major minutes beside Harden. Or you'd think it would be Bev since Bev is ultra efficient with his turnovers BUT Bev simply cannot create offense for anybody. Bev is a shooting guard that defends point guards. That's it. Bev is a band-aid fix. He should be coming off the bench for a team that has two primary playmakers. He should be the 3rd guard on a championship contender. James is 4th in bad pass turnovers in the league and 2nd in losing the ball turnovers. He simply forces things too much because he's not a true creator. James doesn't see the play ahead of time and he doesn't have the ability to make the pass before his teammate is even in position to catch. He just doesn't have the foresight and floor vision. James makes assists off his own attempts to score. That's it. When you watch him play, you know when the pass is coming and where it's going before it gets there. He's going to drive right into the teeth of the D all the way to the rim, and if he doesn't get it stripped or lose it underneath, he's either gonna put it up, attempt a lob, or he's gonna fire it midair to one of the corners or the right arc. That's it. That's when James passes the ball. And that's when the bulk of his turnovers are made. And that's not Robin. James has a great handle...for a shooting guard. But he does not have a great handle for a point guard. That's why when opponents put smaller, quicker guys on him and then force him to put it on the floor and then they attack his dribble early....they turn him over and it goes the other way. James simply doesn't have point guard skills to be able to handle the ball against multiple opponents that are hunting the basketball from him. And that's why even if we go to the playoffs with this bunch (without getting Robin) that we are going to fall because opponents are going to collapse on James and James in turn is gonna cough it up and we're gonna be dead. Same thing as last year. Robin is the guy that wig wags through the lane and finds guys wide open through player and ball movement without allowing his dribble to be disturbed by opponents reaching. Robin is the guy that can thread the needle repeatedly without throwing it out of bounds or to the opponent. I'm telling you we ain't got Robin on this team and the sooner Morey/James and the rest of the organization figures it out and gets Robin the sooner we'll move into championship contention. Until then we're also-rans/lottery team.
Rockets need a Robin that is aggressive. And not willing to always defer to Harden. I dont think Harden is selfish. I think Harden has trust issues with his teammates because they cant score. Lawson was brought in to help but he is too passive and tentative. Josh Smith is not. He does what he wants and you can see Harden respect that. Problem is, Josh is just not good enough to be that Robin.
Not the players, its the coaching? Anyone else surprised that a McHale assistant isn't getting the job done? If it didn't work with McHale what made you think it was going to work with Bickerstaff?
Dude, 'Batman Forever' and 'Batman & Robin' sucked. We don't need Robin, we need The Dark Knight, maybe someone will Joker our Rachel (Khloe)
trade: harden for curry, dwight for green, ariza + tj for klay, brewer for ai, then we're all set. morey the genius can get it done, for sure.
Blow it up because of one really bad year? That's a little extreme... It looks like we are going to drown, but we are keeping our heads above water for the moment. Either we are going to get tired and slip into the abyss like Jack Dawson, or we're going to get rescued by the Carpathia. The Carpathia being either a miracle of chemistry/heart or a blockbuster trade. Either way, it's one year. And while the contract and situations (for Dwight) isn't ideal, we still have a top guard and top center and some quality role players. This isn't like Tmac and Yao who struggled mightily with injuries and had no surrounding talent. We progressed from Year 1 with Harden, to Year 2 (except the playoffs), and then to Year 3, making it all the way to the WCF. Blow it up for what? This season might be lost as it is, why start the rebuilding process when we can be right back to where we were last season at the start of next season. We just need to press the reset button and make some peripheral adjustments. Nothing drastic, just routine maintenance. The biggest of the changes should come at head coach and heart/attitude.
The only people that are going to 'work with Harden' are guys that are fine with only rebounding and playing d and dont care that they rarely get offensive touches... or guys that can line up on the perimeter and drain a 3 after not touching the ball for 10-15 minutes at a stretch... and even then, you're only going as far as james feels like pushing IF he's not in a slump.... I'm telling ya'll the dude is not someone to build a team around - he is fool's gold... He's not MJ. He's not Kobe. He's not LeBron... yet that's the role he wants to play. The way his ball dominance diminishes the utilization of the rest of the team makes him a motivation killer and he is not ever going to win us a championship - he has to go! Great players make their teammates better - gloryhounds make them obsolete...
Same coaching staff.....same results. You fire McHale and put his defensive coordinator in charge, so the results have not changed. Still no effort on the defensive end. If McHale were here the record would be the same.
