I want to get lots of votes on this. When did the tons of hate on Harden's defense start?

It replaced the "Harden is a flopper" narrative which used to be the most popular reason to hate Harden.

 

If you wanted to get "tons of votes on this," a better title would be

"If you believe Harden had his best game of the season? This video will shock you?"

Then ask the question once everyone clicks on your topic.

 

Because he makes tons of great videos of plays, and put that together basically for clutchfans to watch? Someone I think on Grantland posted it and it just took off, it's not his fault.

 

It was definitely the video. No doubt about it.

Harden could play all NBA defense next season, but one slip up and that Vine is comin'.

 

It was before the video but it wasn't a consensus and certainly only on Clutchfans was it widely debated on his D. That's why the video was made and once it got posted it was picked up by a few outlets and went viral.

 

This kind of notion is ridiculous.

Harden played a little bit harder last year (especially in the early season) on defense, and so did someone here posted a video of all his "great" defensive plays and Morey also twitted that out and get some attention.

Most of the people laughing at him don't have agenda, actually a lots of them were cheering for him last year for his improved plays.

 

It started when he stopped playing defense.

DD

 

Most of the cheering and recognition came from Rockets fans and a few writers who watch enough games to realise that he's stepped it up.

Morey, or the Houston Rockets account sending out these highlights is often met with skepticism because of the source.

It's clear that a clip of Harden playing disinterested defense, regardless of context or how he's performed in that game, week or month is something that can exploited because it gets clicks.

They do not care about educating the masses, or being a credible source of journalism. If they did, they wouldn't tweet things like this. These websites have sway, and most of the time they simply don't care about putting out what is true, only what will get attention.

 

When did he start? I guess right after last summer but that didn't last long

 

What kind of world are you living in?

Of course in this era, any breaking news from CNN and FOX with disasters will gain much, much and much higher rating than any feel good stories.

ESPN is an entertainment business, of course their no. 1 goal is to gain higher rating to make more money.

You want to get education while you are surfing ESPN? Are you kidding yourself? You may learn more things from watching porns.

Now if you will insist about "ESPN just putting out anything that can get attention while those are even the truth", well, yes more than often they did.

But not in this case, they even have video to support it, you are just mad that because your feeling got hurt.

 

For me, it was those early season games against the Clippers two seasons ago when Redick got twenty points in the first quarter in each game without ever being contested. At least, that's the way I remember it.

 

Hmmm...

I don't go to ESPN for my basketball education. I don't follow ESPN on Twitter or visit their website.

I'm simply stating that many fans do in fact take whatever ESPN or B/R put out as the truth and it can be damaging to a players reputation.

 

Need to find something on the interweb? Ask J.R. Better than Google. :grin:

 

It started with a bitter Lin fan and snowbakled from there.

The guy is very far from our worst defender, but he can't defend the pick n roll.

 

Then the neg train train needs to hit whoever shared it to Grantland

 

Harden's actually a pretty good post defender.

 

I have a theory on the resurgence of his bad defense.

A) Harden played good defense last year
B) Harden is not playing good defense this year

I think most of us can agree on A&B if you actually watched most of the games in both seasons. My theory on why, isn't that he doesn't care this year, I just think he's more focused on rebounding because he's playing more 4 than before when we go small. He's out of position because that's not his position and he doesn't have the plays memorized yet. I think he will return to the good defender that he was once he gets used to what 2s, 3s, and 4s do defensively and can switch in his brain as quickly as he changes defensive assignments.

I think part of the issue with Harden is that he's such a crafty veteran on offense and we think that same creative mind would apply to defense. We expect that his basketball iq should apply two ways because it's all just basketball, right? He seems like a weird creative dude and disciplined defense doesn't jive with the way his brain works naturally. So, defense can come, but it comes more slowly with that side of the ball. Don't give up on Harden, the man is special. Defense will come soon enough. After all, he was good on D last year.

 

I don't think HMMMHMM is a LOF.

 

If he played half decent defense ... this would have quieted down.

It did quiet down last year, but this year it is back, and rightly so.

You can't play half a dozen decent games of defense (like he has recently) and expect to get rid of a perception.

 

Don't think so either, he has a lot of insightful threads/posts and also was critical of Lin a lot of times. Harden fans have the tendency of labelling every critic a *letter of your choice*OF and changing the narrative, many somehow need that to rationalize the criticism.