I’ve never been a Harden fan, I’m however, a huge HOU sports fan. When you think of Harden you think of an All-Star, a superstar, an MVP. He has games where you just thank Daryl for that amazing steal. He has historic nights, triple doubles, and hardly ever misses games. He’s clearly an NBA superstar and face of a franchise. But then there’s turnover Harden, playoff Harden, iso Harden, and no defense Harden that drives me nuts. Harden is an amazing players with a lot of flaws. Yes he’s a great scorer but T-Mac and Allen Iverson were too. Having a great scorer is not always a good thing. The ability to lead and win is a big thing. Yes Harden has taken HOU to the PO by winning games during the regular season but when the PO start he seems to almost shrink. He’ll have 2 good games than disappear (LAC game 6). If Harden isn’t getting the calls he pouts and starts to make stupid plays (TO’s and never gets back on D). Yes HOU has a lot of problems this year but last year this early problems were hidden with LRMM and Arizas ability to defend multiple positions. This year Harden is getting exposed as well as our switch defense. Sometimes Harden doesn’t even look at his man when he’s off ball denfending (back door cuts all day). His unwillingness to defend is starting to seem to run guys the wrong way. Harden is quick to get in your ear when you miss an assignment but seems to ignore others when he misses his consistently. I’m not saying trade Harden, I’m saying find a solution or blow this thing up.
What makes it more irritating is he can play defense when he wants to. Game 4 in golden state he looked like the best defender on the floor.
Guys... Harden is an infallible God. He is above reproach. No one can criticize his very linear and predictable game along with his revolving door defense.
Is Harden the only defender? Is he the primary defender? Is Harden the reason we aren't getting rebounds? I might have missed that.
He's on the court the most and I have a gut feeling the team's defensive schemes try to hide Harden as much as possible with the switch schemes hence why they are so stubborn with never mixing things up. Harden refusing to ever fight through a pick once in his life is why we have Capella guarding pgs at the 3 pt line instead of guarding the paint and being in position to defensive rebound .
Brooklyn beat Philly Raptors beat Golden State without KAwhai I bet the real problems are EmBiid and Curry and Durant . . . . .. Rocket River
curry and durant actually are the problem,overrated and overpaid as hell with no appropriate influence on the game...totally dependent of the refs to bail them out embiid is one injury away from ruining phillys half decade of tanking and jimmy leaving philly in summer with getting nothing in return
I have the gut feeling we run the defense we do because our offense relies to heavily on Harden. Also, this switch everything nonsense is crazy in itself because it assumes that every player can hit that three when popping over a screen. It should change based on the scouting report, but my guess is some of the guys running the defense can't comprehend a scheme that has any form of nuance. We've distilled it down to its simplest element for ease, the issue is, it's not working anymore.
No, all of them also have blame. I never implied worshiping them unlike you who runs on their knees to every criticism of Harden that exists in the GARM. Do you have some script that flags criticism of Harden on the GARM?
can you list the things which are causing the rockets problems this year ranked from the worst? and which superstar can do a better job than harden given this roster?
DD Everyone here knows. . .. if the Rockets were 20-5 You would still be BAMming about Harden bringing the ball up too slow/Turnovers/looks fat/etc You know how we know. . . . .. because you did it last year I understand never being satisfied but .. . . . after a while people get tone deaf to the constant negativity Rocket River
problem here are fans thinking harden is holding back this team LOL http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm
Right and I made sure I said that. He’s not the only problem but he is the leader and should learn to lead by example.
Maybe I missed the part where Harden was the face and leader of this team and should probably lead by example
If you think Tmac and Iverson are in the same category of “great scorers” with Harden then you have a lot to learn. Harden makes those 2 look like just average dudes when it comes to efficiently putting points on the board. Harden will likely go down as one of the 5-10 best overall offensive players in NBA history. Something many of the usual suspects just gloss over. Read that again. One of the best offensive players EVER. Not just right now, we are talking about history. Iverson and Tmac don’t come close to that. You sound like all the rest of the short sighted Harden detractors. And I will make it clear. I KNOW HARDEN HAS FLAWS!!!! Just like every player. I will never say Harden is a perfect player. I will say I have seen enough of him to know who he is and what to expect and have an understanding that when you look at the whole picture it is very hard to do better than him when building a basketball team.