His numbers across the board were down. Everything except assists/steals/blocks, which were roughly the same. All of his shooting percentages dropped. Even the eye test showed a marked difference compared to his first season with us. I'm of the opinion that if we had THAT CP3 playing for us last year, we would have made it to the finals. Even with CP3 Lite™, we played a tough series against the Warriors. So what was it? What accounts for the different between 2017-18 CP3 and the 2018-19 version? I tried to come up with as many plausible factors as I could. Apologies in advance if I left out something obvious. Multiple answers allowed (because it likely wasn't due to one single factor).
Age and injuries for sure, which is understandable, 34 years old, been in the league for what? 13/15 years? A ton of minutes on those knees...sucks, his tears after the last big injury were really telling and heartbreaking...i always found him kinda annoying on the court when he was a rival because of his constant complaining and flopping, but i always respected him as a player and he deserved to win a championship two years ago, luck is a real b****.
I'm honestly surprised to see so many of you think age and injuries were the primary (or only) factors. I think that played a part, but IMO there was something in his head last year other than Father Time.
aging lost speed and athleticism so couldn’t get to his spots as easily as he used to ISO offense wasn’t the best style to accommodate his decline
Honestly, not sure what the Harden/CP3 beef was, so I did put age/injuries/tentative plays. They seemed SO much on the same page 2yrs ago, and were shoulder jumping and high fiving and laughing, good times. Sure, winning bandages things, but last years start was in Morey and bad cheap parts. We cut the fat, injuries hurt for a while and Harden went into God mode, but even when CP3 got back..... it was not the same. There did not seem to be court or locker room tensions etc, but his court movement, shooting, and on court leadership seemed affected.... he was not the same. The man had arguably 1 good playoff game out of 11, and it's not because of Hardens ball-hogging or ego. That could've made things WORSE I guess if CP3 was struggling, but something was happening before anything tension reared its ugly head.
i wanna know why he started flopping like crazy all a sudden. like when he would barely get brushed then he would just fly across the court lol that ish was embarrassing. you saw a ton of it in the playoffs
Combination of things....He's still the best at running an offense and also has the supreme midrange game. We needed more of a mix of James ...and then Chris running the offense, getting a flow with different guys involved....against GS. CP3 was also forced into too many deep threes late in the clock. I won't argue that he's lost a bit, but not as much as folks think. It just appeared worse than it is under the circumstances....and, he's got that massive contract, for services already rendered +....so, not a pretty picture.
