Tucker, Russ, Harden, Ben, House... Was our best lineup man...so I don't know what else to say. I'm looking right at the stats, that's our best lineup with any meaningful minutes played. Yall can try to twist that into whatever reason to fit your narrative but I'm dead looking at the lineups that was our best one during the season. How are you having it both ways??!?!??!?!?! First you say that the Russ lineups are bad and now you're saying it doesn't mean anything??
You're talking about Harden I see, I'm saying people are giving Russ ALL the blame. Excusing Harden's faults, excusing MDAs faults, just putting it all on Russ. I guess some people are giving Harden close to 0% of the blame simply because he put up good numbers.
I gotcha, still blaming Westbrook is just as idiotic. I mean this was a total organizational failure from the top down. I don’t see how anyone can pin point 1 item and be like SEE this is why we lost or played this way. Harden and Russ have their issues, we gassed the team out with small ball, the coach continued to use a tight rotation even with guys being tired. Our role players continued to shoot brick after brick from the 3 point line. Couldn’t rebound to save our life which is expected with small ball. I mean the list could go on. Just a total team collapse. It’s about the only thing they succeeded in as a collective unit all year.
Regular season Harden AND Westbrook : +5.6 Harden NO Westbrook : +7.7 Playoffs Harden AND Westbrook : -2.3 Harden NO Westbrook : +8.3 Over the largest sample sizes we have. For the entire season and for the playoffs. Our best minutes overall were with Westbrook on the bench. That shouldn’t be the case for any teams super max “second best” player.
All this says is that a roster build for Harden, around harden, a style completely suited to Harden...suits Harden better than Westbrook... and also that they played much better during the season...which we saw... OH and lets remember that he played on a strained quad during the playoffs...but I guess only CP3 gets injury excuses and other players we don't have a hate boner for.
Won't find any disagreements from me. I said over and over Westbrook played bad but I think everyone is at fault here, we got smashed and embarrassed, this wasn't any 7 game series, this was a basically a sweep where the Lakers let us have first punch, laughed, and proceeded to pummel us. To me this was such a collective failure that everyone should be evaluated and every option should be on the table.
No, it did not...they have a 2.2 net rating on the floor together, that isn't stellar, but it certainly didn't "Kill" us.
Last season where “everyone is giving CP3 injury excuses”.... Regular season Harden AND Paul : +7.4 Harden NO Paul : +6.1 Playoffs Harden AND Paul : +4.8 Harden NO Paul : +0.1 BETTER with our 2nd best 2nd highest paid player ON THE FLOOR
No one is denying Harden's skills. The issue is his decision making under pressure. He carries the team throughout the game but during crunch time if game is not in Rockets favour or if he is constantly being doubled-teamed, you can see in his body language of visibly giving up the ball, jacking up shots and not getting back on defence. It could very much be the fact that he is surrounded by average players or/and MDA system. But being the best players in the team, it comes with the territory that much of the blame will go on Harden for not finishing strong, considering so much depends on his shoulders for teams success under MDA system. MDA gone could be the best thing that happened to the Rockets IMO.
Obviously, because CP3 can play better off the ball than Westbrook, everyone knows this. If you get Westbrook and try to fill him into CP3s role, he plays worse. When you tell him to play more like himself, like we did at the end of the season, he plays better. It isn't rocket science, mathball people have to understand ball is about being comfy and confident. Expecting guys to do things they are bad at will not bring good results.
They arent rare though, they had many different aggregate lineups. You are not understanding that Russ didnt have many lineups that were good by himself BECAUSE HE SUCKS. Those lineups didnt get playing time because its very clear that he sucks with all those different lineups. Every game this season Harden and Westbrook had their minutes staggered. EVERY GAME. Russ had many of his own lineups and they were trash. Guess which lineup has a higher net rating than that Russ one. .P. Tucker, .E. Gordon, .A. Rivers, .B. McLemore, .D. House Jr. for 29 minutes. I mean....I gues we should have played this lineup more too, right? That would have been great right. Its even better than that lineup you just showed.
What are you talking about....What are you talking about? Are you telling me Westbrook cant run a 4V3? Oh right, he can't because he's garbage at shooting. CP is better WITH THE BALL TOO. Do you see Cp3 running around out there? Do you see him cutting? No, all he needed was to be able to shoot, and pick apart a 4v3.... What? OUR LINEUPS WERE STILL BETTER WITH JUST HARDEN, even then. That's with Russ PLAYING LIKE HIMSELF. That was AFTER the trade of Capela, you know the big he needed. Also that 2 man lineup with Capela had a terrible offensive rating. And that trade post Covington saw Russ have a higher two man lineup with Covington. Like what do you mean...himself? What does that mean? He got hot for 2 months, he cooled down in the bubble, his playoff numbers are pretty much in line with the last three years which are garbage. Okay so what's his excuse for getting bounced in the first round the last 4 years and having bad playoff stats? He was comfortable then, right? Where is the rub? Literally just explains it. We did that FOR RUSS.
