Harden's mother: "He is doing the best for his career...He is asking for a chance to get a ring”

I’m not arguing with you, and I don’t believe Harden shrinks in the playoffs, but there is no Maybe about that Portland series and we also should have won the Spurs series considering their injuries (popovich coaching be damned)

We also should not have gone 7 games against OKC. And should have won either Game 5 or 6 against the Warriors CP’s final year. (Not saying this on Harden, but just not going to go with the narrative that as a team we maybe had one letdown)

 

I have never said he wasnt, nor that he used to be. But he hasnt been good enough for most of his career.

That's not the narrative, its that he takes dumb shots. Its that's he's not smart enough to realize that those shots hurt the team, even when its explained to him. Cmon dude...this is ridiculous.

You dont have to be an analytics guru to know that Russ taking too many mid range pull ups is a bad thing.

 

Certain people think Harden doesn't turn up in the playoffs, but he does 95% of the time. Yeah, he has the odd bad game here or there. But, he's been very good in the playoffs for us. People said he played awful against the Lakers.... but he averaged 29 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists and nearly 2 steals a game. He did that whilst getting double-teamed..... and he shot very efficiently. If it weren't for Westbrook, Harden most likely would have had a championship last summer. Westbrook couldn't take advantage of a 4v3 situation most times..... and he became a turnover machine.

Harden's actually played well in 4 of the 6 games against the Spurs, but they tend to bring up that one game. He's just needed more help than he's got. He's been really unlucky at times. I'm not saying he couldn't do better at times, but he's been excellent for us most playoffs games.

 

not a chance. Try to get Ben Simmons or Jaylen Brown if he’s really holding out. It’s pretty unclear what exactly he’s doing. It would be great if he actually said something.

 

Well the reason I say "maybe" about Portland is that the teams were, objectively, pretty evenly matched. It was a 4-5 seed matchup, and the teams had identical regular season records where HCA was decided by H2H record. Yes, the Rockets had HCA, and yes, we seemed to have the Blazers' number in the regular season, but I don't think it's quite the same as if we'd lost to, say, the Mavs in 2015 or the Jazzholes in... ever. We should have won, but there was dignity in that defeat.

EDIT: With regards to the examples you edited in, I can agree, but you're getting into the nitty gritty, which is beyond the point I was making. We can get into the weeds of why we lost which games and which ones we should have won, but the point is, no one thought we'd beat GS in a 7-game series (except for Rockets fans), and many people didn't even think we'd beat OKC without Westbroke playing. I'm just talking about the final outcome of the series. (@Zoplicone tagging in csae you miss the edit)

 

If harden wants out, that’s fine. But honor your contract until a suitable deal can be made.l, because if he doesn’t it only hurts both sides and could make the process longer than it has to be.

 

Don't flatter yourself, I don't "follow you", I just read the GARM. If you love posting about other stuff it must be in another one of the sub forums here.

 

I think you’re too dug in on being the guy that craps on Harden, to the point where you look for him to fail. He’s obviously not without fault and you can add complete **** GM, publicist, and agent to that list, but he’s an all time great and truly one of the best offensive forces in history. That’s not going to be easy to replace.

 

You better have your codpiece on when interacting with him.

 

I honestly don’t even know if he loves basketball anymore and question how much he loved it in the first place. If it was truly about a winning a ring don’t you think he’d be practicing everyday, getting his body ready, and doing whatever he can to be at his peak to start the season which is around the corner? if it was about winning a ring, James sitting out would give him a 0% chance to win this year as opposed to playing with a pretty good Rockets roster and having a shot at it. To me, this isn’t about winning a ring, more so I think he’s enjoyed his time off during the extremely short off season and doesn’t really have a desire to play competitive ball right now.
I had sometimes wondered why he lacked killer instinct in some playoff series or why he didn’t seem to be putting 100% effort, seemingly giving up when **** didn’t go out way. I wonder if he simply wanted to get to the off-season ASAP and was content with losing games in the latter part of seasons.

 

I dont blame Harden completely. I despise NBA player culture as a whole. This is like Hulk Hogan and professional wrestling in the 80s/90s.

Big names get paid more by a huge margin (plus creative control) and the little names are just trying to earn a check.

The whole LeBron and "the decison" was when the wheels fell off completely. Opened the door for KD to choke in OKC and join the opposing team the following year without any concern how his peers may perceive it.

 

Caris LeVert
Taurean Prince
Spencer Dinwiddie
Jarrett Allen
Landry Shammet
Nicolas Claxton
4 First Round Picks (all unprotected)

for

James Harden and Cory Joseph

Send Eric Gordon to Sacramento for Buddy Hield and one of those FRPs from the Nets.

Crazy thing: It works in the NBA Trade Machine and puts us at plus 3 wins. I'd do it. Might even be competitive this year right after you pull the trigger. That's a lot of depth!

 

this

 

Doesn’t make sense. He has a better chance to win here than there... It’s something else.

 

Poor mega-millionaire!

 

And guess who was singing in Hardens ear this offseason to come to Brooklyn? The snake himself. The evil master KD who set everything in motion

 

Loyalty to your team is never stupid!

 

I hate Tilman so much

 

homer!!

 

He's had an 11 year career with OKC, even if you say his last 3 years were bad that still means most of his career he's been an amazing player? He hasn't been good enough, you can say that about many players that aren't Kawhi, Curry, Lebron, like good enough to win a championship is a 1% thing.

Why is it ridiculous? See, if I say "It's likely that they were fine with him taking these shots in the end because they thought it helped his confidence and rhythm." or "He was younger then and they wanted to expand his game so they allowed him to experiment more on the court."

I'll get a paper of spreadsheets thrown at me as if these aren't things that happen. Because some people only seem to see stats. You see, Giannis taking a 3 point shot, statistically, is VERY bad. So why does he take them? Why do they allow him to take them? By this logic, Giannis taking a three point shot is stupid and every time he takes one it's a low-IQ shot.

The answer is simple, they want him to grow into the shot, to get better at it, and the only way he does that is build his confidence through games. They also did early in his career tell him to shoot less threes and he did listen but he was also always working on his shot so they had to give him room to see if he could improve at it, just overall. This was Brooks, who said publically before that he needs to take less threes. Donovan seemed to give Russ more power in the offense, but the point is it isn't always as simple as "This is a statistically bad shot and thus a player taking it is stupid and bad."