I'm expecting him to be on par with 19 CP3, but id be OK with that. His speed, decision making and passing are valuable to the team.
I think it has a lot to do with a mindset. The mindset of energy conservation. Harden isn’t great at conserving his energy. Part of it is that his teams, probably due to his preference/need, ran everything through him instead of running a system. This is why so many of the NBA's historically great clutch players played in systems that did the work of keeping every player involved and productive. Those systems helped conserve their energy. Combine the mindset of energy conservation through system play and trust in teammates and coaches with some strategic load management and I think Harden will have the energy to do what he did last night through the playoffs.
Wall gives us a dimension we never had with CP3 - transition/fast break. Harden and CP3 are half-court players. Westbrook kinda did it, but didn’t have the court vision and looked too much to score himself. Wall can both handle, push, and pass. Not to mention, he can out run everyone with the ball in his hand. Any given night you can expect a trio of 30/20/20 from harden/wood/wall trio. It’s nicely spread out. We don’t have to pray we get points from the rest of role players.
yea wall is very unselfish, he isnt a stathunter. just has a natural feel for being a pg. Notice how wall even acknowledged that he was off on his shots. westbrick would never admit that
I’m not sure... I think Harden would be as good with healthy Klay Thompson next to him as healthy CP3... even though CP3 is better than Klay. the other benefit to that is your also taller. ultimately it’s just about having talent, lots of talent. Harden with 4 Christian Woods next to him would work.
I was thinking about Lin and Beverley's ball handling against Portland in 2014 playoffs. That team could have won a ring. Harden put them in a hole with his play in the beginning of that series but he really wasn't helped in the back court. However that team as it was built and in that season in particular had a real shot
i played 1 on 2 against a couple 20yr old scrubs on wednesday. of course on defense i had to stay in the paint entire time to prevent wide-open layups. these scrubs couldn't score at all, until one of them decide to park behind the arc and just launch 3's. a few of them went in and they actually got close to winning the game. afterwards my thoughts were with harden getting constantly doubled and his teammates being unable to take advantage of 4 on 3 situations. last year w/ westbrick being unable to make open 3's. and the previous year with CP3 being unable to take his man off the dribble. this is why i see wall as an improvement over both. compared to westbrick -- smarter, better shooter, better playmaker, better at integrating into the team offense, much better on-ball defender. compared to CP3 -- bigger/faster/stronger/athletic and able to get inside a defense and finish in the paint (we saw this several times last night), and yet a good enough shooter to keep defenders from sagging off.
I've mentioned several times that's years contention will come down to Wall making 1 out 3 from behind the arc.
I don't think Wall has ever played in an offense like Houston's in which he's been asked to spot up behind the line so often. Even CP3 had a huge adjustment to make in the volume of 3-point shooting that MDA asked him to take. But I think Wall will make the transition. Cousins also has to find his place as well. Let's check back on this in two weeks. Defensively, though, we're a team full of terrible habits. I'd love to see them put in some work and make it easier for themselves rather than simply try and outscore teams. There's more than enough talent here to keep teams from getting easy shots. Far too many uncontested looks.
I've been sayin gthis for the longest. People blamed harden for standing near half court sometimes when he didnt have the ball and then in an interview MDA says he told Harden to do it for spacing.
People keep forgetting how washed CP was during his second playoff run here. As noted by pippendagimp he could not take his man off the dribble or threaten a one man fastbreak, this put additional pressure on Harden. CP who we see of the Harden haters all but say was greater than Harden lol of course was never good enough to take his teams deep into the playoffs without a guy like Harden. But together with the rest 2018 ! and that damn hamstring!!
This. This will be the biggest difference. Wall said post game "My job is to help James as much as possible and to try and make it easier for him.'' he said that he knew his job was to get James the ball. No ego, just he knew his role. That's big. Westbrook saw himself as an equal to Harden, as usual superstar duos do and it has made many duos tenous...see Shaq/Kobe, even the most famed duo Jordan/Pippen, Scottie to this day clashes with Jordan about his role on those teams. Lebron and Wade had clashes until Wade humbled thyself and let Lebron have the team. Wall already knows this is Harden's team and we saw that at the end last night. He completely deferred to Harden and in a close game that was key...and Wall also orchestrated the first lead when Harden got rest which is something we have not really seen enough of the past two seasons. the ability for the team to stay afloat or take/build leads when Harden rests is huge.
Right, and I agree people romanticize about CP3 way too much. Clearly he wasn't washed though as he had a great year the next year...I think either he just clashed with Harden, didn't like how Harden did things, and maybe lost belief they would win or it could have been he just was never in shape or form that season, I think he's alluded to that. We definitely had two different CP3s for two different seasons. As for Wall, his career has been interesting. People forget the hype surrounding this guy coming into the NBA, Wall (and Wiz fans) think he's been held back by his organization. Wall was once one of those generational prospects, a dude that would have went #1 in the NBA out of highschool...that's John Wall. So when you look at his Wizards career its easy to go 'Meh' but then you look back at who he was playing with...Gortat? Old ass Pierce? So to see him out there with that explosion and speed is very promising. Maybe we're getting more than we even expect. My only concern with him is the knee. We know he can be an all-star player.
