Harden nor anyone on the Rockets is a normal person. We also don't have people micro analyzing every aspect of our physique. Harden suffers from asthma. He is at a disadvantage and will typically take longer to round into proper shape. He's always been a slow starter. Harden's game one was spectacular because he was playing pick up essentially. Now he's being asked to move off ball, he's being asked to be intense on defense. You will see him gassed and stepping about 7 feet away from the line to create spacing while he catches his breath. Harden could walk into any gym after months of no exercise and drop 100 points in a game to 21. He is not normal. He is an all time great. His worst physical condition is better than 99.9% of the population's best. The problem is, the NBA is part of that .1% in better shape.
I mean, his only problem last night was missing threes.....I guess, Im just not seeing where the out of shape relative to his peers is coming in. Like is it because he's driving less?? Cause for sure I dont know what anyone sees when they say he is fat, he is not fat.
He's taking plays off. Watch him off ball. He's catching his breath. You are seeing through your own lense where MDA, PJ Tucker and Harden can do no wrong.
YOUR expectations of him as a fan are not realistic in a human sense in terms of "being in shape" .. fat boys can hoop up skinny boys too .. I see it all the time. Hardens game is not predicated on sheer athleticism as most other stars are, he is actually skilled and can still be effective well into his late 30s while guys like Giannis will decay and be out of the public eye sooner. Should NBA guys take life more serious and do less partying and more working out and preparing for a season? Sure. Let me ask you this how do you feel when Fat Luka shows up for a season and gets nothing but love from everyone, nobody wants to say anything about his 15% 3 point shooting and people have all the patience in the world for him to "round into proper shape". Seems like a disingenuous take especially when you seem to know more about Hardens health than I did - I never knew he was asthmatic - makes what he does even more impressive.
The problem with Houston this year is identity. And let me say that I really really like Silas a lot. I have seem him make adjustments at the half, during timeouts, and even on the fly on the floor. One of my biggest complaints with him (and my question to him if I could interview him at the current moment) is lack of identity. Part of this is not necessarily his fault, because training camp, preseason, and the small sample size of games that we have played (yes other NBA franchises are struggling with their identity right now too because of the quick turnaround). But still he needs to determine if we are going to play drop coverage D or switch D. Are we going run back screen, pass side to side, rim runs, run motions, rim penetrate, pin down action as we ran last night when Harden was on the bench? Are we going to be an ISO heavy team with Harden, and get a lot of drive and kick action for threes? All of these styles are styles of plays we have ran this year. And they are completely different from each other. I understand he is a new coach with a new team and he is trying to figure out what works. And yes I do believe you want to be versatile as a team/player (being unpredictable is ideal imo). But we have not mastered any sets yet. There is honestly nothing right now I can say we do well after watching every single game this year except throw the lob pass well to C Wood. Let's work on establishing what we wanna do on the court first and get good at that and then start to add some more wrinkles in. That's my 2 cent lol.
I don't know if I entirely buy that - Harden has 24 career player of the week awards and 13 of them are in Oct-Nov-Dec. December is actually when he is a true beast, so it does support the theory that getting in NBA game shape via playing basketball and holiday parties help him out a bit.
summary: defense is a mess. offense looks better if James actually moves without the ball vs. having us play 4v4 when he doesn't have it (Mavs game)
Provided they play Top 12- Top 15 Defense consistently. Otherwise it is going to be a Play In spot - 8-10th spot. I think there are certain teams the Rockets can hang with and comfortably defeat. The Kings and other mediocre teams, bottom of the East and West, teams that are either atrocious on D or O. And the occasional win against a contender but I think they won't be winning a ton of those games.
We have 2 corner 3 point shooters already usually at all times - where are all these "Harden run without the ball" plays that everybody has drawn up that he refuses to run and where are they supposed to be run? Like, I'm absolutely serious as to what these plays are supposed to be? is he the roll man for Wall? is he supposed to run around a bunch of screens, curry style? I mean, I didn't see Luka doing lots of running around without the ball - I mean when he doesn't have the ball it generally seems like he's parked at the 3 point line, usually either the left corner or up high, far outside the arc. I konw there's the occasional called give & go play but that's probably it.
I saw some people here say that the roster was balanced this season. Well, maybe a LITTLE more balanced than last season. But we still only have three guys 6'9 or taller (Wood, Cousins, Caboclo). We only have ONE true PG if you don't count Harden as PG. And that guy (Wall) has great injury risk. In other words, we have no play maker outside of Harden and Wall. I wonder what Silas is going to do if Wall is out. The rest of the roster is full of 6'5 wing players. That's not a very balanced roster to me.
