adam silver will die before he watches kyrie, durant and harden play iso basketball on their way to winning the championship. adam silver wants teams to play more like the warriors.. he is forcing it on the players to adapt
i mean, last year was 0.1 fta/gm away from being the lowest in history and most of the lowest in history are from very recent years. in fact, the lowest 11 years are all from the last 11 years. foul baiting is largely a result of the fact that fouls are no longer called without it. case in point, the superphysical 80's and 90's where they never called any fouls are conspicuously absent from this list of years where they never called any fouls.
Harden isn't getting as many calls because he looks slow and he can't get past his defender cleanly anymore like before on a consistent basis. He used to be able to get the defender on his hips with his first step and make them swipe at him to prevent a open layup. Now most of his shots on drives are floaters and flips from really far away. It's much harder to draw fouls from those.
Its the absolute worst time for his three to stop falling, he is a master at drawing fouls and that alone was enough to keep Harden relevant offensively. If he can't start hitting his step back consistently he may need to find a different shot, he still gets tons of assists and is a huge playmaker. He either falls off or turns into a totally different player, Houston Harden seems to be gone forever.
3's have largely just replaced long 2's. the league-wide shot chart still shows tons of shots at the rim, where most ft's come from. and the landing spot rule was actually giving out a not-insignificant number of 3 point ft's. analytics telling teams that fouling is really bad is probably the biggest factor. the insane amount of reaching you notice when you watch an 80's or 90's game isn't there any more. they couldn't comprehend that 80% ft's were worse than 60% finishing rates at the rim.
I think he’s just clearly out of rhythm and not in game shape. In a few weeks, I’m pretty sure he’ll be a lot better. I’m trying to buy low on him in a couple of fantasy leagues but no takers so far lol
That’s interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that FTs have actually come way down in the last decade. All the complaining about FTs slowing down the game and the NBA is soft in recent years evidently made me blind to this.
That guy actually watched Harden's games. The new rule story made the rounds of ESPN and Fox Sports, it was clear lot of TV pundits still judging off Harden from 5 years ago.
Yea its a pretty good article, the lowest common denominator will just go "Lol Harden suck now, nerf" and they clearly dont understand basketball. Like Im sure the new rules are affecting him a little but its not something he cant adjust to.
Kyrie could practice with the team in New York. The Nets don't want him around, but he could do a lot, just not play at home. Visiting players who are unvaccinated could and have played in New York. But somehow Kyrie cannot play in the games? Also, the NBA apparently took Kyrie off the 75 list.
So you DON'T think the rule changes that specifically targeted his game were nerfs? Interesting take. Of course he'll adjust, he's one of the best offensive players in history, but it does lend credibility to all the people I used to hate having to argue with who called Harden garbage without the flopping/foul drawing.
