James puts heart into his D, but he does make mistakes. Still, he's young and I find it odd to have someone call out a young player as a terrible defender when clearly that player is putting the effort into that area.
He was actually the OKC "stopper" for a stretch. He was brought in to guard Kobe or whoever the scoring wing was. I agree with the article. He's expending more energy scoring so his defense has gotten sloppy. I think he'll figure it out, especially if he hits another stretch where his scoring dips.
Lowe doesn't actually say "Harden sucks" in the article at all; that's just the thread title. He does imply that Harden is the worst perimeter defender that gets regular minutes for the Rockets. Given Harden's determination to get to the foul line on the offensive end, I think it's unsurprising that he resorts to some energy-saving gambling on defense. It'd be great to see him become a lockdown defender, but I don't think it's realistic given the pace the Rockets play at, his minutes, and his style of play.
I have been harsh on Harden for a while now, but I wouldn't go that to far to claim he is the worst defender in the league. However, he does need to improve his defense. One thing is he needs to try to stay in front of his man, sometimes he let them go past him too easily for layups. Comparing to Lin, Harden doesn't like over helping like Lin always does. Over reaching is one of his bad habits. It makes him look so badly comparing to his offense.
Uh, so the idea is harden is supposed to be the focal point of the rockets super-high octane offense AND serve as the top permieter defender? No team does that in the regular season, even slower paced ones, or else their superstars would keel over and die in April. That's why you have role players like Parsons behind Harden to draw the tough defensive covers.
Lowe is a good writer and if you follow him on twitter you'll notice that he actually watches Rockets games and seems like he's a fan.
Nobody is asking for Harden to be the top perimeter defender he should at least try to not let his man fly by him so easily. Lowe watches a lot of Rockets game & has always been supportive of the team. He's also a good writer & is quite fair in his critique. Nothing Lowe says is overly harsh or inaccurate.
Harden and Lin both have the tendency to ball watch. That along with bad team defense makes up for the low ranking.
Harden has no defense. Water is wet. This is obvious. Everyone who watches Houston ball, knows Harden has one of the worst defenses for a SG. Some say he's saving his energy for his offensive skills, but I don't know. The dude is just lazy on the defensive end for some reason.
I think he's defending a little better lately, but yeah for the most part he's been a poor defender this year. I didn't realize there was much argument on that.
Not only that but good TEAM defense will help make up for bad individual defense by rotating well when another player gets beat. This is something our young team is still learning to do together. It takes time to build this type of trust and chemistry on the defensive end of the floor. Hopefully this full season and an offseason with upgrades where need be are made, will help mold this team into a complete, offensively and defensively.
