Has McHale been playing Harden way too much this season?

Draft Erick green and this problem goes away

 

There's no correlation between big minutes and increased injury risk. Harden is young and can handle it. Tons of stars in the league have played huge minutes and had very long careers. Others got hurt. Same with players and lesser minutes. Some are built durable and others aren't. Unless Harden starts getting injured a bunch there's no reason you have to cut his minutes.
It might be better for the team to develop some other guys but the injury angle is just silly.

 

Again,

LeBron, 28 years old, 38 minutes per game, on the best team in the league

Harden, 23 years old, 38 minutes per game

Whiners gonna whine

 

It's not just about the injury angle, which is a concern though. It's more about how effective Harden is during the game. There's a reason why Harden's D can be so poor, he's tired. When players start taking defensive possessions off they are either tired or lazy. I don't think Harden is lazy.

Yesterday was a perfect example. He (Parsons too) was gassed by the end of the game and largely ineffective. Would putting Anderson in for about 5-6 minutes between the 3rd and 4th won us the game? Probably not. But Harden would have had more in the tank for the final stretch.

Unless the game is super competitive, you should rest players and give them a chance to make one final run. You should also rest your guys heading into the playoffs. Unfortunately I don't see that happening and the playoffs could be ugly for us.

 

....And Mchale in his prime avg 48 min/game.

 

Lebron is a freak of nature tho.

 

Harden can play all the minutes he wants as long as he doesn't rest on defense and has the energy left to do more than just dribble dribble shoot 3's.