You completely missed the point. It doesn't matter if Harden plays 10 minutes, or 90 minutes, it won't stop him from spraining his ankle. In the same way, do you think Jeremy Lin being the primary playmaker would prevent Harden from getting undercut by another player and injuring his ankle? "Capiche?"
Increase in chances of injury is possible, but its really difficult to even make a guess how much more likely it would be. Is it that it increases from 40% to 45% chance that he miss several games due to injury? Who can say. I mean, Harden played in 78 games last year and in 62 games the year before as a bench player. Wearing out Harden is a valid concern, but the extent to which this would really be an issue is unknown, and of course one has to weigh that against the possible advantages of him and Jeremy getting more freedom to do their thing apart from eachother.
Every player in the nba who plays regularly gets injured. It's a contact sport played at a fast speed by big strong athletes. In harden's case, there is no "chance" or "probability" of injury. He won't suffer one injury; he will suffer many injuries over the course of a season. He's a guard who makes his money by driving to the basket and getting to the line. He's going to get hit and he's going to get injured. He's also a high volume shooter. That means he's going to take a lot of contact, some of it dirty. The more he drives, and the more he shoots, the more banged up it's going to be. Seriously, it's like you guys have intentionally slammed your head against a rock when discussing harden. Play one game of pickup basketball playing the way harden does and see how you feel. Multiply that by 110 games and then by another factor of say 4 or 5 going against the world's best athletes.
Do explain how Harden, by allowing Jeremy Lin to be the primary playmaker, has less "probability" of accidentally stepping on someone's foot and spraining his ankle.
we're not talking about rookies here.. we all know and seen what harden (6th man of the year launched to superstardom last year) is capable of, what howard (carried ORL to the finals) is capable of, and what parsons (3rd year rockets player) is capable of yes we do just look at compare the point differential Lin is healthy during the preseason right? right now Pbev is more confident and accurate im not comparing shooting to passing but shooting to turning the ball over based on Durvasa's table, Lin turns the ball over twice as pbev last year
Every time you make a physical basketball play you have a probability of hurting something. This is especially true for playmaking guards. With Lin in the lineup, Harden will be making less physical plays, and will correspondingly decrease his likelihood of getting injured. (He would get a fair amount of open three pointers with Lin in the lineup, which is a very high efficient play for Harden with little probability of getting injured.)
Am I? You are the one who claimed Harden is more likely to be injured if he is overworked. Sure, that's a valid point, and makes sense logically. However, all of Harden's injuries do not point to injury due to overwork. Harden could just as easily have sprained his ankle the next game because somebody undercuts him, and as we saw last game against Memphis, he easily could have injured his knee because Pondexter ran into him. None of this points to being overworked. Perhaps you should stop being so belligerent, and maybe you would understand an opinion different to yours.
No. Lin was suffering from a sinus infection in the last half of the preseason. Lin shot 48% and beverley 50%. It's the preseason brah. As far as "confidence" goes, do you have the power of telepathy? Do you have bev and lin on telepathic speed dial? Sure seems like it! Who does bev think is hotter: beyonce or rihanna? Harden had an inferior assist to turnover ratio last season compared to lin. harden should be sixth man and lin and bev. with their superior ratios, should start. Brilliant arguments there.
This is very vague and unconvincing. I know how good they are. Whether they will mesh into a potent offensive unit is another matter. The sample size is small. Preseason sample size. (They are both very close.) My point still stands. A passing turnover has an expected outcome of greater than zero. Even a ballhandling turnover has a higher than zero expected outcome. For example, a guard may get stripped going down the lane, but if he didn't get stripped he would have had a 90% chance of getting an easy layup. There is no black or white here.
You act like you've never seen a basketball game before. Harden is a guard who draws a lot of contact and he's going to get hit. He has an aggressive style of play and is going to get injured frequently. As a primary playmaker and scorer whose MO is getting hit in the lane, he's going to get hit many times. Basketball is contact sport and harden is a guard who invites contact in the lane against bigs. Figure it out, genius.
I'm not disputing that Harden taking on a higher usage will increase his chances of wearing out (though it could be a marginal increase). Its a question of how much, and how that weighs against the benefits of giving him more opportunities to be a playmaker. Factoring in that we still have Chandler and Howard on the floor, both capable scorers, its not like we're going to be asking Harden to go 1 against 5 in any case.
