If McHale wants Harden to D-up, please reduce his minutes. It's beyond ridiculous to play Harden for 24 straight minutes for the whole 2nd half vs Mavs when he was already bothered by a foot injury. That was also the game right before he was on the injury list. When he came back vs Nets and Spurs, he played with less minutes and had one of his better defensive games vs Manu. It's also ridiculous to say he is 24 and shouldn't have any problem playing 40 min/game. Age has nothing to do with conditioning. It's also foolish to compare Harden to LeBron or Durant's minute. Those are gym rats and go through rigorous offseason workout to optimize their playtime at 38-40 min. I seriously doubt Harden is conditioned to play more than 38 min/game on BOTH ends of the court. The optimal number could be someplace around 32-36 min/game, depending on the pace of the game. I hereby officially petition to REDUCE Harden's minutes! (No thread needed.)
Salaries and status aside, and based purely on this season performance to date, the proposition of Harden coming off the bench is credible. He's obviously been regressing, a spot on the bench can be used to motivate a player to improve his weaknesses and earn his minutes back. The Rox can afford to do this because the Bev / Lin combo is working well and with Harden on the bench, the difference in team production is negligible. Or maybe other tactics can be deployed to motivate Harden such as extending McHale's "go with the hot hand" rule. If Harden is shooting poorly in the first 3qs then sit him in the 4th. If Harden is showing no effort on D, then sit him in the 4th. I think McHale needs to take a hard handed approach to the development of Harden for the betterment of Harden personally and the growth of the team in general.
heck - if Harden really is dogging it (and by game footage it appears so), then he should be held accountable. A few minutes on the bench to start just one game would send the appropriate message. I doubt that a few minutes would compromise the season.
Only Harden gets benched is if they need to rest/heal his messed up feet and Lin and Parson is back. Remember reading somewhere that Harden only started playing again with his injured feet because Lin got hurt.
I think it's fairly obvious by now he CAN play good defense. Some nights he just chooses not to or play with energy. I think that's what's frustrating....nights like this he just decides to show up. And it's not even about his offensive performance....it's about his effort and drive. But he's young....it's unreasonable to not expect this kind of volatility in his game.
It's like the CFer who said newbies should not be allowed to post comments until he/she has a green bar :grin:.
