Are we a better "team" when Harden moves the ball more?

We are absolutely not a better team when Harden defers -- especially when he has to defer because of being somewhat injured.

We lost to Milwaukee and almost lost to Orlando precisely because Harden was not able to wreak havoc on the opposing defense like he normally does.

Ball movement is of course important, and when you look at what percentage of our shots have come off assists this season, we stack up well compared to the rest of the league. But this team is significantly weaker when Harden is not breaking down the opposing defense and is not bailing the team out late in shot clocks.

Yesterday was indeed a great team win, and an injured Harden should definitely defer as he did last night against the Mavs. But if Harden is injured as he has been the last few games then this team will struggle to make the playoffs and and will definitely struggle to win any games in the playoffs.

 

No, 90 percent of the plays should be Harden ISO'ing.

 

Why do you ask these questions where the answer is obvious but only function to point out his short comings that everyone is aware of.

Your next thread is going to be titled

"Are we better as a team if Harden improves his defense?".

 

Only works when other players step up like yesterday, but Lin/Parsons are way too inconsistent to be true second options.

 

No ****ing **** dude. We're clearly better with 100% Harden ISO.

 

Can we get some more interesting threads like this? How about "Would we be a better team if our point guard could shoot better than 32% from 3 point range?", or "Would we be a better team if Asik was an 80% free throw shooter?". These are tough questions that need to be debated

 

Did it ever occur to you that most of those that voted no are probably doing so in ridicule of this dumb thread?

It's obvious any team plays better when they move the ball and their shots are falling.

 

Start a thread that says

"Is Jeremy Lin actually Asian?"

You will have a ton of voters who picked no. Should we start a discussion about that too?

 

Oh look its you again

 

Take away OPs thread starting privileges. You're worse than Badlee and that's saying something.

 

Passive aggressive much?

 

In Wins: 6.2 apg, 16.8 fga
In Losses: 5.1 apg, 17.9 fga

 

Harden is our closer but ball movement is the key. Look at Friedman's article from this morning. Rockets are 8-1 in 9 games when they have 30 or more assists.

 

harden has to carry the whole team to victory when his teammates shots arent falling

 

I voted maybe because I'm a little confused by your premise. I'm not sure what you mean by better "team". Are you refering to winning, or some other aesthetic criteria? Your choices only allow for more ball movement, or more iso, which are not the only two options.

We are not going to win many games with Harden taking 10 shots.

Last nights win was against a non tough, below average defensive lottery team. Our best win, team or otherwise, was clearly against OKC.

I think you misremember watching Jordan. It's probably because of what all the announcers were telling you. During his tittle years, Jordan took over 7 shots per game more than anyone else on the team. That includes Pippen, who despite how people in Houston feel, is still in the HOF. The year Jordan won his third title, he lead the league in shots by 400.

 

Every team in this league is better when guys move their bodies and move the ball. We don't need him to be passive (i.e. take less shots or defer), but he will get more easy buckets himself if we, as a team, all move the ball and move our bodies better.

As an aside, I don't get why these polls all have ridiculous tags after a "yes" or "no" answer. I think some people would say that we aren't better when James moves the ball (I disagree), but it's not necessarily because they think we need to ISO him more. A simple yes or no poll and allowing the people to expound upon their answer would be a better discussion starter.

 

In wins: 28.0 ppg
In losses: 24.0 ppg

Which, 24 points on ~18 shots would still be ~1.33 PPS. That's a boss stat for your off games. I think we all know our offense is better when James is more actively involved (cutting, passing, making shots, etc.) but that's not to say he should defer or be less aggressive. I think everyone in the NBA is better when they cut, pass, move, and make shots... And usually that translates in to more team success.