Uhhhm Harden is this team's point guard, because nobody else can handle the ball!! Nobody other than Harden can run the offense. Who would you rather see handle the ball on this team? Do you want Terry/Bev dribbling the ball most of the game - you do see what happens to this team's offense when Harden sits right? Secondly - factor in that Harden logs more minutes than all the other guys on that list. So really he isn't touching the ball all that much.
You make the blanket statement that Harden isn't efficient enough creator to be the primary ball handler and then in the next paragraph you compare him to Kobe who won a championship as the primary ball handler while generating fewer assists (5.0) at a lower assist/TO ratio (1.56) than Harden. So what does that mean? Harden will "limit" us to only 3 consecutive titles like Kobe? That would really suck, wouldn't it? You seem to think that there's no possessions available for Dwight or any other Rocket due to Harden which is ridiculous. Harden is consuming 32.4% of our possessions. What about the other 67.6% of the available possessions? That's not enough? Kobe won the title with a usage of 31.8% and yet that same season Shaq was still able to post a useage of 31.6%. There's plenty of possession to go around. The problem with your Shaq/Kobe - Howard/Harden analogy is that Howard is a very inefficient post player and Shaq was one of the most dominant and efficient post players in history. Howard's not going to postup much and you can only generate so many wide open dunks for him each game. We do need a second playmaker but that will been in addition to Harden, not instead of Harden. Harden's useage would go down a few points if he had an additional playmaker but it's still would be high because he would still have the ball much of the time because he's such a good weapon on offense. From your inference above, it seems that you believe that our role players aren't playing hard due to Harden? Is that correct? If so, then that's ridiculous. Guys like Ariza and Beverley are in the starting lineup to play defense. If guys like that are not playing hard because they aren't getting as many shots as they would like then you are not going to win with them anyway. A guy like Beverley is smart enough to know that he's in the starting lineup to be a compliiment to Harden and to do the dirty work. So now he's going to stop doing that because Harden takes 20 shots per game? Really? Same goes for Ariza. He knows what's made him successful and that's defense, hustle and hitting open shots. Why would he all of a sudden change? Who's not playing hard because they are upset? Howard? If you're taking about Dwight then that's a whole separate issue. Our issue isn't Harden, he's one of our positives. Our issue is that we currently don't have the talent to compete with the better teams in the league. Who's our 2nd and 3rd best offensive player after Harden? Compare your answer to their counterpart on GS, SA, CLE or OKC. Who's our 3 best defensive players? We have no elite defensive players and this year we don't even have any defensive players that could be considered "good". For whatever reason, Ariza, Howard and Beverley have been very average to below average on defense. Look at SA and GS last season, they each had 2 players in the top 8 of the defensive player of the year voting. Houston? Ariza and Beverley each received a single vote in the balloting. Now those guys (along with Howard) have a fall off on defense? That's a problem for our defense and we end up playing too many players that are average to below average on both sides of the ball. You're not going to win much if you play many players in your rotation that aren't above average on at least one side of the ball.
Exactly who is advocating for Harden to be a one man band? Our primary off season target is Kevin Durant. Does that sound like the Rockets want Harden to be a one man band? Yes we were a Josh Smith performance from being upset in the playoffs and we were also a couple of plays away from being up 3-1 on the GSWs. That's what happens in the playoffs. Ask Miami or SA about how one offensive rebound or Ray Allen 3 pointer can change an outcome of a series. We had the same problem last year vs GS as we do this year, it's just more magnified this season because our better defensive players have had a down year. Harden, Howard and Ariza were all good vs GSW in last years playoffs. Yes Harden had that horrifically bad 12 TO game in game 5, but he only had a total of 11 turnovers in the first 4 games combined. Harden scored 28.4 pts, 6.4 ast, 7.8 reb, 2.4 steals on 62.7% TS% (46.7 fg%,42.9 3pt% and 10.6 ft/game) he wasn't the problem. Likewise Dwight was good averaging 14.4 pts, 14.4 rebounds,1.8 blk on 54.9 FG%. Ariza averaged 13.2 pts on 51.1 FG% and 43.5 3pt%. Neither of those guys were the problem. Our issue offensively against GSW was that other than those 3, nobody could shoot. Brewer 34.1% (8.2 fga), Terry 37.8% (9.0 fga, 49.2 ts%), Smith 39.1% (13.8 fga), Prigioni 33.3% (1.8 fga, 38.9 ts%) and Jones 38.1% (8.4 fga). You can't shoot that poorly against a team that shoots it as well as GS. It's just impossible to keep up with them when you have that many guys shooting below 40%.
James Harden is. I want Durant. But without a primary playmaker to feed both him and Harden and whatever big man we wind up with....we will just be doubling down on a failed strategy. With Durant we become the OKC Thunder except James is an even less efficient Westbrook. Durant is another high volume shooter/scorer who turns the ball over a lot. And watching that Thunder offense operate with him and Westbrook is like watching 2 guys take turns shooting skeet. It's boring and they'll never win a championship playing the way they play. They've got the same problem. They need a playmaker/distributor/handler who will distribute the rock to both KD and RW and keep their turnover count down.
Pretty sure harden was the main facilitator on the okc team that went to the finals. I think the main thing is that harden has to trust someone to give the ball to them. That was easily proven last season with dmo post ups and with chandler when he was here. Dwight has proven that he cannot be a reliable source of post up offense. Both here and in LA the team wanted him to bring a pick and roll big, but he doesn't seem interested in it. That's his choice and its fine, but lets not pretend that posting him up would be for the good of the team. It would be for the good of dwight and his next contract.
It's almost like you need quality role players and coaching to help your core players. Imagine that...
Over the past 5 years, OKC has had three top 2 offenses. Any shortcomings they may have is defensively, not offensively.
All three guys went to the Finals together once, and there was no way the league was going to let LBJ emerge without a ring. I recall to this day how much LBJ got away with in those Finals and how they swarmed Harden whenever he had the ball (in later years, they talked about how Harden was the guy they concentrated on). Keep that team together and they very possibly would have won a ring or two (health permitting).
OKC would likely have won a ring with that trio and Ibaka and could have paid all of them by cutting Perkins. But Miami was clearly the better team that year in the finals. It wasn't even close. I was pulling hard for OKC too.
....in a true system that produces in half-court when you are playing good teams and can't buffalo them into playing helter-skelter basketball.
Not completely fair. The finals appearance was the first time they got there as a trio, when they were still young and improving. Had their ownership not made the stupid mistake of trading Harden instead of amnestying Perkins (so they could have had the big three plus Ibaka), I believe they would have made multiple finals and probably won 1-2 championships.
Harden was the main facilitator at the time. Westbrook developed into the passer he is after Harden left and many people disagree with your statement.
No. Harden was not the main facilitator ever for the Thunder. You attempting to rewrite history. Look up those teams. Westbrook was the main facilitator and has always been since he's been there. Harden wasn't even a starter for them, starting a grand total of 7 games in 3 seasons for them and zero playoff game starts. Look it up. Westbrook has been the main facilitator for the Thunder since he's been in the league. Disagree with the record books all you want.
Lol.... Good ole jopat, ignored the entirety of aelliots brilliant post wrecking your argument, grab snippet and feed a false narrative you have comprised on your own about harden and continue to spew nonsense about how we need a top tier facillitating pg. When in fact over the past decade or more it has become quite opposite that in terms of winning a championship. Lebron, Kobe, Wade, even Dirk are some names who come up about how yo win a championship and none had an elite ball handling creator working for them but in fact were the main creator. The only recent example of a elite pg leading to a championship would be rondo. Your argument is flawed but your unwilling to waiver from your stance. You can really bring some great knowledge when it comes to the salary cap and I applaud that. But your lacking severely outside of that knowledge.
BigMaloe, We need a top-tier facilitator. Doesn't have to be a PG. Could be a sf (pippen). But we won't win a championship as long as Harden is the best facilitator on our roster.
You don't really need a main facilitator. That's an old miseducated opinion. A team can just as easily have multiple good facilitators as long as the right system is in place. James Harden can be this team's PG as long as the coach truly has his ear about developing into an NBA-dominating player. I'm sure James would be more willing to give up the ball if he had confidence in his teammates to produce on offense. The truth is, he should have more confidence in them AND we need better creators at other positions. You can't tell me Harden can't be as good a facilitator as any of the recent championship PG's. He averages more assists than any non-PG in the league, and that's while scoring a crazy amount too.
