I never really liked Melo for his iso plays, but watching last night, Melo >>>>>> Harden with respect to iso plays.
From the looks of this board, it seems like some would like it better when we were a team of average - good players with no superstar being the best lottery team in the west. I don't about you but I'd take Harden, his beard, strip club addiction, and mohawk any day rather than being in the lottery. I suppose we should have been happy when we had stand up guys like Kevin Martin who didn't have a beard or mohawk and never showed any emotion during a tight game.
How would you know we'd be in the lottery? Without mchale and harden, we might even be as good as denver. denver doesn't have "superstars."
Man are you his cousin or something? You sure know a lot about Harden and are basically saying this stuff as fact. I guess you believe the word of the likes of Jenna Shae and such. It's hard for any guy to carry an entire team...I don't know. I know the impact of a true go-to guy though. I think people though who think the team would be just fine with say Kevin Martin are wrong big time though. Martin was just another shooter, prone to get hot or cold like any shooter...then did little to nothing else. It's the same mistake the Thunder thought that Martin could just fill that role when Harden basically ran then bench unit and made the bench unit of OKC a terror....now it's just another bench unit, hoping to to contain the other teams runs and what not until Westbrook or Durant come back in.
Faried may as well be a young star in the making and Iguodala is a elite defender. Also they have a HOF coach. That is enough sometimes...more than enough. Just look at the Sloan-less Jazz. It was so odd seeing a dispassionate Jazz team just roll over last night...there is no way in hell that would have happened under Sloan's watch. As much as we hated him his teams were always tough and played with passion and discipline.
You still have no go to player. Rockets had plenty of two way players last year. That didn't help them much either.
Pro athletes, especially the stars aren't like regular people and shouldn't be seen as such. What makes James Harden great is also what would get him fired at a regular 9-5 day job. It takes a special amount of confidence, self-delusion and selfishness to believe you deserve the opportunity to be a star. Even the best players miss half their shots, lose a ton of games, make bad plays routinely, and yet they shake it off and still think they make the right play next time. That's a winning personality on the court, but it usually manifests itself in unhealthy ways off the court, like gambling, addiction to sex, hypercompetitiveness, etc. Also means stars have a hard time assessing their own value, and you get crazy comments like Mario Chalmers saying he thinks he's a top 15 point guard in the league. So no, I don't think Harden is hard to root for. I find it fascinating to watch people like him, or Jordan, or Lance Armstrong, or Steve Jobs, who clearly achieve greatness by virtue of their riduculously imbalanced lives, extreme personalities and not by being average nice guys. I don't really relate to them though...persnally I'd rather have more balance in my life.
How do you know he goes to the strip club all the time? I think you listen to rumors and are then adding your own little twist to it. There were some pictures of Harden at strip clubs and parties (sometimes with DURANT UH OH!) but usually during the offseason. Other rumors started by Jenna Shea...a model or something who likes to start **** on ball players and rappers and get as much attention as possible. For all we know she gave it up to Harden and was pissed that he wasn't around the morning she woke up, felt jilted, and started talking trash trying to slander him...Or maybe Harden DID pay her for sex. Who knows? Who cares? But you are talking about it like it's fact. It's good entertainment though so I'm not discouraging it...
