Harden - and how to build a championship team around him

lol,

looks like you never know the word "logic" while learning your English.

 

That is true but keep in mind many didn't think Bryant was going to win a championship ever again after Shaq left and then he got a skilled passing big man and that narrative changed really quick.

We're not going to get a better player in Houston than the one we got unless KD does actually choose us.

Might as well excercise all options to put the best team around him and see if we can create a magical year. Last year was pretty speacial to me. We had a legit mvp player and went deep in the playoffs. It was more than just the success it was really cool to have a guy that the fans screamed mvp mvp and had a legit case for. Watching the tv heads talk about how great he played was a joy to hear. I hope he and the team can recreate that again because it was great for the city the franchise and the fans.

Iv cheered this team for a very long time (scared to tell you guys how long) and it was the most fun Id had since 95.

I was super excited when we got Barkley also but it never clicked because of injuries but last year was awsome just cause we didn't win doesn't mean we should downplay harden or the team and think we can do better with unknown talent. That's how good GMs get canned with that thinking.

 

Unfortunately Houston is not the biggest market and Harden is from LA actually.

Big stars flock to LA and NY that is a common thing.

Harden probably will entertain the idea of moving to LA again.

So will Westbrook.

He'd better win a championship before then

 

Here is the answer


Steve Kyler ‏@stevekylerNBA 1m1 minute ago

Durant said he thought James Harden drew up some of the best plays.
0 retweets 2 likes

 

Steve Kyler ‏@stevekylerNBA 5m5 minutes ago

Kevin Durant was asked about Popovich coaching. Said Pop didn't coach at all. He let players draw up plays at each dead ball

 

The only reason he was available was because of the off the court incidents. I've been here long enough and you have also to know that I'm not just talking about last year. Look at Ty Lawson after Carmelo was traded. They won games ,he played well despite injuries to gallanari and others.

 

That kinda explains why he was cheesing like hell after Klay hit a 3 coming off multiple screens after a timeout. Unlike the rest of the all stars he has plenty of experience

 

I get your points but personally I don't see it. He gets a ton of endorsements, perennial all star every year, his own team and basically everything a large market has to offer here.

I'm pretty sure we can also offer him the most money. So assuming morey gets things sorted in the offseason and Harden returns to last season form, he's going nowhere.

 

What does it tell you when the 26 yo at an all star game draws up a better play than either coach here has managed in 4 years?

 

The point being we have 2 years to assemble a championship team for Harden.

If we're still wallowing in mediocrity in his contract year, fair to say there's a 50% of him leaving.

People like to think we have time because he's only 26... but our window is really two years.

 

Exactly, i've watched alot of the nuggets and Ty really ran the show there with the terrible players he had around him. He is a PnR ball handler, a situation the Rockets have never put him in. Run PnR with Lawson and Howard to switch up from Harden facilitating every possession. This team needs someone else to take the load of Harden and provide another option when he gets trapped high.

 

Step 1: Get Kevin Durant in the offseason

 

Harden has lead us to an avg of 50 wins his first 3 years here. Odds are he's going to get back to that more so than what has hapoened this year.

On top of that, this season is not over were one game under .500.

What happens if we go 20-7 or better yet 22-5 to close out the year and grab that 5th seed? Advance past the clips? And give GS a tough series? As crazy as that sounds it's some what possible, this team still has harden and Howard with some vets around them.

I mean maybe I'm the minority but I think harden is highly respected from his peers. Coaches always say he's one of the top 3 toughest game plans in the entire league. You don't think the players don't know how good this guy is. I'm sure if it was that easy to change teams a star player would already be here.

He did attract dwight and has gotten every marquee free agent to take a real meeting with us since he got here. Thats because of harden, big names are def hearing us out and our pitch because of him.

 

this is the only way for real. how u gonna be the spurs, warriors or cavs w/o durant? u saw what a hobbled cavs did w/o kyrie or love vs a healthy hawks last playoffs.

who are the other "contenders"?
clippers - lol
raptors - not enough talent and only one star player who's having a rare season
okc - same team every season

thats it. whichever team durant goes to are instand contenders. hopefully the ****in warriors ffs. get your ass over here! we got strippers and three pointers and a coach that has no clue what he's doing. perfect fit. oh yeah, that p***y you hate isnt gonna be here since we're too r****ded to know how to use him, even though its basic math but w/e

 

Hardens got great basktball IQ. Only a few morons on here think he doesn't.

If we have the proper talent and coaching around him he will play any way that benefits the team. He's a team player and wants to win and he's proven atleast that much in his 6+ years in the league.

 

We've tried that. We got Ariza and Terry. The only way we become a better team is if Harden himself takes the initiative to become a solid and legit Superstar. This is why it is so difficult to win championships with a guy like Harden as your building block. Everyone has to focus on D but then receives blasphemy for having no energy on the offensive end? I think Harden said that he was so focussed on offense and carrying so much of the offensive burden he couldn't expend his energy on the other end. It is not a coincidence that this team did so well when Harden played both ends of the court or at least attempted to play some form of defense. If this team wants to improve it starts with Harden improving because even trading Howard will not help this team at this point. Even trading the role players we have won't fix that issue. Building around the Harden we see now will be like building around Mcgrady. First round exits and meaningless "it's on me" speeches. Either Harden steps up his repetoire soon or we trade him to a team that wants him as their highly paid sixth man.

 

Yup. Let's take a look at today's contenders

Cavs - Lebron, Irving, Love
Warriors - Curry, Green, Thompson
Spurs - Leonard, Aldridge, Parker/Duncan + Pops system
Raps - Lowry, DeRozan, Val
OKC - Durant, WB, Ibaka
Clips - Paul, Griffin, Jordan

If we notice a trend, its that every team has 2 legit all star caliber players, and more or.less a borderline allstar 3rd man. Howard is the third fiddle star at this point of his career. Houston is missing a legitimate star player to play with.

Harden is alone out there for us right now, its really Durant or just at this point if we have any true championship aspirations in Harden's era.

And I honestly see no reason for Durant to want to come here, so IMO we are screwed unless morey pulls a star out of his ass.

 

The Rockets have just as much talent as any other team..

What they don't have is Trust, Chemistry,Heart and Playing Their Role... I'm not going to mention coach, because without the other stuff I just mentioned it doesn't matter who the coach is... Even a coach such as McHale could lead them to the WCF.

T_Man

 

No they don't!!! Stop fooling yourself. They are good enough to hang with every team (YES every) in this league (if they make the playoffs anything is possible - they will at least make it competitive), because they have one guy who can carry you and win you a decent number of games. The problem though is, that this team is not much different from last year's team, as certain additions haven't panned out.

Last year, Harden had to carry the biggest load in the league - this year, it isn't any different. Nobody expected this to be the case, after this summer's additions.

Every other contender (and I'm only putting the Rockets in this conversation at this point in time, because of what they achieved last year and somewhere, they are still that exact same team) has at least 2 guys who can take over a game. The Rockets simply DON'T have that.

The Rockets probably have more decent role-players than most teams, but they aren't nearly as top-heavy with talent, as other teams are. Another thing is, that most of our role players are not playing up to their potential either.

You might not need 2+ All-Stars on your team, but you need at least two players who can really impact a game on any given night (I thought, maybe foolishly so, that Ty was gonna be that guy).

You can't focus on Lebron and ignore Irving; you can't focus on Curry and ignore Thompson, Green (and a handful of other players); You can't focus on KD and ignore Westbrook and the list goes on. You can focus on Harden and ignore pretty much everybody else - Teams have stated this many times before, their game plan is ''simple'' - TRY TO STOP HARDEN and you stop the Rockets. Oh and if that game plan doesn't work out - Pop and Doc have done this on multiple occasions, let's hack-a-Howard and try stop the Rockets that way.

 

Steph Curry is a terrible defender and rebounds less then harden. Rockets Usually have 3 good defenders on the court not 4. Defensive bench depth is weak too. I will say, there is a level of effort or a certain something that is missing with Harden. He is bad on defense because he doesn't try. Steph is bad (one on one D, as he actually gets lots of steal but so does Haden) because he has the frame of a tall female volleyball player.