I posted this in the offseason and got completely **** on. Maybe now some of you will pay attention. According to STATISTICS (not opinion), James Harden has the worst FG% in the last 5 minutes of games when ahead or behind by 5 points, and it really isn't very close. Source Whether its McHale or Pringles, both coaches seem to be dead set on just "rolling the ball out there" for James to go win it for us....but it rarely ever ACTUALLY happens. For an organization that is so statistics based, it's truly mindblowing that we ignore such an obvious one like this. Edit: link not working for some, so here's a few names: Kahwi Leonard: 44.3% Russell Westbrook: 41% DeMar Derozan: 49% Isaiah Thomas: 49.4% Steph Curry: 43% Lebron James: 54% Kevin Durant: 39% James Harden: 32% So....WHICH OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS?!
Really would like to see some motion instead of hero ball -- liked when Harden drove, even on the block by Kawhi, Nene was hammered there too. DD
This is just for this season. Hasn't been true in past seasons. So point is noted. Definitely should fix or adjust.
He's not clutch because relatively more of his points come from free throws and the refs always swallow the whistle in the 4th. Harden needs to improve his shot making ability.
I wished @Clutch had a way to add a downvote button, so when a quote like this coming from a mavs fan gets enough down votes itll just get deleted. That way we dont have to see this crap.
He's went away from his midrange game, which is a great weapon to have in the clutch. All the great crunch time wing scorers historically excelled at getting buckets in the midrange.
I'm not sure I'd use last season as a basis for anything. I mean it happened, I get that, but that team was f'd up. Besides which he still wasn't horrible as a scorer and was still +1. In 14/15 he was great. And even this year while he isn't great, he is still scoring because 1.8 fta per game in crunch time which is third in the league (and the other top 2 are Joel Embiid and Kris Middleton). But he clearly needs to get better. Plenty of the suggestions here make sense. A little more movement. Feel free to maybe add a midrange shot back for these situations, etc. I'm not opposed to hero ball (cough, cough, that's exactly what beat us tonight), but would like to see a bit more variety at times. I wouldn't be opposed for example to Harden backing it into a post up type situation, and then getting a pick instead of the same, constant, top of the 3 point line PnR play.
Im not going to argue his drop off in "clutchness" because its been evident lately, but its pretty easy to spot a troll on patrol, in which that mavs fan is.
ClutchFans after bad losses is the worst because of kneejerk reactions with a bunch of posters yelling, "I told you so." Not only because of that, but also because there are always a huge sum of people who hate hearing criticism and refuse to take in facts. Then it just becomes a bunch of angry posts from two sides of the same coin who can't be rational. You give the ball to your best player when you have no timeouts in order to draw up a play. Kawhi Leonard dribbled the ball up, got a screen, and pulled up for a 3. James Harden got a screen, dribbled past Kawhi and got a lay up over David Lee that would have gone in but Kawhi happened. Neither of these were drawn up plays, but they were plays nonetheless. I know there were plenty of plays before that in which Harden did some questionable stuff, but literally not every play in the last 5 minutes has to be a drawn up set. These guys aren't playing pick up ball. These guys are running plays even if they don't look like it. Either way, James has been mediocre down the stretch this season. It's very unfortunate and frustrating.
