Harden Showed Some Serious Heart Tonight—Can He Keep it Up?

Let's face it - this team needs a complete restructuring, from the coach on down. We need an elite coach, and there aren't a whole lot out there looking for a job. If you hire a guy like Thibs or JVG, then you need an assistant with a keen acumen for offense - either an associate like D'Antoni or someone of that caliber - who keeps the rotations crisps and maximizes the options of each player on the court on offense. That means taking the ball out of Harden's hands, as Harden ISO hasn't cut it He's a respectable 6th in ISO points per possession at 0.93, but he uses ISO the most out of any player with at least 100 possessions (a staggering 27.5%). That's not going to cut it against teams llke Golden State. If you can't get Harden to buy in on both sides of the court - something he is clearly capable of - as well as to learn to play off the ball so the TEAM is maximizing their points per possession, then you have to cut bait or make him your second best guy. That's not an easy task. Harden is a top 3 player in this league when engaged. But getting him to commit has been a fool's errand this year.

 

Nope.

 

Some of you guys are insane the way you defend Harden. You play basketball to win not just to have good stats. With all of the stats he had what did he do to help the team win the game. The results show what he did. Wake up! You can have great stats and still be a loser.

 

I mean the guy has only been the best player on the rockets for the past 3 season avg 50.5 wins in those 3 years, made the playoffs all Those 3 years improved the seed all those 3 years and had HC advantage the last two years. Was 2nd in mvp voting last year and has been 1st team all NBA the last two years.

You wake up and stop acting like the guy hasn't done anything here at all. He's got us to the playoffs and wcf for the first time in almost 20 freaking years. I mean this season is a big fat disappointment but don't **** on the fans that see what has really been going on since he arrived. It's been all positive up till this season and that's in large part because the past 3 years he's been awsome.

 

Somewhat similar to Ethan Couch, Harden suffers from ASSluenza.

 

Perhaps you could make the argument that factoring in his defense (this year), he is only 60-70% as good as his stats say he is. Even so, he is still the best player on this team. And if, as a team, the rest of the guys played defense, we would essentially be the team we were last year in terms of win%.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and certainly Harden deserves some of it. But the problems go deeper than him alone.

 

Perfectly fitting.

James Harden took an interview that night that he scored the 10000 points, and said it loud without a shame, yes this is a great individual achievement, any forking sane people will say it doesnt mean a shlt other thsn tonight we got a win.

 

You guys havent been watching all year? Harden has a Detroit like game every 5th game...that way he does not make it blatant he is tanking

 

This is what I worry about. He is too inconsistent this season.

 

May be real Har(d)en please stand up please stand up

 

So Harden can play alongside Lawson if there is a commitment from all parties involved both on and off the court...ok then

 

on a team's twitter page, after an embarrassing loss, all the team talked about was one of its player's individual stat. and that's "perfectly fitting"? k.

fitting to what, exactly?

and that was 10k pts scored. its not even that significant.

 

thats what eve' been saying. for every game he actually plays hard, he has about 2-4 duds. inconsistent and most of it is effort. he doesnt care no more