My post was not intended to debate with you about all these criticisms. Those debates have been done numerous times here. I was responding to your characterizing criticisms of Harden as "hatred." I gave you examples of the most frequent criticisms this board has posted. Those things are debatable. If something is debatable, it's a valid point of contention and not just hatred. Do you understand what "debatable" means? While you are accusing the critics of being "shallow" you use some very shallow arguments yourself, like (1) it's the organization's decision to play ISO heavy offense, as if Harden's play style has nothing to do with that decision, and (2) Harden is an MVP with 2 WCF appearances, as it that kind of credential makes him immune from any criticism. (BTW, you know who else is MVP and had 3 WCF appearances?) TL;DR -- Playing the hate card is a shallow way to deflect criticisms and a sure stopper of in-depth discussions.
1. morey and mda decided to maximize harden's strengths to maximize Rockets success 2. what criticism? he's fat? unloyal? lazy? selfish?
If Harden was a girl, he would be in the wife zone. Unfortunately, he's well above Tillman's pay grade. Not only does he want louis vuitons and bentleys, he wants Tilman to pay for Bentleys are all his friends too.
There is a not small portion of fans who seem to think Harden is completely without any blame..ever, and that we should be sucking his d**k 24/7 because he's a great basketball player, it's absurd.
He's a great player. He also does things that piss off fans. He's been treated the way he should be treated. Win a ring, and he has teflon. No show in elimination games and jet ASAP to a party right after and you'll get dissed. Harden knows what he's doing and doesn't care. That's fine. Just don't shed tears for him. The Rockets gave him a chance to do what he does.
it's shallow to stay on "ISO, therefore criticize Harden". You've never left that spot. You're also never discussing it as a point of hatred. when there is absolutely hatred. Here's some easy examples: "Move your feet, Harden" "Take Harden off the ball" "Take the ball out of his hands when they double him" "Let someone else bring the ball up the court" These feed into the same ISO-heavy offense arguments that are as dumb as a 5th grader's analysis of the strategy. A simple "he has nobody else on the team who can do any of those things." is enough to negate most one of those points. The only other thing would be to ask him to move on the court more, but people would probably be shocked to see his usage rate and the amount of calories he's burning. I've invited you again and again to dive deeper into how else you'd criticize Harden other than just that they put this system around him to do what's best for the franchise as well as Harden. Yet you seem to think it's consistently a problem when that system has worked better than most, almost to the point where other franchises are following the same system today. That success factor, you never discuss because it doesn't help your point, which honestly is a reaction to frustration more than an actual critique of Harden's game. A system modeled around spacing the floor with no movement isn't just on Harden. I daresay it's not even 30% Harden's blame. Ultimately the franchise decides the style of play and how to orchestrate an offense. Your ceiling to those are based on the kind of talent you have on the roster. We came close, but fell short because we don't have enough help. It's not worth ******** on Harden over, it's worth looking back and saying he's a great player and we're going to move on because there's multiple points of failure. To say we didn't have a shot w/ MDA/Morey's system isn't being honest, and yes, it's hate. We came damn close.
