How many wins would we have without Harden?

Is he just not playing, or did the trade with OKC never happened? If it's the 2nd one, then Houston would probably still have 6-9 wins. If Harden is just simply benched or injured then Houston would struggle to win at least 5 games.

 

You never know. so it is pointless.

 

6-9 with Martin instead of Harden. Without Harden because he's not playing? probably 3-4 wins.

 

3 w/ martin.

 

Jeremy Lin would be ballin', so we'd be undefeated.

 

How can Harden average 5+ assists per game if he's "no passing"?

I won't call him a ball hog, just because it sounds selfish. He's just trusting himself more than he trusts his teammates and trying to do too much himself.

Anyway, I voted 3-6, closer to 6 than to 3.

 

I don't think you could blame Harden on that part, our coaches don't trust any player other than Harden either. That's why they have to play Harden long time even in a back to back.

 

Kevin Martin win-shares: 2.3
James Harden win-shares: 2.4
from basketball-refence.com

Kevin Martin WinScore: 5.47
James harden WinScore: 6.03
from hoopdata.com

 

Would likely be a team looking at drafting a top 5 pick.

 

I think the record would be similar to what it is now. Not so much a knock on Harden, but rather on the coaching staff that doesn't maximize the talent on the floor. I think the roles would be more clearly and logically defined with the pre Harden team.

 

James Harden wins-produced 2.4, per48-.159
Kevin Martin wins-produced 2.3, per48-.183
from thenbageek.com

BUT, last season
Harden per48- .263
Martin per48- .077

so the jury is not out, also there are effects switching teams clearly has

 

The problem is that Martin's defense is so bad that teams would go at him. Even with lesser players.

Not only that, Martin was as anti-clutch as could be. He often would not want the ball in the fourth and then would clunk open shots as the game goes on.

Lee outplayed Martin last season. Martin being the leading scorer on any team has never led his team any where.

 

Rockets could have more wins. Instead of ISO ball all the time, players would be more involved in the game and would be more in rhythm to score. There would also be less turnovers.

Harden 4th quarter last night: 4 pts, 3 turnovers.

 

Yea - I wasn't trying to prove a point one way or the other, just throwing the numbers out there in case people wanted to draw conclusions off them or debate them.

All wp/ws show at this moment are that Harden/Martin are similarly productive/efficient with their minutes even though they are playing very different roles on their respective teams.

That said, last year Martin was injured and his stats reflected that. From his level of productivity/efficiency this year - we've seen that it was merely the injury and that he's capable of the numbers he's had for most of his career.

In my personal opinion, Rox would have lost maybe 2-3 more games w/ Martin than w/ Harden. So I voted the "6-9 wins" option.

 

Without Harden, Rockets will have two top 10 picks in the next draft. and two more first round picks, and a huge amount of cap space and much better value in current assests.

With Harden, Rockets won 10 more games to and that happy #14 pick again.

 

This.

 

Yeah. Maybe they can draft Shabazz who is compared to James Harden instead.

 

You know something is up when a player puts up 39/9/6 on 17 shots and is currently being blamed for the loss.