Martin fits Lins play style better since he plays off the ball well, as we saw in the preseason. Harden is better but the pieces aren't meshing with him and Lin.
Well, they did lost didn't they? I mean, the year that Kobe went for 81 points, the Lakers weren't exactly doing that well that year either. Toronto wasn't that good of a team.
How does the team losing prove that Harden is to be blamed? Lebron James had 31/9/10 in a blow out loss against a Melo-less Knicks. Is Lebron James responsible for the loss? Also, the Lakers were 45-37 in the year Kobe scored 81 points. Their team lost in the first round in the playoffs. His support cast consisted of Kwame Brown and Smush Parker. Are you seriously going to say Kobe is the reason that team didn't win more games?
Martin plays no defense and as a starter last year didn't want to shoot. A back court of Lin and Martin?? Are you fu**In kidding me???? One guy who is shooting 30 sumthin percent, and another guy who basically a three shooter and neither are good defensively. We probably be at 3-4 wins tops. Martin is a wussy who is basically a 6th man on a contending team. The guy is effective in limited minutes
Dudes who think Harden is to blame for the loss don't, and probably will never, understand the game of basketball. Plain and simple. Dude dropped 39/9/6 and people think he's at fault. Hilarity at it's finest.
And he did most of that on a sprained ankle... which was also the only reason he didn't perform better in the 2nd half. That said, I think this team would be worse, but not terrible without Harden. I'm thinking 5-6 wins.
Lin was even worse in the preseason while playing next to Martin who was playing great. Must be Asik's fault?
Yes. And depending how Toronto plays it (assuming they don't tank out later), we could have had 6 or 7 too. ...in addition to oh so talented Jeremy Lamb...
around the same number of wins. The way langhi is describing, that's not how professional basketball works. You don't automatically lose harden's points and average 80 points per game lol. With Harden out, Martin would take his shots and so on. We would still be scoring and assisting a lot. I don't think Harden is a ball hog by nature. He sacrificed and came off the bench before. But he is being asked to do something by the coaching staff that cannot be done. 45+ minutes of handling the ball most of the time, 3 hours of sexo the previous night with 'models'. that's a lot to ask for from a human. If they reduced his pg role, he could do 2,000 points,400 assists and 2,000 models per season easily.
If you've ever watched a ton of basketball where the star is out for significant time, the team will always adjust and everyone pick up a little slack. And players develop differently. I said before the trade that we barely get 30 wins if that. And nothing has suggested otherwise. So 7-12 if we had Martin and Lamb instead of Harden this year.
Defense I don"t think it's a case of people blaming Harden for the loss, but the fact of the matter is the Rockets' defense is just TERRIBLE. And from what I've seen Harden isn't really helping in that department. For all the flaming going on about Lin's jumper or lack of driving to the hoop, those topics are really irrelevant. The offense is FINE, it's the defense that has me worried. Last night's game was a great example, down the stretch we could NOT get a stop, and then we lost. Harden's great game was wasted. If Harden really wants to be an elite player, he needs to work on that D. Guys like MJ and LeBron always want to shut down the other teams best player, I don't see that from Harden, but he's still young.
