[Huffington Post] James Harden's Glaring Defensive Problem Is Way Worse Than You Thought

Thank GOD someone is calling his lazy ass out on defense.

I think the only way he commits is when he is embarrassed.

I also wonder if the Adidas contract has some incentives in there for scoring, or for percentages because he NEVER takes the long last second shots anymore to end quarters he always passes off those low percentage shots to teamates.

DD

 

Or when Thibs gets a hold of him. Can only hope he's brought in to coach.

 

Media can call him out all they want for his atrocious D but as long as Morey, JB etc. fall victim to his "hey I'm putting up 28/6/6 and I can do whatever the F I want on the defensive end" it's of no use.

Morey has to sit him down and have a talk instead of constantly putting him on a pedestal

 

starting to warm to the Thibs idea. ANYTHING has to be an improvement on this train wreck.

 

I'm not sure if I agree with this statement by the writer: "Of course, all of the onus does not fall on Harden: Dwight Howard has predictably been a colossal disappointment . . . ." It contains a link to an earlier article he wrote which is a typical hate on Dwight piece.

 

I don't think this is gonna happen. James got McHale fired, he can get Morey fired as well. Morey is not Phil Jackson: Phil can tell Melo to go take a hike, "I'll draft whoever the hell I want to draft," and get away with it. why? because he is Phil Jackson. Sadly, Morey is no Phil Jackson in this situation.

 

As good as Morey is at trades, and contracts - is he that kind of leader? I don't know him well enough to say....but I have called for that kind of leadership from him..it is what we need.

DD

 

Morey is too busy fighing bloggers from Warriorsworld

 

I have never had that much of an issue with Harden dogging it on defense. This is purely on Morey and the coaching staff. You put the entire frigging offensive load on one guy, he's gonna need his energy to play 40 minutes a game and be the overwhelming ball handler, playmaker, and scorer.

Maybe if the Wizard of Stats spent more time getting balanced players as opposed to one skill D-Leaguers, Harden wouldn't have to spend so much energy on offense and can actually get in the way on defense.

 

Harden is tied for the league lead with Lebron and CP3 in shots taken per game with 4 or less seconds on the clock.

Its slightly down from last year. slightly

 

He could still play defense and let others initiate the offense giving him time to rest this is as much about Harden as it is about everything else.

DD

 

Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.

 

in theory, yes. but who the hell you gonna trust to initiate the offense? Bev? Lawson got the talent, but the coaching staff hasnt tried hard enough or they dont trust him. I cant put that on Harden so much. If the coaches arent pushing him to defer to Lawson as the initiator, then he gonna do what Harden do.

 

It's a site essentially run by career-age liberal women. Being rather on the left and having nothing against women , I go to the site a lot, but I have to weed out the articles that tumble off the cliff to The Left. And too many "[insert pointless actress / media-friendly female here] dazzles in such-and-so dress!"

 

false.

many many players have played heavier minutes than harden has this yr. and were still effective on both sides of the ball.

 

I feel ya. Lithuania's national broadcaster's sports caster is a woman. She's been casting sports news for many many years and it's always 80% women sports 20 % men... Spurs wins NBA? OK, I'll mention it at the end, but now, I'll let you know how some woman did in table tennis regional quarterfinal. After that teen woman voleyball news.

 

Harden is currently averaging 37.5 minutes a game. Thats second overall in the league. I dont care what kind of qualifier you slap on that, second overall is second overall.

 

so that excuses him not exerting energy on the defensive end? harden really deserves fans just like you. lol.

what about those players who avg'd well above 40 minutes and still played d?

 

Those vine gifs are unfair. If you took your worst job moments, yeah, it'd look pretty bad. - Morey

Spoiler

I hate that youtube clip. If you took the 12 worst minutes of your life last year Mike, I'm not sure what it would look like. Probably pretty bad. It'd be a bad 12 minutes. The idea of creating...any NBA player, if you create 12 minutes of highlights, they'll look amazing. Find your worst 12 minutes, they'll look bad. I thought that was pretty unfair. Your top players need to be 2-way players. Dwight and James both need to do that for us to win the title. They know the task in front of them. It'll come down to whether we're doing it or not doing it. - Daryl Morey 2014

 

Jimmy Butler leads the league averaging 38.1 MPG. He guards the opposition best wing player on a nightly basis. He has a huge workload offensively.

It is not far fetched to ask harden to put some effort defensively and at least be slightly below average to average. He is never going to be a Butler defensively but to be a total no show on defense, no focus, no hustle, fall asleep, having guys torch you a nightly basis is unacceptable and inexcusable