I stupidly watched every Rockets defensive transition possession

Doesn't seem to affect Beverley.

If will only do your job when everyone else is doing it, then you gotta go.

Ariza is shooting 38% for the year, 33% on 3s. I have been forgiving of that because its not really his job to be a great scorer, he is there a piece to cover Harden's weaknesses, and play great defense. If he is not doing that, he has no place here.

 

I think it's more of frustration then lazy...

Look at how many times Ariza has to cover for other people and you can see the look of frustration on his face....

T_Man

 

Blaming Harden for his teammates not getting back on D after an unsuccessful drive seems a little strange. I mean, Harden attacking the rim is a big part of his game and our offense.

Though, Harden would do well do get back as quickly as possible instead of holding his arms up wondering why the whistle wasn't blown.

Opposing coaches are obviously instructing their team to floor it down the other end after a miss miss since our transition D is so poor.

Not absolving Harden of his complate lack of effort or focus otherwise. Just painful to watch

 

Repped. For some people on this board they just want to blame one person and if you say anything else it's a crime. These are grown men Ariza needs to do his job. James Harden has always played bad D and it never stopped Beverly so I agree.

 

You describe the ideal situation, but not the real psychology of a person.

Imagine for a second you had no chance of promotion at your job but you're still content to do your job and there's another guy there who only works half the hours you do yet there are no repercussions for his behavior. In fact, he's complained to your common friends about how well you played recently and he constantly gives you tips on how to work better.

To make matters worse, you doing your job depends on him doing his job. If Harden does absolutely nothing on defense, it's impossible for Ariza to do his job.

Should Trevor keep trying? Yes, because he's getting paid. Will any human in that situation give less of a F after a while? Absolutely. And he'll still make his money, and if he wants to be on a ****ty team he is guaranteed to make his money for the next few years anyway so he doesn't care if he gets traded.

If everyone is doing their job we don't have a problem. But if someone is this terrible on defense, of course it's going to affect others and I imagine it's not a coincidence that the players who are most demoralized are the senior defensive players on the team.

 

Harden was not horrible on d last year.

I feel people are defending Harden by saying "he's always been horrible and we still won in the past" but it's not true. He's on a new level of horrible D this year

 

I understand the psychology of it and I don't care.

Ariza is a defensive specialist. He is paid to be a defensive specialist. He is paid 8 million dollars a year to be a defensive specialist.

He does not bring anything to the team outside of defense. If he is not going to do it, then he has to go, its as simple as that.

 

I didn't say "just" last year did I? Beverly has been here more than just last year. By the numbers Harden wasn't that good last year on defense either he was merely not horrible. 2013-2014 was Harden's worst year defensively not this year. Ariza is responsible for Ariza stop trying to blame someone else.

 

It's funny how in a world where you want to blame Harden for everything that even saying he plays bad defense is somehow defending him, lol. No I just don't blindly hate him and want to torch him for everything anyone on the team does.

 

Oh...we're saying Harden is equivalent to Marcus Thornton, now?

The GARM is absolutely amazing this season

 

Classic case of a confirmation bias

Harden is the root of all our problems. Ariza not playing good transition defense, Harden's fault. Bottom of the league in defensive rebounding. Harden's fault.

Apparently Harden is now apparently letting opposing shooting guard score 25 a night.

 

I didn't mean to disagree with you,, shouldn't have quoted your post and I agree Ariza should play hard on defense

But I think Harden is worse than ever on d

 

I'm surprised no one posted this article on Morey's twitter account...good stuff

 

This is where a GOOD coach matters, he forces better habits by playing time being redistributed to those that play both ends.

DD

 

That's idiotic management, sorry.

You can't bring in a person to do something, impair their ability to do it, and then fire them for not doing it well. In addition, now you have to pay with picks or other contracts to get a player better, cause you screwed his trade value.

Not caring about the way people get motivated is a super fast ticket to winning nothing. Our goal is to win a championship. To win a championship, you need stability. If you ship people off because they're not motivated cause you hired an objectively ****ty manager, then that's within your right but you're not going to win anything because you won't have stability and you won't have chemistry.

It is also, btw, James Harden's job to play defense. Not to be a specialist. Not to anchor the defense. Just play average defense. It's his job not to turn the ball over. It's his job to find teammates when he gets double teamed. Scoring a lot of points is not his entire job, it's not even most of his job otherwise - as I said - we'll just slip Thornton into the role, and use the extra money to shore up 4 other positions. Are we shipping Harden off too?

 

If he is playing zero defense, turning it over like crazy, not finding open teammates despite having the ball all the time how is he a significantly better player than Thornton?

The gap between players in this league is not that big. If you go from playing defense most of the the time to playing defense none of the time you're going to find yourself tumbling down the rankings because that is 50% of your impact on the court. You can be god on offense, but half the time you're costing tons of points. You're going to find your team tumbling Your all star votes. Your place int he mvp race.

The Rodney Hoods of the league are are having 20+ points on a regular basis, am I supposed to be thrilled that Harden puts up 5 more points than Hood, plays less defense and doesn't pass the ball till the play is broken?

This is the difference between Stephon Marbury and Steph Curry. Shareef Abdurahim and Tim Duncan. It's the difference between the MVP and a highly capable scorer like Thornton.

Putting up lots of points, on its own, is a really great skill but it's not a franchise player's skillset. It's certainly not an MVP's skillset.

 

1) Not all of these 20+ point outings you speak of come against Harden alone. You know that, right? I'm not going to say Harden's defense has been good, because obviously it hasn't been, and I completely agree Harden's defense needs to be a whole lot better for him to be in that true MVP discussion. Who wouldn't? But you know Rodney Hood didn't score every point against Harden, right? He had others guard him, and others put up points against him. That goes for all the other guards Harden plays against. Sure, he gets scored on plenty, and it's been a frustrating season in that regard for Harden, but saying that's all on Harden means you're not watching the whole game and just looking at the box score.

2) For some reason people keep acting like the only time Harden passes the ball is when he does his late shot clock pass. That does happen, and it is always, ALWAYS, frustrating when it does. However...that doesn't happen nearly as much as people like to imply. Harden doesn't average nearly 7 assists a game because of nothing but contested shots at the buzzer.

 

Stop with the lazy hyperbole. This isn't a valid arguing point. It's just pure hate.

 

I see you have never been in management.

There is nothing impairing Ariza from not getting back on transition defense. Nothing. Its not someone else's fault.

I am sorry, but you are naive. Harden is our franchise player. What he gives you, he gives you at an elite level, which is why we have chosen to build our franchise around him. He is not replaceable.

You take the elite offense / playmaking and you supplement it. Is it fair? No. Its not about being fair. You tolerate the defense, because there is not better option.

The idea that Thornton in any way, shape or form is comparable to Harden is laughable. Just an absurd statement.

This is so silly, its not even worth responding too.

 

I regret doing it, myself.