Harden is on a absolute tear, but he is wearing himself down and will be out of juice in a month or two. Hes jacking 40 or more attempts a game when you count free throws. Last night it was about 45 attempts or shots. I admit this is awesome to watch, but only on a harden personal level. We just lost to some scrubs with harden going for near 60! Is this worth it? I think it is. We dont have a chance against gsw tbh, so im all for harden shooting 50 times a game. He may shot 60+ one game and take kobes 81... F it james do your thing
If the West wasn't playing out like it is, I'd say it's not worth it. But, every game counts right now and we've needed almost every basket. Hopefully there is a way to squeeze in some rest soon. But, it's that kind of season where you can't get comfortable.
Worth it? The alternative is not to make the playoffs. What's the point of resting Harden if we don't make the playoffs?
In a loaded conference where no team really has any true disparity between anyone and a 10th seed can easily climb into a middle of the pack seed in a week span, with half of the roster out to injury......yeah it is.
Its not worth it because even if we finish bottom 4, the media wont give Harden the mvp over Giannis and we'll probably be knocked out in round 1 because Harden will be so tired to produce. This is keeping in mind CP3 has clearly declined this year. Obviously Morey either wants to run Harden into the ground or is handicapped by Tilman's kids on making a trade. This season won't have a happy ending.
At this point Harden doesn't play the way he is we would absolutely suck. I would prefer for the team to be healthy and allowing him to rest but we are in a bind. The west is a daily bloodbath.
I don't think it is. As I mentioned in another post, Harden has dropped to 58th in 3pt% for the year, and dropped to 23% for his past 3 games, with high high high volume shooting (12-51 in 3 games) Remember a few seasons ago when he just ran out of gas in the playoffs? He's on pace to run out of gas long before that his year, in a body a few years older. Rockets are only 1.5 games above the "miss the playoffs" 9th seed line. Games like yesterdays are the worst of all possible combos.... high minutes, OT, tons of shots, loss. Its hard to not see it as stat-chasing, when A] his shot % is plummeting and B] the margin for houston missing the playoffs has shrunk to almost nothing. His 58 points on his terrible 3pt shooting could have been 70 pts for some other players on the team and an easy win vs scrubs. But he has it in his mind that he just needs to chuck up a ton of shots and get high pt totals, regardless of if it helps his team or not, because of a personal desire to get an MVP award. And just consider for a moment the irony there - choosing a personal accolade at the expense of his team, when that accolade is called "most valuable"
"this" is clearly Harden's decision to try to shoot everything and score everything instead of involving his team enough, or playing defense enough, to make sure he wins the scoring title and MVP
Definitely not. It's fun to watch, but long-term, it's depressing. If his bum teammates can't stay healthy or fix their shot, they don't have a chance at a championship and that's all that ultimately matters, not some cute records and streaks.
