James Harden is not a 2, defensively, he has little to no chance to guard any 2 in the League, the reason is not because he is bad at defense but because he is being played out of position. On most nights, he should be guarding the 3 or 4 spot, I've rarely seen him do a bad job guarding the 3 or 4 spot, yet, every time I see him guarding the 2 spot, he is frequently deficient. He is super strong and has a huge wingspan, 6 " 10.25, that's longer than most 3s. In order for the Rockets to be any kind of Championship threat, he has to move to his natural position as a 3-4 tweener and cause matchup nightmares. As long as he is played at the 2 spot, every opponent can exploit him in a defensive matchup. This means that Parsons rather than Lin is the person that needs to be moved.
Actually I was wondering why we never run the small ball line up anymore of Lin Bev and Harden... this was one of our best offensive line up... this also forces harden to guard the 3 or 4 spot...
The reason Harden matches up better with bigger guys is because he has lower body strength and is slow laterally on defense. His lateral sluggishness is probably why he worked so hard on the eurostep and whatnot. It doesn't mean he's a 3. It just means he's a slower 2. Who he defends doesn't govern what position he should play.
Trugoy I'm sorry I misread your post, its getting late. I see the point you are trying to make, ignore the posts I made.
Oh, now if you can't guard opposing SG's you must change your position to win a championship. Lol. Harden is fine at the 2. If he was at the 3, he'd never be able to post anyone up. And he'd be shooting over much taller players. While also taking a beating at the defensive end since 3s are bigger. And you're delusional if you think Parsons needs to be moved more than Lin does.
Yep, my thinking is that it is really hard to build around Harden as a 2, however, if he was a 3/4, building around him would be much easier.
Harden doesn't have any post moves, his postups consist of jab fakes into a stepback or a drive. All of which he could execute against 3s or 4s. It would have no affect on who guards him, opposing teams will guard him using whoever their best defender is, so there is no "shooting over taller players", this is not a pickup basketball game. Harden should be playing less minutes, instead of wandering around for 40 minutes a game getting blown by 2s, he should be playing 33 minutes a nite at the 3/4 spot and getting a lot more help. Parsons is very problematic for the Rockets, you will not find a champion where the third option on offense is a below average defender. On most champions you can accept your first option as not being an elite defender, but your third option has to be at least a good defender if not elite.
Harden is really an elite level short center more than anything else. Make him grow a 6 inch for and he is almost a 7 footer.
2/3 are very interchangeable positions in offensive sets, so yes I absolutely think harden should be playing the 3, they will put their best defender on him no matter what so it doesn't matter to them. However for us he could keep up with 3's better but is still stronger enough to hold his own. Bev/lin/harden/(DMo or parsons)/howard, would be a whole lot better defensively than what we are running right now. And offensively there wouldn't be much drop off as you are essentially switching lin and parsons. I know people think Lin sucks the last few games, but did you not watch parsons? So all in all I think this is a great idea and we could realistically contend for a chip this year.
This is exactly it, he's built like an ox and strong as hell, theres a reason he can bully his way to the basket and it's a combination of his first step and size.
I wouldn't say every team can exploit that defensive matchup. I mean how many great SGs are there? I am sure if he put his mind into it, he is capable of guarding sub players like Reddick or Sefolosha.
he's 6'5 with a huge wingspan, built like an ox, he should AT THE WORST be an average defender. He has all the tools to be one.
See the only problem with this is that Hardens main advantage is that he is big for his position, having him play the 3 would cut down on his ability to bully other 2s around. Plus I'm betting his sec
^his second biggest strength is his ability to get fouled, and most of the time he gets fouled is when he gets a smaller guy in the paint.
