James Harden's Brooklyn Nets

Then literally anyone who has ever joined a super team is not an alpha move there is no argument here.

 

Also I see the trashcan poster is trying to denigrate Harden again, no surprise. And LOOL at Durant being some sort of culture setter hahaha. Harden is talking to those dude's way more than Durant. Such garbage. Harden has been outplaying Durant on the offensive side of the ball for awhile now. And against all the good teams his defense has been on par.

 

Yep...the differentiator is whether the player joined a superteam or was the alpha player who others joined.

 

I agree that Harden has been awesome with the Nets. As I've said elsewhere regarding the Big Three:

- Durant has missed shots I expect him to make.
- Harden makes all the shots I expect him to make.
- Irving makes shots I expect him to miss.

Overall, Harden has been incredibly unselfish and is leading this team better than I thought he would. Happy to have him on the team.

 

No its not. Its absolutely not. There is no "alpha" Lebron was a beta when he joined the Heat because he was deferring to D Wade their very first year. He joined as a beta. The truth is, its whoever is performing the best on the team that will be seen as the true best player, not the "alpha" lol. Harden is outperforming both.

 

FWIW I was not talking about you at all. Are you like a Rockets-Nets fan? Thats interesting haha.

 

I'm mostly a Nets fan (have been since the 80s). Got interested in the Rockets when Matt Maloney was on the team (fellow Ivy-Leaguer), then again with Yao and Lin.

 

Yep with this argument... There's essentially only been one true alpha to win a ship... that's the Dream in 94.

 

leading the league in assist.

not bad for someone who doesn't pass the ball

 

MIC DROP

 

I can't think of any championship team that had one of the worse defense in the league. Can you? Real question.

Morey once said that you had to be top 10 in both offense and defense to win it all. If you have elite offense, you may be able to get away with mediocre defense. But mediocre is much better than the Nets defense. They have to improve their defense to at least mediocre to have a chance to contend.

Right now only 3 teams are top 10 in both offense and defense (all in the west)
Jazz
Lakers
Clippers
The Bucks are #1 in offense and #11 in defense. They should be counted in the contender group.

If you look at the Net Ratings (Ortg - Drtg), not surprisingly these four teams are at the top 4, followed by Denver, Philly and the Nets.

The gap between #4 and #5 is huge.
Jazz 9.1
Bucks 8.8
Lakers 7.9
Clippers 7.4
----
Nuggets 4.1
Sixers 3.3
Nets 3.3

 

Harden has embraced the playmaking role and has proven that he’s more than fine with not averaging 30 or taking 20 shots if the team can still win and be great with him focusing on being a facilitator

he had to play the way he did in Houston because it was our only shot at being competitive

last year: 18-3 when he scored at least 40, 25-22 when he didn’t

in 18-19, it was the same...he had to do the unguardable tour in order to drag us out of an 11-14 hole, and the team wasn’t nearly as good when he didn’t score at least 40

the burden of having to average at least 30 on the season or your team will be trash is too much

let Harden have stayed with this Rockets team and try to be a facilitator...we’d be begging him to stop it and just take every shot and start trying to drop 40 every night so we can win games

 

To farther this post, after harden privately asked for a trade, the Rockets retaliation move was to start a public smear campaign via Tim McMahon against Harden and state that they are willing to get uncomfortable. That had the vindictive marks of Tillman all over it to make himself look like the victim. No sane human being would just roll over after that.

 

if Giannis was picking teams this year, he’d say he doesn’t want Harden because he wants someone that scores

 

what we’re seeing from Harden so far in BK is basically the Super Saiyan 3 version of OKC 6MOY Harden

we’re catching a glimpse of what Harden would’ve likely eventually developed into had he stayed in OKC as part of that Big 3

he never would’ve been that 30 ppg guy next to KD and Russ, but a highly efficient 20 and 10 guy with multiple titles could’ve been the outcome

 

Yeah he was facilitating and trying to run the offense and be unselfish earlier this season with the Rockets. Defer some touches to John Wall. People said he quit because he was averaging like 19 points and 10 assists after Wall came back. Said he was a role player. Questioned his ankle injury. Said he was declining and not the same player. These are facts.

I felt and said at the time that he was trying to play the way people were clamoring for and they didn’t like it because we were losing. The other guys around him weren’t good enough for him to score 18 points and we still win. I also think he was trying to see if they were capable of winning with him playing a facilitator role and they fell short. Any hope we may have had died as soon as he realized Wall and Cousins weren’t going to be good enough to help him compete for a title.

 

How dare he want to play with arguably the greatest skilled/efficient scorer of all time (Durant) and the most skilled guard in the NBA(Kyrie).

 

Now when he goes for 20 points and 10 assists the media and fans are asking is he the best point guard/playmaker/passer in the NBA.

 

The stupidest anti-Harden narrative is that he is selfish. Harden can play with anyone because his attitude is great and his bball iq is through the roof


He still gets criticized for the Finals with OKC but he was assigned to guard LeBron. It may not have worked but his team did trust him with that assignment

 

were they in the western conference, nets would be 7th seed currently...lololol