Yeah that was a really really bad take. It’s almost impossible to overstate how awful he looked physically and athletically most of last year. Nothing like that this year.
I liked that Harden seemed more comfortable shooting mid-range shots. His overall game seemed more balanced. He definitely doesn’t have the same quickness he had in Houston, but that’s totally expected for a player entering his mid 30s.
yeah maybe he finally realized he can't get to the hoop and elevate like before. Plus he's like couple of sizes bigger, so it's actually a legit move to create space with his body and shoot those mid range. He bumped Grayson Allen out of the way a couple of times on those drives creating space for an open mid range
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34843160/workaholic-james-harden-cites-gym-work-strong-start After becoming a superstar with the Houston Rockets by making layups, 3-pointers and free throws, Harden's success Thursday came in a surprising way: by living in the midrange. His seven made midrange jumpers were a career high, per ESPN Stats & Information. They were also a third of the 21 he made all of last season, when he had only one game in which he made more than one midrange jumper. "I've been working on my game this summer, so I just took what the defense gave me," Harden said. "I had a couple 3s that I missed, but you can't control it. You put the work in and you live with the results. Tonight, they gave me midrange shots and I lived with the results."
The lack of willingness to shoot a few midrange shots here and there when the three wasn't falling was the biggest flaw in his offensive game his later years in Houston. In the RS it didn't matter so much, but I feel that taking some easy midrange shots that the defense was giving them to him may have gotten him some easier baskets.
Harden creates space for midrange shots so easily…they look effortless I enjoy midrange Harden because u get to see more of his bag whereas with threes he just spams 1 or 2 moves
The media already doing their thing… Today on Bill Simmons podcast Paraphrasing: Harden looks great. I’m worried this is looking like Harden’s team and not Embiids team. Only two games against probably the top two teams in the East so I don’t want to completely overreact, but I wouldn’t be shocked if we start to hear rumblings that Embiid and Maxey aren’t happy
Seeing middy James is a beautiful thing and his quickness is night and day from last year, something I think will only get stronger as the year progresses. We may seriously be seeing the early makings of another MVP caliber season. Once Embiid gets back into game-shape and is actually ready to play, Sixers will be a force.
Sixers have no bench scoring Why they don’t run the Harden-Embiid PnR to death is beyond me. It generates easy looks. Instead they want to force-feed Embiid in the midpost so he can pretend to be a SG and dribble into traffic for turnovers or get double teamed. It is much harder to double Embiid when he’s catching a pocket pass from Harden, and the offense flows better. Embiid just wants to catch at the mid-post, face up, hold the ball for 5 seconds, and then dribble into a midrange jumper.
you knew they were gonna come with that, they were expecting harden to look bad coming into the year, but instead he is currently breaking the PER stat. Also this focus on maxey and his well-being is only because maxey is signed to Klutch Sports. They always overhype those guys, maxey is a great scorer on the fastbreak and driving againist an unset defense. But as the main ball handler he struggles to make reads and beat his man off the dribble the funny thing is if harden was playing as bad as embiid and the sixers were 0-2 the same media would be saying it was a mistake to re-sign harden, and they would be killing him in the media like they are currently doing russell westbrook. Possible asking james harden to come off the bench or to be the 3rd option. Harden makes the right reads and feeding embiid in the post instead of running pick and roll is because thats what doc rivers wants. Harden gets the most hate because thats just how it is, its sad but thats how it is this is why i no longer watch inside the nba, or watch halftime shows or nba talk shows on espn. I will watch some nba tv because they are unbiased. A lot of these former players on tv especially the recent ones are just mad that james harden wont hop on their silly podcasts
Harden definitely was not healthy last season, and I think he was figuring out what limitations his aging NBA body had, he has always worked in the off season to try to do something different, he would always add a move or add to his arsenal. Now at this age it is more about figuring out what you can get away with, this is something Westbrook and to a lesser extent Melo never did and which is why their value as NBA players declined tremendously once the skills they came into the league with started to diminish. I found Westbrooks comments ridiculous, blaming his coach for making him come off the bench be a cause for his hamstring injury, because he pointed out his routine for 14 years, and he said everything he has done has been the same for 14 years, that is not really something to brag about.
Basketball is a fluid, dynamic game. An offensive system that leads to more "good shots" (3s, layups) will be more efficient, generally speaking. But that doesn't mean on any individual play you don't take wide open mid-range jumpers if that's what the defense is giving you. That was the problem with Harden's game, IMO. Hopefully he sticks with the new approach and doesn't fall back to old habits.
In the first 2 games Harden has driven to the basket 31 time and made 10 of 14 shots. Only 3 of them were layups at the rim. 7 of them were floaters or similar. https://www.nba.com/stats/players/drives?PerMode=Totals&Season=2022-23&SeasonType=Regular Season&dir=D&sort=GP https://www.nba.com/game/phi-vs-bos-0022200001/game-charts?awayPlayerShots=201935 https://www.nba.com/game/mil-vs-phi-0022200015/game-charts?type=scoring&homePlayerShots=201935 2020 Harden on the Nets and Rockets was still very explosive, destroying mismatches on the perimeter and applying a ton of rim pressure. He would explode past big men and cook bad defenders like Evan Fourneir (in the playoffs) and get right to the bucket with speed and power. From what I've seen Harden right now hasn't shown close to that level of quickness or burst. What he is doing however is expanded his mid-range and floater game. So while he's not blowing past defenders, his offensive IQ and guile is allowing him to score in a much different manner than he did in the past. He's scoring a lot like CP3 did from 2020-2022. Last night he made a career high 7 mid-range shot along with 2 or 3 floaters. Prior to 2021, Harden frankly didnt need to shoot the mid-range, because he was either getting to the basket, line or taking a three. Remember Harden scored 31 points vs the Heat in game 5 of last years playoffs, so he was and is still very capable of being an elite scorer. The difference thus far is that he's also added more variety to his shot profile, incorporating the mid-range like he never did before. It's only been 2 games, so a lot can change as the season progresses, but right now my observation is that he still isnt much more explosive, but has been extremely crafty as he's utilized more mid-range and floater into his game.
I was being sarcastic. Some people argued with statistical evidence that Harden's total abandonment of the midrange was justified. I've been countered for a long time using the commonsense argument. Two weapons is always better than one weapon even if the second weapon isn't very efficient. While you should use the more efficient weapon most of the time, there are times when the not-so-efficient weapon is what you need to kill your enemy. If your enemy knows that you don't have a second weapon, that's one less thing they need to worry about.
I’m talking about his overall movement and twitch speed. Stop start. He looks noticeably different. I do agree his offensive variation and variety with him bringing back the midrange will now be more effective in the playoffs
