first moral of the story is career arcs are hard to predict. second moral of the story is players typically get more criticism than they deserve if they havent won a championship yet and more praise than they deserve if they have.
Dirk is a different offensive player than Harden. He could carry or spot up ....big difference. Curry same thing. Easier to adapt and blend in with a system or teammates...That's not Harden. I'm not saying trade him, but it's harder to find a fit with him than with a Dirk.
Based on the little public information we have. No locker room info at all, I've already said (which is painfully obvious) that the Rockets will give Harden every opportunity to turn it around. The biggest question is Dwight. Does he opt out? I'll ask again, if the Rockets can't make the playoffs, why should they extend Dwight? It would kill their reputation, but do you give Howard a big contract when you have Capela waiting in the wings?
No it's not, it's the truth. Doubt you'll find credible articles and persons that criticized the mentioned aspects before he won a ring.
To be fair, if you googled Harden in ten years (if he won a ring) i doubt you would find said articles either. As they would be buried.
Harden's points, rebounds, blocks, and free throw percentage averages are ALL up from last year. His assists and steals are the same. The only noticeable decline has been his field goal percentage and beginning the year so cold from 3 is a big part of that. You're acting as though his numbers have dropped across the board...it's simply not the reality of the situation.
That's not fair to Nowitzki. Harden has been a hell of a player, and his skills are very, very good. I don't think that we question his level of skill. The questions come in with his conditioning and his party animal persona. I don't doubt that Harden could even be somewhat of a drinker, like Lawson. His conditioning is often suspect. Though there are almost no players that I would trust more with the ball in any situation, and though basically no players have Harden's ball handling skills, I think that we can all agree that Nowitzki always seemed to be a straight guy outside the court and did always seem to be in great shape.
And that's laughably, incredibly unfair to Harden. James Harden has a crystal clean reputation off the court. No legal problems, no scandals, nothing. For people to always act like he's some unreliable animal is disgusting. The man played in 81 of 81 games that he was eligible to play in last year. He shows up. So you've seen pictures of him at bars and clubs? Who gives a ****? What does that matter?
Exactly. The biggest scandal James Harden has ever been involved in is dating a Kardashian. No reports of street fights, DUIs, drug use, illegitimate babies, domestic abuse or rape scandals. He's literally only criticized because he isn't a religious freak like Curry.
His efficency and defense are way worse, plus his turnovers are way up. His win shares and ortg are way down from last year. He has some good volume stats its true, but overall he's quite a bit worse from his fantastic year last year
I'll take it one step further. Harden is struggling with his shot just as he did at the beginning of last season. Last year after 23 games his FG% was 41.7% and this year it is 40.6. Likewise, after 23 games last year his 3FG% was 33.8% and this year it's 31.3%. Those aren't huge differences. I find it interesting that if Harden's shot is falling then people here say "he was motivated tonight". If his shot isn't falling then he obviously was out partying all night. If he takes a large number of shots then he's not a team player. If he takes a low number of shots then he's disinterested. We have people on here claiming Harden is fat, out of shape, hungover, uninterested, aloof, selfish, not athletic, lacks quickness, lacks heart and depends on referees calls. He's obviously the most talented player in the history of the game if he can have all of those problems and still be runner up for MVP,the players choice for MVP and continue to be one of the top scorers and assist men in the league and the most clutch player in the league over the last 3 seasons.
I'm not claiming any of that. Just that the coaches cannot get him to play defense and that the coaches cannot get him to really play team basketball and keep the ball moving.
Your statement is true if you compare Harden's 23 games this year vs his totals for all of last season. If you compare his numbers from his first 23 games last season vs his 23 games this season then you'll see that they are pretty close. Harden started the year slowly last year and then caught fire in January and February. Last year at this time he was shooting 41.7% from the floor. My guess is that Harden's numbers will improve this year just as they did last year.
Teams now days play iso a high percentage of the time. It's a different philosophy, but is doesn't mean that it's selfish. Harden is creating shots for teammates, that's team basketball. We have a slew of guys that can't create their own shot. They are totally dependent on Harden to get open looks for them. That's team basketball. Last season Harden assisted on more 3 point shots than any other player in the league. Lebron James' teams have always played a lot of iso. Do you think that his coaches cannot get him to play team basketball? How about Durant and Westbrook? Both of them are huge iso guys.