Yes he would rather get two free throws than take a shot from the field. Of course so would anyone that understands basketball and has basic math skills. A FT is an uncontested shot that he hits at 87%. Why would you prefer that he take a much less efficient shot that would be contested and introduce the possibility of a turnover? A FT is by far the most efficient shot in basketball for a FT shooter as good as Harden. If you're going to deduct for the turnovers then you also need to add in the points that he creates off of assists. This season Harden's assists are generating 17.9 pts/game. So add that in to your calculation and you have 47.9 pts on 29 shots. That over 81% TS% which is off the charts.
Having endured the lack of offensive execution this season, Red Nation misses the play-making prowess of Chandler Parsons at the small-forward position, play-making--probably a facet of his game that landed him that contract in Dallas. A well-oiled basketball offense is similar to an effective baseball pitcher, always avoiding an exclusive serving of his best pitch, mixing in a healthy dose of his weaker pitch, which only strengthens the potency of his strike out one. Too much Harden, and the defense becomes better equiped to counter due to the repetition. That said, I have some suggestions for some off-speed playmaking options for the team that we could do more of in half court sets: 1) Dmo postups. 2) Beasley clearouts. 3) Howard postups. 4) Beverly drives and kickouts. We'll still have the Harden high pick and roll, Harden postups, and Harden isos in the halfcourt as well as our transition offense, fueled by our defensive players. I like our players. We have the right pieces. We just need to put it together.
Dwight is still an elite rebounder. Unfortunately, his current defense and paint protection is nowhere near top 5 in the league. Let me make sure that I understand - Harden is on pace to break the turnover record for a season and you've now determined that no team has ever won a championship with their primary playmaker committing that many turnovers? Really? Did you spend much time researching that? I'll give it a try too - No player has ever turned the ball over as much as Harden has this season and failed to win a championship in the same season. Hey, this is easy and fun
We suck when Harden's not on the floor. The Rockets average 21.7 Assists/100 possessions when Harden is on the floor and 21.7 Assists/100 possessions when Harden is off the floor. We turn the ball over 15.8% of our possessions with Harden on the floor and 16.3% of our possessions when Harden is off the floor. When Harden is on the floor we allow 106.5 pts/100 possessions. When Harden is off the floor we allow 104.2 pts per 100 possessions. When Harden is on the floor we average 106.4 pts per 100 possessions. When Harden is off the floor our scoring drops to 99.2 pts per 100 possessions. We suck when Harden isn't on the floor.
11mCalvin Watkins Rockets' James Harden records triple-double, continues fight for playoffs James Harden kept Houston in the top 8 in the West -- one-half game ahead of ninth-place Utah -- with 32 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists on Friday. 13 assists...Harden doesn't pass the ball enough and he's selfish...hmm k
LOL, you make a lot of sense. Unfortunately you're talking to fools. I think they have an agenda but instead of their agenda doing what they want it to do for them it's just making them look stupid. A guy in this thread was mad that Harden gives the ball to people that he thinks will make the shot because he's selfish, lol. If that's not a fool I don't know what is.
Harden is our best player, but by plus minus numbers he's not having a good year by his standards. Same with net rating. We can't win a championship if this is what our #1 player is going to produce. By espns rpm he went from #3 to #17. By nylon calculus new player tracking plus minus he went from #7 to #30 something.
so assists are the same... turnovers are pretty much the same... and harden gets us a net of about 5 more points.... so the difference between all that is harden and (as they've been termed) "a bunch of scrubs that should all be traded" is 5 points per 100 posessions.... sooooooo... if a game were to run 100 possessions and harden sat out 20% of those 100 posessions, the pt difference for that game would be 1 pt.... I have to wonder if THIS is really an issue - lol
And Harden is 2nd in scoring and 6th in assists per game. Harden is 5th in ESPN's Value Added and Estimated Wins Added, 8th in PER while shooting 59.5 TS% Also Harden is 5th in VORP, 8th in Win Shares, 8th in BPM. Obviously, he is having a down year compared to 2014-2015 season, but Harden is still easily a top 10 player in this league. We are not losing because of Harden. We are where we are because we don't have good enough supporting cast, and that is evident if you look at the numbers. Harden has already proven that he is a MVP caliber player last year. He was a player's MVP. We are not championship contenders because we just don't have enough talented players on this team. Just answer this question : All the elite teams have at least two or three all-star caliber players on their roster. HOW MANY DO WE HAVE? We have a rapidly declining center who has 2 points and 5 rebounds in an important game. Our PF position was a total mess throughout the whole season. Our bench was literally the worst before Beasley joined this team. What makes you think just putting Harden in that mix will make us a championship contender? Even Curry has Klay, Green and Bogut for god's sake. Spurs are stacked as hell. OKC has one of the deadliest duo of all time. Cavs have BIG 3. I'm asking you again. WHO THE HELL DO WE HAVE BESIDES HARDEN? Oh, and don't even get me started on the coaching staff.
He's still our best guy, but by a lot of those stats he is having one of the worst years of his career. His WS/48 is his third worst and his net rating is his worst since his rookie year. His ORtg is his second worst also. His box score is still good but his plus minus is pretty mediocre. My point is if your #1 player plays worse than usual, of course you are going to lose more. Dwight's stats are about the same as last year and the rest of the guys are role players
And his VA, EWA, PER, VORP, BPM are all 2nd highest in his career. I'm saying don't cherry pick the data that only suits your narrative. You know who is really having a career low season? Dwight Howard. If your best player is having a relative down year, and he is still top 10 player, then he is not the reason we are losing. There are top teams that have way worse players than Harden as their No.1 guy. So, Houston's problem is not the No.1 guy. It might be the 2nd or 3rd guy. Or the bench. Or the coach. Or the GM.
And all the players on our team have way worse plus minus than Harden. What does that tell you? Is this Harden's one man team? Do any players on this team matter? And cut the BS. Dwight is having one of the worst seasons of his career. His Win Shares, BPM, VORP etc are all career low, not to mention his traditional stats.
I don't want to say this, but some people here just seem to have low IQ. Just because certain teams are having mediocre seasons, it doesn't necessarily mean that the best player on that team is wholly responsible. In fact, it's usually the opposite, meaning that those teams are at least 'mediocre' by virtue of having one elite player on their roster, otherwise they would have been at the very bottom. Case in Point 1986-1987 Micheal Jordan : avg 37 PPG but team was 40-42 2002-2003 Tracy Mcgrady : avg 32 PPG but team was 42-40 2005-2006 Allen Iverson : avg 33 PPG but team was 38-44 2006-2007 Kobe Bryant : avg 32 PPG but team was 42-40 2008-2009 Dwayne Wade : avg 30 PPG but team was 43-39 These are all one of the greatest shooting guards in NBA history, and yet when their team sucked in general, their individual brilliance was not enough to bring their team to the championship contender level. How could anyone with common sense blame Harden for this season? That would make sense if we actually play better without Harden. But do we? All the stats are telling the same story : we absolutely suck without Harden on the floor, prob comparable to 76ers. Harden is leading the team in every category out there, and is in top 10 in almost all of them, so he is doing his job. And by the way, all the elite teams have at least two or three all-star caliber players on their roster. HOW MANY DO WE HAVE? Do you guys honestly look at our starting members, with declining Dwight and huge hole at the 4 spot, and say "wow this is one of the best staring 5 in the league!". Do you honestly look at our bench members and say "wow this is one of the deepest team in the league!". Of course not, everybody knows that we just don't have that many talented players, and that's a fact. And don't even get me started with the coaching staff. Of course, Harden could do better. That goes without saying. But there's a huge difference between 'he could do better' and 'the reason we suck is because of Harden'. No, the reality is we would even suck more without Harden. We are at least where we are because we have Harden on our roster.
Tracy McGrady is not a SG, he is still an SF in my opinion, you can play him at SG but he stated himself, SF is the spot where he feels more himself
Everything you are quoting there are team based stats. We're having a bad year so of course the numbers will be down for all of our players. It's the same reason that you see 2 GS Warriors in the top 4 and Bogut in the top 20. The team based stats are interesting but they are skewed by the teams performance. I'm assuming that you don't really believe that Andrew Bogut is the 20th best player in the league, right? Do you see Anthony Davis in those rankings that you posted? Nope. Do you know why? Because his team is losing. Do you believe that AD isn't one of the top 20 players in the league by any criteria? As I said, team based stats are interesting but you need to understand what they are and what they aren't.
