Yeah I understand starting slow because of an ankle injury but gaining 30 pounds and still looking gassed many times deep into the season I don't.
I searched and haven't found anything stating he gained 30lbs. Is this your guesstimate by his appearance? As a sports performance coach I can assure you even in shape athletes succumb to fatigue. Stress is stress to the body, it doesn't differentiate between physical stress from hard workouts, fights with girlfriends, team conflicts, travel ect. We all know the start of the year was very stressful to the team. Add to that JH started hampered by injury so his conditioning wasn't up to snuff and I can easily see why it took him awhile to get going. When you start out of shape, workloads that you can normally tolerant are too much and they can start to push you further down the hole to the point where recovery because very difficult. This is a process called over reaching, it's a lesser version of over training syndrome, which can take months to recover from. We all know JH partied a bit this summer and I guarantee that didn't help, as alcohol has multiple negative effects on the body - weigh gain, impairs the ability to recover from exercising ect. So he's not blameless, but there are other issue that were probably at play as well.
Yeah I have been seeing you spout off that 30 pound number quite a bit lately. Never heard any exact number given out by anyone who would actually know and frankly to even think that it was possible for him to have been 30 pounds heavier at any point last season is pretty ridiculous.
Either way he was overweight and not the same. Quite a bit worse in my opinion. Hence falling from #2 in mvp voting to no all NBA team, and no it's not a conspiracy against him. Watching the drew league videos vs his videos 2+ years ago... He's still overweight
lol ok man. Keep up your campaign. If actual facts aren't all that important why not just spam the board that he was 100 pounds overweight instead of 30? 1 pound, 30 pounds or 100 pounds, still overweight, amirite?
Sorry for being a Rockets fan and caring that the team could suck because players are out of shape. Keep up your own campaign too
What campaign? Real life? Where 5-10 pounds isn't the same as 30? Where dropping from 2nd to 9th in MVP voting isn't considered a travesty equal to a spit in all Rockets fans faces? Where dropping from first team All NBA to being the last guy to not make an All NBA team isn't a giant dump taken on all Rockets fans? Gladly stick with that.
Harden works his tail off in the gym, and he runs from rim to rim with the ball in his hands more than anyone, and always leads the league in minutes. Of course he is going to get gassed with the responsibilities he has. I don't buy this out of shape bs. Dude lives in the gym and anyone that has had a serious ankle injury can tell you that the next few months can be hell for mobility.
McHale certainly has an agenda. That's one thing you are correct about. Just look at his Wife's tweets. Just an awful, terrible basketball coach. ...because he had a bum ankle
tell me, who would you replace harden with last year and do all these below while not looking gassed? not even Lebron can do it Played all 82 games League leading 38 mins/gm Led the league in drawing contact while in the act of shooting Scoring runner-up 29.0 pts/gm First among non-PGs 7.5 asts/gm (more than Lebron and Curry) Tied for 2nd among guards 6.1 rebs/gm Tied for 4th among guards 0.6 blks/gm Drives, scores off drives, and passes off drives as much as Lebron http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...t=DRIVES&dir=1 Moves around as far (works as hard) on offense and defense as Steph Curry and more than Lebron, WB, and KD http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...IST_FEET&dir=1 Generates points off touches as efficient as Steph Curry but more efficient than Lebron http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...=TOUCHES&dir=1 Catch and shoots 3 pointers more efficient than KD http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...gular Season Shoots pull ups more efficient than WB http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...L_UP_PTS&dir=1 Defends the rim almost as good as WB http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...M_FG_PCT&dir=1
you honestly think if Harden didn't have a bum ankle and gained weight coming in to training camp it would have stopped mchale, jbb, d12, brewer, tjones, jterry, dmo, and the rest of the rockets team from sucking? people don't need rockets fans here who cry about the BEST thing the rockets have and ONLY asset having a buk ankle during the OFF season tell me which here do you want to see harden improve on DURING the season? Played all 82 games League leading 38 mins/gm Led the league in drawing contact while in the act of shooting Scoring runner-up 29.0 pts/gm First among non-PGs 7.5 asts/gm (more than Lebron and Curry) Tied for 2nd among guards 6.1 rebs/gm Tied for 4th among guards 0.6 blks/gm Drives, scores off drives, and passes off drives as much as Lebron http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...t=DRIVES&dir=1 Moves around as far (works as hard) on offense and defense as Steph Curry and more than Lebron, WB, and KD http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...IST_FEET&dir=1 Generates points off touches as efficient as Steph Curry but more efficient than Lebron http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...=TOUCHES&dir=1 Catch and shoots 3 pointers more efficient than KD http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...gular Season Shoots pull ups more efficient than WB http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...L_UP_PTS&dir=1 Defends the rim almost as good as WB http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pla...M_FG_PCT&dir=1
Harden was also in the top 20 in distance covered per game - http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/player/speed/?sort=DIST_MILES&dir=1
Harden was out of shape to start the season, I assume due to the ankle injury many have brought up. After the first month or so of the season, he was fine. Not much of a difference between then and the year before. The first month of the season and the Rockets overall disappointment were what held him back in terms of accolades.
