The Harden Era has SIGNIFICANTLY been better than the Steve/Tmac/Yao Eras combined

In my very best Kurt Angle voice, "oh, it's true"!

 

Harden is arguably a top 20 player in history. Will probably go down as the nba player to never win a ring tho( even though I hope he wins one soon)

 

Harden is the second best player in Franchise history and if he wins a championship or two while here and retires a Rocket (let's hope Tilman is no Les and never allows Harden to play in Canada), he may become tied with Olajuwon due to recency bias.

 

This is true. But, to be fair, Harden does dribble the heck out the ball. He just makes his shots at the end of possession more often than the Franchise did.

The most depressing thing to me during this Harden run is realizing how hard it is to win a championship. We always thought those Yao/McGrady teams had a chance if they were just healthy but they really never did. You need an MVP caliber player, a compatible star, and a consistent playoff rotation. Once Harden is gone, what are our chances of even getting as close as we've been with him in the next 15 years?

 

I think the Yao team that he played on a broken foot was a championship team until he went down and I think the CP3 team before he got hurt was one too.

So they are about equal eras ......other than the injuries....as for being contenders.

DD

 

It's like a weird timing issue with those guys. Francis and T-Mac both would be much better in todays NBA and Yao would have been much better in any other era previous to his.

 

Harden is my 2nd favorite rocket, and that includes players on that Sam Cassell team

 

I'll never forget the 22 game win streak and that win against the Lakers. Probably the highlight of my Rockets fandom. I was living in LA at the time, too. Those teams may not have had as much talent, but I always respected the way they fought. Scola, Alston, Hayes, Battier. Those Battier/Kobe matchups in the playoffs. Then of course there was Yao, he needs no introduction.

Give me that era, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

I liked the players and the way that team played a lot more than the moreyball teams. I don't particularly like Harden either. That means more to me than being able to say we were a quarter away from the finals (That's not really anything anyway IMO). Now, if they would have beaten the Warriors it would be harder for me to say so definitively.

 

Better yeah but alternatively if one liked blocks, Deke Wamutombo for you.

Bigs were a tradition of this franchise, you'd have to move away from it to guard play.

If you liked longer winning streaks, 22 for you.

They keep Cat, then it's another team.

 

Yao should have stayed slim and shooting like when we found him. Instead of Shaq and everyone around the NBA encouraging him to bulk up. Yes the game was in transition to a more finesse shooting style but it still could have worked. Yao could shoot 3's easily! Rebound, Block, and Pass.

 

obviously

 

Yeah, that's all JVG. That's too bad. Would have loved to see an even THICCer version of Tucker in the post under JVG. Turn him into Charles Barkley minus the athletic or scoring or passing or post game.

 

The Rockets with Harden could've potentially had two championships if it wasn't for the Warriors super team.

And even then the Rockets played them just about as well as anyone has in the playoffs.

 

JVG bulked him up and atrophied his parameter game
Before JVG Yao was an EXCELLENT passer. . . . .

Rocket River