First of all stop making this a Harden versus Russ debate since anyone in their would rather see harden run the offense. Th Lakers clearly wanted the ball in Russ hands. You know why? because he is a terrible decision maker. Appallingly bad. Okc built a offense that got bounced out of the playoffs every year in the first round. Paul George had enough. Durant had enough. The irony is I was his biggest supporter on this board but even I can’t defend him anymore Russ neds a entire offseason to watch film and learn how to be smarter
Rockets reddit and twitter can be insufferable. They start with the "answer" and work backwards from there. Harden puts up historic numbers, no question about it, but to what end? And I'd argue we could have won it without CP3 if we weren't so dogmatic about our shot selection. Whether that's more of Morey/MDA/Harden, I'd be real interested. What else do we have besides this historic regular season player? I find the notion that WB is unsalvageable under the Rockets to be lazy.
Russ being dared to shoot his team out of the playoffs is an annual tradition now in the NBA. And Russ never says no to a dare!
I'm not. I want this to be a "how do we make Harden and WB" fit together debate.....some on here are so biased they don't want to consider it. But let's not bring up the elimination game, where the team gave up, as praise for any particular player or the rockets in general. It was embarrassing the way the Rockets went out.
Do Harden and WB even talk? Is Harden like "I'm going to go out there and do my ISO game" and WB responds, " cool, that doesn't help me out so im going to pull on some terrible shots"? I really don't get the Harden and WB relationship or why Harden went along with Tilman.
No the eye test tells Russ is a bad decision maker His whole history is indicative of that but the playoffs just showed that with full spectrum. Dude is a walking turnover. You think it’s fun playing with him? Hopefully Russ take the offseason to go and work with a point guard coach. Hell if Maurice cheeks couldn’t help him in OKC then not sure who can. As for the embrassing loss look no farther then Russ who was the main culprit for this series
OKC for years built a middling offense around Westbrook that got their teeth kicked in in the first round year after year. That is what we can expect by giving Westbrook more control.
LOL..... So you are another one.... Harden and WB have nearly identical TOV % for their careers (15.2% vs 15.7%). They both turnover the ball a lot, the difference is Harden is a better player. It's simple..... the difference between Harden and WBs shooting is far greater than their ability to run an offense.
So having WB shot the ball more is better? The Rockets have a better team and we keep losing in an embarrassing fashion in the playoffs.
Difference is harden is a elite decision maker. Harden, Lebron, Nash and many other great decision makers were and are turnover prone. The difference is they make great decisions 90 percent of the time. Stop embrassing yourelf
If you have many different lineups with small minutes but one common denominator in them being bad THAN THAT SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING. Russ is used every game BY HIMSELF in lineups. And they are losing. The good russ lineup has 35 minutes over 81 games compare the many different lineups tried with Russ being garbage. No no we shoulndt you not understanding how stats work. To make it really clear....here is the net rating for everyone on our team https://stats.nba.com/team/16106127...ype=Regular Season&sort=DIFF_NET_RATING&dir=1
No Westbrook retiring is better. Westbrook has 1 redeeming quality. He is an absolute monster rebounder for a guard. But there’s not a lot you can do with that. He is a negative offensive player nowadays. And his defense might be worse. Featuring him on or off ball isn’t a viable winning strategy. He is an athlete not a basketball player. He’s not about thinking on the floor he’s about imposing his will. He once was a capable of easily beating his man and drawing attention from other defenders and was able to make the simple kick out read. And that worked decently. Even when defenders sagged he had that raw athletic talent to make something good happen. He doesn’t have that capability anymore. His athleticism that made him what he is is declining rapidly. He is a terrible decision maker. A shaky dribbler and just doesn’t have the jets anymore to do the things that once made him viable. And on top of that his game has never been cerebral. These facts spell disaster.
Again, not arguing that WB is a better playmaker.....So you are another person who would rather have the terrible shooter taking the shots..... Weird but okay.
WB isn't retiring.... so I guess Harden really made a huge mistake signing off on the WB trade. Terrible judgement on his part.
One thing we will absolutely agree on. IF this was Harden’s doing he deserves all the **** in the world coming to him for his team building ability. Now reports are that this was mostly Tilman’s doing but I have to imagine Harden was fine with the decision. Morey and MDA clearly wanted nothing to do with it.
No I want to see Russ get smarter with the ball.I can live with smart turnovers where he is being creative but his turnovers and decision making are horrific. Careless turnovers...The only redeeming quality was he made D’Antoni quit
They WERE ABLE TO DO THAT BECAUSE HE COULD NOT SHOOT. They had Anthony Davis camp in the paint while Harden got doubled BECAUSE HE COULD NOT SHOOT. He couldnt even be counted on to make the right pass when he did get the ball. Hed rather ISO Markief Morris(and fail) or post up Lebron(and MEGA FAIL) He actually just coulndt do ANYTHING. He coulndt pass, and he couldnt defense. The numbers bare that out and the numbers bared that out in the playoffs, and it would take someone really looking hard to see that he wasnt a problem. He coulndnt even do the things Kemba Walker could do. He can't run our SIMPLE OFFENSE at a high level. He got shooters and we still trash. He cant even be a positive on the team. Like....I can't compare dude's who play the same position, dudes who we made the trade for. Why do you think every game they sent in Lebron when Harden sat and had him face Russ???? LOL in game 3- 4 the put in Davis AND Lebron when Harden sat. Dude...he brought fewer screens because they started doubling Harden(but that was fine, we still made that work last year)....this year with Westbrook you just GO UNDER THE PICK. Having two non shooters on the floor kills the spacing. That's why we made the trade. IT WAS FOR WESTBROOK. We did the trade FOR RUSS. Go to 5:28, literally worse when he came on the floor. Just to really solidify my point. He got better post Capela trade(LOL yet his lineups were still the least efficient for us) Then teams adjusted in the bubble and then he went back to being garbage. Yea he was coming back from injury....but there is no reason for him to be that POOR even with an injury. That would mean even fully healthy...he's still not gonna be good enough. So you literally dont care about facts? Like I just showed you the evidence that in fact Russ could not play with Capela and got better post trade and you still denied it. He's been on the decline FOR 4 YEARS. All of his stats have gotten worse and his playoff stats have gotten MUCH WORSE through 4 years. Okay, Im gonna say again ISO is not all we run. If Westbrook was good at pick and roll..HE IS NOT. We would run it. You just under the screen and Westbrook sucks at it... Lol, Im gonna say this one last time if he was injured what were his excuses for SUCKING the last 3-4 years in the playoffs? He had his big man, his safety valve. He even had Paul George. He all all his confidence and comfort you talk about. And yet his stats still suck ass and he was sent home in the first round still. He's not the second best player on a championship team. He's never gonna be the guy to help James Harden...
I think what we tried to do is really the best you can hope for with Westbrook. Remove the non spacing big man. Have him be the secondary playmaker attacking off of the attention Harden receives. Ball in Westbrook’s hands more is never going to be the solution. He just doesn’t have the ability anymore. Didn’t work in the playoffs against a smart and equipped defensive team like LA, but it’s very likely the best you can do with a player with Westbrook’s capabilities. Giving him a pick and roll big to use when Harden sits might help our non Harden lineups be a little less bad, but we’re talking about 12 minutes a game. You can’t spend money on a big that you only want to use when Harden sits. Or more likely it’s impossible to find a decent roll option big man who is available and affordable. And you can’t play two non shooters with Harden on the floor or they have TWO players they can cheat off of to disrupt him.
