The Rockets have landed James Harden!

his general appearance strikes me as an equal hybrid between will.i.am and zztop

 

From the article: "As he illustrated with Russell Westbrook, Harden is clearly comfortable playing alongside a score-first point guard, and is used to playing between two monster scorers."

IIRC, OKC's problem was that Westbrook and Harden were NOT effective enough when playing alongside each other. At the end of playoff games, it was often a choice between having one or the other on the court. And when Scottie Brooks did go with the Big Three on the court at the same time, something was always off.

Besides, I don't think it's a comparable situation with Lin and Harden. For one, Lin is neither the scorer that Westbrook is, nor does he need the ball in his hand as much IMO.

 

True, Lin will be looking for others more than keeping the ball in his hands

 

what's the word on the contract extension?

 

When all three were on the court together they were crazy good offensively; maybe defensively it wasn't that great without Durant. But anyway here's their unit efficiencies per NBA.com.

 

Harden says OKC offered him $52 million

 

Very honest answers from Harden. I'm glad he's looking at the glass half full instead of complaining about how things ended in OKC.

 

Yeah, I was surprised he actually dropped a number.

 

Hope they get the deal done tomorrow.

 

I keep reading that it'll be done Wednesday because deals always go down on the deadline.

 

Ah, well either way I hope they get it done before the deadline and not play around with it. Do the right thing so that he can go into the season with full confidence.

 

Earlier I was peeking through the curtians of the practice court and the first action I saw was JLin bounce pass to Harden down the sideline for a two hand jam..It was awesome.

 

What? Say what you want about westbrook and many dummies have by suggesting lowry for him early last season. They turned down cp3 for wesbrook because they know the value of the guy in terms of their team. Westbrook is the better player period and its not even close. Harden is a good player,but he's not in the same breath or league as westbrok. That's not a bad thing or a knock,its just what it is. Westbrook can get you a lot more on the market than harden because he's just better.

I like what morey and presti did to quickly resolve the situation. I've read where harden says they only offered 52m, well westbrook took less to stay with the squad. Maybe harden wants to be the man on a team and I have no problem with that.

 

This is my first post, and I don't want to be too confrontational but here's the thing, you actually couldn't be more wrong. And the numbers agree with me. If you look at the basic stat line sure, Westbrook is leading in every category. But when you look closer you can see he just he just uses way more possessions.

It's funny how an NBA player will score more points if he takes more shots, but you don't want a player that takes bad shots. Last year Westbrook scored 1.22 point per shot, slightly better than the average NBA point guard at 1.17 points. Harden scored 1.66 points per shot, an absolutely absurd number when compared to the SG average of 1.16. For comparison in Lebron's best ever season he scored 1.48 points per shot, which is absolutely outstanding. Now, I'm not saying Harden > Lebron, since as Harden's usage goes up it's expected his efficiency will fall back to earth a little, but still, he should be way better than Westbrook after he adjusts to being the man.

To address the money issue Westbrook got 80m/5years for an average of 16m a year, that's the Thunder paying Westbrook 3m more a year versus Harden. 3m more a year for a player who is simply worse at a position that is just easier to fill.

 

Westbrook is the better player right now, and may always be better. With Harden there is a question mark, we don't know how much better or how much he will struggle being the #1 option. It is possible but not likely he will be better than Westbrook.

 

I expect Harden to bring us 10 more wins this season...

to me he is already very good young talent, with lots of more potential...

 

Better yes... always is a reach

 

OMFG! I went on a vacation and came back to this! James ****ing Harden! I love this guy!
I love this guy more than any freaking fake a** wanna be superstars out there. This is gonna be a great f***ing year!!!!

 

Everybody keeps talking about how Harden will be exposed without Durant and Westbrook, but I think what will happen is the exact opposite. Russell Westbrook has always been one of the most overrated players in the history of overrated players, but people will get to see exactly how overrated he is when OKC struggles far more than expected without Harden this year.

 

AMEN buddy, Amen. You typed out my thoughts, **** Westwannabebrook.