1. Tremendous work ethic. He works out after games and during the off-season. He works to add something to his game every season. 2. He works hard to get teammates together and organize workouts for Rockets players during the offseason. The past few years he has contacted teammates and organized different locations and unofficial practices. He does this for the team of his own accord and it shows great motivation. 3. He has improved his defense. His low post defense is on par and even better in clutch times. He gets steals, and while he still has mistakes they aren't even close to being as consistent as they used to be. 4. He does his own recruiting and talking up the team to potential free agents in an effort to make the Rockets better. 5. He isn't the most physically gifted athlete but has worked smartly and very hard to make himself an elite player in the NBA 6. He treated us to an amazing season and did amazing things despite having his most capable teammates missing for much of the season. He's taken our team to where all but a very few times have been the past couple of seasons. It is impressive. 7. He's willing to trust his teammates which goes both as a positive and sometimes a negative. That isn't to say that there isn't more that he can do. While he played at a high level in the playoffs he didn't elevate his game far enough above his regular season brilliance to win it all. There are times when the team needs him to put them on his back and score even if teammates are open. He may need to at times not defer and to just take over the game himself. As a leader that may be required if he doesn't have teammates who are contributing at a high level. The guy works hard for the team. he does it all on his own and puts forward the effort to our team. I like that he does that even though media and fans often don't give him credit for it.
Harden has never played alongside a legit all-star teammate. Dwight post injury didn't count and CP3 is way past his prime and even last year CP3 didn't make the all-star team. All of this is Morey's fault. He's failed him again and again every off-season yet teams like the Jeanie-Buss ran Lakers can get Lebron Anthony Davis while still having 29mil in cap space for more top tier role players. Warriors are able to get Curry multiple all-stars to carry his legacy. Even OKC got Westbrook Paul George. Imagine if Morey was able to get PG instead of CP3. PG is the perfect co-star to Harden but because he made a colossal mistake of paying Ryno that absurd contract, we had no proper assets to do the deal.
CP3 last year was a legitimate star, Dwight was also a star in Houston and played better than Harden in many playoff games. Don't put others down in order to glorify Harden.
Many? Lmao please name them. Dwight has been on 4 teams since he left Houston that’s hardens fault too?
I mentioned about Howard's time in Houston not after he left. Houston vs Portland 2014 playoff series: https://www.basketball-reference.co...nce-first-round-trail-blazers-vs-rockets.html Totals Shooting Per Game Rk Player Age G GS MP FG FGA 3P 3PA FT FTA ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS FG% 3P% FT% MP PTS TRB AST STL BLK 1 James Harden 24 6 6 263 50 133 16 54 45 50 5 23 28 35 12 1 21 21 161 .376 .296 .900 43.9 26.8 4.7 5.8 2.0 0.2 2 Dwight Howard 28 6 6 231 58 106 0 0 40 64 27 55 82 11 4 17 19 25 156 .547 .625 38.6 26.0 13.7 1.8 0.7 2.8 Howard's stats are better. Harden's shooting % .376 was real bad.
He's durable as hell He has incredible work ethic despite his limited athleticism and physical atributes compared to almost every other stars who are freak athletes (Lebron, Giannis, AD, Durant, Westbrick)
-seemingly undying loyalty to the organization -the most skilled and creative player in the league -saved us from utter irrelevancy and a life of no hope for this team
Seriously, our best players were Kevin Martin and Jeremy F'ing Lin before the trade happened. Let that sink in for a second
That was the only playoff series for Rockets in 2014...one series but 6 games...Howard's first season. Here is more from next season. 2015 playoffs vs Clippers: Totals Shooting Per Game Rk Player Age G GS MP FG FGA 3P 3PA FT FTA ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS FG% 3P% FT% MP PTS TRB AST STL BLK 1 James Harden 25 7 7 257 47 118 17 48 67 73 3 36 39 57 10 3 35 21 178 .398 .354 .918 36.7 25.4 5.6 8.1 1.4 0.4 2 Dwight Howard 29 7 7 236 45 76 0 0 33 85 26 71 97 10 8 15 9 26 123 .592 .388 33.7 17.6 13.9 1.4 1.1 2.1 Harden again shot less than 40%...terrible. Again Harden choked in conference final. https://hoopshabit.com/2015/05/28/james-hardens-choke-ends-rockets-season/
