I have it on no authority that the team got news that the playoffs were over for the Rockets before the game started; that they wouldn't advance to the conference finals. And we might understand Harden's point of view as well: where is the reward for all his work? He worked his butt off this season for the 3rd seed and for the MVP as well.. result? Lost the MVP to Westbrook with a worse team record with padded rebounding stats. What crap. That's fine, winning is more important so he put his head down and worked hard in the first 9 3/4 games of the playoffs, playing his heart out on defense as well.. result? Refs killed Rockets runs and negated all of his work. The fix was in and the series was going 7 games long for a Spurs win. Harden is not a puppet - he's not going to kill himself for a fixed series. Instead of losing the series in 7, he gave up and forced the end in Game 6. The NBA is scripted, and Harden was having none of it. Spoiler ? I can't believe that Harden is mentally weak - it takes a lot of drive to put up the regular season he just did! No way he just lost that without an external reason. This is the only way Game 6 makes sense to me. The Spurs were not that good.
Harden's reward is that big ass Adidas contract which set him up for multiple life-times. He doesn't need to do **** for this city because he's already paid. If he really wanted a ring, he would've stayed in OKC but instead he chose money over winning.
Here is the deal on Harden.. 1 of 4 things 1. He found out that he was NOT THE MVP before the game 2. Coach had a talk with him and told him not to shoot as much 3. He got pissed off at the team before the game. 4. HE JUST Quit.
Ugh. I absolutely hate your take on this, OP. Pinning this series loss on anything but the Spurs outclassing the Rockets is shameful. And if losing an MVP award had any influence over how Harden played in this series, I'm glad he lost it because that means he wasn't worthy.
Serious reply in a stupid thread. However, I totally disagree that the Spurs won the game on their merit. Harden gave up in the first quarter itself - he sent a deliberate message to somebody, or he is actually completely mentally broken. Putting up the season he did is enough evidence for me to think he's not broken.
Harden is fully capable of playing awful, awful basketball. He does it now and then, where you're just left scratching your head on what's going on. The Spurs made him work on defense and the strain of a long season finally caught up to him. He's had stretches during the season where he played tired and he looked absolutely awful. That's far more likely then he was purposely throwing the game due to some stupid gripe about the league or media.
I've never seen anyone breakdown like that and be nonchalant about it. I have however taken my ball and gone home as a silly kid. I think the second is much more common and likely
