yep, I would say i was a huge tmac fan, and yao fan as well. But to me harden gave me the most joy watching the rockets. I dont know if it was because i was so used to our best players always getting season-ending injuries during the mid 2000's or what. But I never understood the people who say they hated watching harden play( and this is not me being a houston homer). Like i watch harden and i see einstein on the basketball court, always making the right read, controlling the tempo and pace of a game. Like if we had 2 hardens we would never ever lose. Because the pace of the game would always be in our favor. The closest we had to having 2 hardens was when we had cp3.. and i started blaming harden for cp3 being traded, but if you listen to @Nook he will tell you harden bit the bullet for tilman on that trade. But the fact of the matter is cp3 and harden should have both retired rockets. And i hate watching games when they have to play each other and having to choose who i want to win, a lot of the time i dont even watch suns/ vs. the team harden is on. Because i get sad, then angry But yea i also agree with you that harden and embiid dont really seem to be connected, Harden has sacrificed his game for both maxey and embiid. But it seems like whenever embiid doesnt have the ball in his hands he pouts a lot. Like if tobias harris and maxey dont give the ball when he is calling for it on the block he will throw his hands up in the air and roll to the other side and repeat it. The only players who seem to be able to consistently hit embiid in the post with passes are melton and harden. Also i dont know if doc rivers is saving the harden/embiid pickn roll for the playoffs, but the fact that embiid would rather take an ineffienent turn around middy instead of running the pick and roll when he and harden are on the floor together ticks me off. That pick and roll is the play that will get them to the finals not embiids post ups going againist double and triple teams
Well do you have a franchise player among your young players? Bolded - What does this have to do with signing him now? Again, this is not an argument against Harden. If you are against signing Harden, who specifically are you signing this summer, and too what contract?
The only valid argument IMHO against signing Harden is that he's likely going to tie us up for 4-5 years, he's going to want a longer deal from a non-competing team, at least we can assume he's not doing us any favors. Maybe the best we can do is a PO after year 3 So the only argument against Harden is that there is some player in the 2026 offseason or something that Harden's contract might prevent us from signing. This is so far off in the future though. first we have to assume that we'd be a good team to attract such a superstar, which is a complete unknown right now and then we have to assume that the following FA markets will be any better. We know for sure the 2023 FA market and 2024 FA market is pretty damn dry. Jalen Brown would headline the 2024 FA market but it's pretty safe to assume the Celtics will resign him for the max OR trade him any ways... Speaking of trades, the Rockets have collected a lot of young players that might be attractive to a disgruntled star so it's not Harden or bust. Right now, Harden is the best chance for this team to be competitive. If he's cool with ending his career in Houston and helping these guys develop you jump at it. By the time his contract ends (lets say it's a 5 year deal, worst case scenario) ALL of these guys will be at the most 26 years old and still very much in their prime. This is not that risky a move as people are making it out to be, even if it is a 5 year deal. I'm not getting my hopes up too high but I do hope it happens. I guess this means I'm rooting for Philly to flame out of the playoffs then. Only other option thats attractive to me is Vanvleet whose a nice player, will make us better, but we will probably have to overpay for him too so eh. With Vanvleet MAYBE we contend for play-in spot but with Harden we are definitely contending for a 6-10 seed spot and no doubt he'll help the young guys develop.
I don’t even view that argument against Harden as valid because it’s so far down the list of potential concerns these young guys are in such desperate need of a floor general and high level playmaker right now in the present, and I fear for their development if they don’t get one this offseason none of these people against signing Harden are even bringing up any alternatives…I agree that Van Vleet is the other player that’s worth a look, but he is significantly worse than Harden and we would have to overpay him for sure…it was reported that he plans to sign with Klutch heading into free agency, so u already know Rich Paul is squeezing every last dime out of the Rockets overpaying some mediocre role player like D-Lo, rolling the cap space over or trading for some bum on a bad contract with attached assets are all trash options…we can not have this young squad going into next season playing the same clueless, trash basketball for a 4th year
Im liking Jerami Grant with Harden for about 55 million. Would leave us the ability to trade Tate and KPJ and bring back almost anyone we wanted cap-space wise.
I don’t think Grant is a difference maker if the dream happened and we drafted Wemby and Harden actually came back, I’m offering BK Sengun and some of their picks back for Mikal Bridges or offering Sengun plus assets to Toronto for Siakam Harden Green Bridges Bari Wemby or Harden Green Bari Siakam Wemby
Yep, thats what people don't get. It's either Harden or overpay for a guy like Vanvleet, nice player, sure, an upgrade over KPJ at PG, sure, but it's not moving the needle much. Harden on the floor means Jalen won't have to see double teams constantly. It means a PnR game with Sengun and KJ and Bari. It means a guy that understands offense to the point where you don't need a coach. I guarantee if Harden comes here one of these guys, either Sengun or Green, maybe even Bari if he finds his shot. One of those guys will get all-star consideration next year. Harden's presence is going to have one of these guys break out and be a lot more consistently dominant. It's basketball, one player can have a huge effect on a team. If you look at what the suns were before and after CP3, it's a lot like that. Not saying getting Harden would make us contenders but I do think we get put in that 6-10 range which would be WAAAY ahead of schedule and again...even if its a 5 year contract all these guys will be 24-26 years old lol. Young enough to still build around. The sooner they can get playoff experience the better. Get them out of this mindset that games are just a 'learning experience' and so we can actually evaluate these players under pressure situations.
Harden is in decline I don't want to be facing the same damned rebuild in 4 years because we are paying an old man 60M and we can't afford to pay the guys we drafted that have finally developed. Just suck it up, Harden's best days are behind him and he is the reason that the CP3, Harden, Capela 57-3 juggernaut was broken up. let him go. DD
Jalen Green just being able to work with Harden during and after practice would be invaluable Tyrese Maxey has stated numerous times how much learning from Harden has helped his game, and I can easily see Green being a supercharged Maxey next to Harden Maxey’s numbers with and without James Harden are night and day…he’s an entirely different tier of player Embiid isn’t a 33 ppg scorer without James Harden…he’s just not…he’d be closer to 29-30 ppg on lower efficiency without James that’s Harden’s impact these young guys are able to develop better while getting a taste of winning, and then they’ll look very attractive when they’re in their mid-20’s or we can continue with the trash basketball as these guys go out there chucking and not learning how to play the game/not playing in any meaningful games
We can resign them. The nba has a soft cap... The teams that win are the ones that take advantage of it
It's been reported by insiders - to the extent that's worth anything - that he's interested in signing only 1+1 deals from here on out - it's basically negligence to not be interested in that when the alternative is the Russ-Wall FA point guard class. Harden for a 2 year bridge would be great, especially considering the alternative
How is a 20/5/10 PG washed? He still has a good 4 years left of great point play left in him.. Unless they give him max money for 5 years or more, I don’t see the problem.
A declining harden still has a gap the size of the grand canyon in terms of playmaking abilites when compared to the head honcho. U btch about folks getting but hurt about trading green for a lamelo (a playmaker) to better the team, yet here u are refusing to sign one of the greatest play maker to better the team.
He'll have 27 and 10 here but I doubt he has the same efficiency numbers here as well because let's be honest having Embiid is different than having young guys....
