Lol people will never understand this crap wasn’t going to work. They not feeling each other. NBA is full of Diva’s.
If you want what's best for the team, then look at the bigger picture. If you truly believe Russ sucks, then yeah we disagree. But what I see is that everyone is quick to jump on Russ for his poor percentages and high turnovers, and not give a second to state how he's being used and how he could be used better. The reason he is still elite is because his game is summarized by: good, bad, good, bad, bad, bad, good, good, bad, bad. His inconsistency is just as much his own fault given his tendencies but also the fault of the coaches and how he's not being used in our system. He gives us something that not one other player can - and that's his athleticism. Even if that's waning due to injuries and age eventually, he's still going to be the most athletic guard out there for the next 2-3 years. What we're seeing is madness, and we need a method to the madness. Claiming Russ sucks is lazy. Telling Russ to just be "Russ" is also just as lazy, but way worse for the team.
Also, I truly think this is literally the only thing MDA is telling Russ to do in practices and timeouts. Russ looks like the kind of guy that, in 4on3 situations, if told to go yam it on them, he'd do it. He looks like a player that's not being coached.
There is no statistical evidence that Russ is anywhere close to “elite”. “Elite” is a Top 10-15 player in the NBA. Is Russ even Top 75 right now? I am hopeful that he can’t really be worse, and will naturally round out to more of a high end player, but his days being elite are done. He cannot score the ball at an even moderately efficient rate. I keep seeing “He gives us athleticism”. What does that mean? What is that helping us with? Rebounding? The occasional transition bucket? That’s great, but does it offset his 40% shooting? His 22% from 3? The spacing he kills for Harden? The decision making late game? I don’t see how it does. Dude isn’t even making layups efficiently. It would maybe be something if we had a coach who could scheme up sets that help make things easier for him, but we don’t.
I think Kawhi's whole "load management" trend is finally making its way to other teams, including ours. It honestly surprised me that we're resting Russ because he's one of the most durable players that doesn't seem to even want it, just like Harden. But yeah, CP3 of all players should have been load managed given his history last year, but maybe teams weren't quite ready for regularly implementing it the way they are this year. And definitely agree on the inability of the coaching staff to realize CP3 was no longer elite in iso's like he was in 2017-2018. Though, I think it probably even took cp3 time to realize this as well. But in hindsight, the real problem and disaster of last year was the lack of overall depth around our core. Losing Ariza, the whole house contract thing, having to play hartenstein/clark/ennis for big minutes, experimenting with all these low budget players that we were expecting to contribute to the caliber of a starting NBA small forward ... It plunged our record to have bad seeding from the get go, and despite Harden's heroics, we still ended up as a 4th seed, having to face the warriors prematurely. I really think that all of this goes back to the overall lack of depth in the roster for the first half of last season. Because Harden's usage rate was sky high (and needed to be when cp3 was down), it was hard to adjust and know what to expect when cp3 was back. And not having good enough depth only limits cp3's strengths and forced us to expect him to be the same player as 2017-2018.
Neither is good enough to make Houston a legitimate threat in the west imo, harden needs a legit superstar which he hasn’t had throughout his time in Houston. Russ seems to be a shell of himself compared to when he was mvp and CP had his chance with us and it didn’t workout. Sure it’s easy to point at Russ right now bc he’s flat out been trash and Cp is doing his thing in okc. Yea I wish that trade didn’t go through but it is what it is we can only hope Russ turns the corner or it’ll be a waste of another great Houston athlete (ala Andre Johnson)
Well, like it or not we were regressing with CP3. Won fewer games last year. Didn’t make the WCF against a weaker GS team. There’s no evidence to show that we should just run it back. A change had to be made. No stars wanted to come here. The organization saw a chance to unload a solid role player on a bloated contract and they rolled the dice. I don’t blame them at all. The season isn’t over and the story is still being written. I still support the trade. I feel like we have a better shot of taming Westbrook than we did with just running it back.
the point is that this trade made us worse in the short term and long term. Handicaps us in the future and CP3 could shoot better than brick. This entire ****ing offense rests on the ability to hit 3pt shots so its funny to see WB biggest fan boys also completely forget how they're for an extreme version of the 3pt centered offense that morey has implemented. The goal is to win games
We are winning games though...Our offensive rating as a team is 3rd in the NBA, we are one game out of 2nd place...
Yup. We went from trying to make things easier for harden and lessen his burden to him having to work as hard as ever. Dude needs to avg 40 a game now, all while seeing more constant doubles and defensive schemes forcing him to work. 20 something games in and this is what we’re seeing already. 60 more games....bless you harden when the playoffs come around
Harden is so godlike he seem to have create a weird situation. Every role players plays better with him but the supposedly "robin" or sidekick somehow looks like sht. His presence is so overwhelming.
There is a lot of truth to this. Basically, how the rating stats work, Harden makes it easier for role players (Literally, all they do is have to hit open shots, that's it.) and so it puts the teams rating through the roof when he's in the game. When he comes out, it's going to be harder then for another superstar player to match that, this will be reflected in rating stats, but not necessarily +/- stats. There is a reason that you come to the Rockets you're going to get paid when you leave. Harden truly makes the game around him that much easier for everyone, he makes most guys look better than they are. Look at Ben McLemore right now...life is easy for him, run up and down the court, hit open shots, that's it.
The more I read this thread, the more I just wish WB and CP3 combined to form the ultimate pg . They thrive at what the other lacks.
By looking at the stats, you can assess his performance, but not what you see. I see a guy who's struggling with his shot - and I'll give him that his fingers are jacked up - but still has something that he can bring to the game that we as a fanbase have been lacking for 5+ years: athleticism and "never give up" mentality. We've been so used to Harden who's methodical and exploitative and smart and talented and finessed, but we're spoiled and we lose sight of what winning requires and that's both what he brings and what Russ brings. If we're picking Russ vs. MDA, I'm 100% Russ. We know first hand how hard it is to land a star player. Lest anyone forgets, Russ carried us the first 3 games when Harden was sucking it up. He was clutch in the 4th. This slump right now to me is due to them learning what his role will be when the league decides how it'll defend Harden. All this talk about Russ being a wash appears to be in context of needing to trade him now while his stock is relatively high. I'm not down for that. This team needs to play it out and see what adjustments are made - namely getting him to play more consistently.
Yup. We disagree. And the Rockets shouldn't have to change their system to fit Westbrook. He needs to be able to change to fit the system. If he can't he needs to go.
