That's "Player empowerment." The LeBron Era that Draymond says is the greatest face of the NBA in NBA history. What a joke. Remember when LeBron tried to paint Phil as a racist for saying the word posse to describe James and his Klutch Sports crew? "Shows how far we still have to go as African Americans." ****ing moron. All he did was create division, drama of politics invited into the game, team jumped and showed kids its alright to take the easy road and he showed players it's okay to demand African American former players for coaches only, but it would be racist for someone like Luka or Joker to demand a white player head coach, of course. Player empowerment. Flopping and whining and crying like a child throwing a tantrum when it doesn't go his way. Traveling. Carrying. A massive shift to offensively oriented league so LeBron could rest on defense for the past decade. A play-in tournament created to help Lebron get into the West playoffs. Curry has been as big a face as LeBron during his own time and Kobe during the 1st part of Brosn career. How is that the greatest face of the NBA? He's not even close to Jordan or Magic and Bird in what they meant for the NBA. All that said. Doc is trash. C's won because of Thibs defense led by KG with (more than)enough 2 way support for the first time in his career.
May I submit that it's perfectly possible for three things to all be true at the same time? James Harden sucks in the playoffs James Harden is very good at basketball Doc Rivers is a terrible head coach
Man you're dumb. Our win total dropped because Tilman immediately started our rebuild after Harden quit. We PURPOSELY lost games to get better draft position and it worked dumb azz. The fact you brought this up without context shows most player only fans love their players so much, they lack any basketball knowledge. The reason Harden’s quitter azz wants back is because we've successfully lost games while developing players.
CP3 also had issues playing for Doc. (It figures PeterKingX gave this a "like". That dude defines Harden hatred. Going way back. Although you have to admit Harden did stink it up in Game 7.)
Add on to #2 "when he feels like it and there is no pressure" and add a #4 "James Harden is a coach killer and a franchise killer"
LeBron gets tons of praise for leading "nobodies-ie 2 all star teammates" past the Pistons at 22. Those Pistons had broken down CWebb in place of 2x DPOTY Ben Wallace and choker Flip Saunders in place of Larry Brown. Mike Brown was the Cavs coach and they had a top D. Brown proved his worth helping the Warriors get an impressive title no one thought would happen again and then completely turned around a dead franchise in Sac town. 23 year old T-Mac had the 1 year pre Sheed and Larry Brown championship Pistons(but still had Ben/Billups/Rip/Carlise) down 1-3 with Drew Gooden as T-Mac's 2nd best player and Doc Rivers as his coach. Which is more impressive? If T-Mac had Mike Brown, he would have gentleman swept the Pistons en route to prime A.I. and prime Kidd while Bron got had to play Arenas and the 41 wizards and past prime Kidd and VC 41 win nets. T-Mac was legit. Haters. Doc Rivers is the loser that's held tons of legends back. No excuse for Harden, he played awful, but he was not the MVP who shat the bed too, but both get a mini pass for having Doc as their coach.
Harden is pretty good in the playoffs. Yes, he's had some stinkers and some bad elimination games (like every player), but he's been good in the playoffs. He averaged 29 points, over 7 assists, 6 rebounds for us in the playoffs. He was pretty good against the Celtics for the Nets in the playoffs.... he then got injured against the Bucks and played with a grade 2 hamstring injury. He had solid numbers last year for the 76ers. I think his numbers were 19/9/7 with efficient shooting. Even in the playoffs this year, his numbers were pretty solid. I get he's had a few tough games this season, but I think most of the 76ers players haven't played well this playoffs. Oh, Harden has a higher TS% than Lebron in the playoffs. Harden also has 47 games of 30-plus points or more and 11-plus points of 40 more or more. He's been to 4 conference finals and 1 finals. The whole narrative that he hasn't performed in the playoffs is stupid and false. He's performed better than most superstars.... he's just run into very good teams along the way. He honestly does just lose to the eventual winners pretty much every time.
Two epic 40+ GW shot making performances in a series in must-win games is about all you're going to get from Harden at this stage of his career and I think people should learn to be ok with that?
For his whole career, his counting stats and efficiency drop across the board during the playoffs. Yes he's had his shining moments in the playoffs, including two 40+ point games against Boston, but over all his playoff performance has been inconsistent and especially poor in key games, this year and all the years before.
Morey did the best he could with the hands he was dealt. Including the Yao/Tracy injuries and the infamous CP3 hamstring. Stupid to throw all 3 in the same light.
Harden has a 42.4 FG%, 50.2 EFG%, and a 58.5 TS% in the playoffs. In the regular season, he has 44.2 FG%, 52.6 EFG%, and 60.9 TS%. Only about a 2% drop, which isn't that much of a drop. The whole notion that he totally underperforms in the playoffs from the regular season is a lie. Even Lebron's numbers drop a little bit from the regular to the playoffs... besides his TS% (they stay around the same).
Nah, but he is overrated. I think he connects with certain types of players/personalities and rubs others the wrong way. I don’t know what his “system” is though.
His averages are fine in the playoffs, but he's been highly volatile. He often swings between great performances and total stinkers. For comparison, here are the numbers of games below 10 game score for Harden versus some of his long-time contemporaries: Harden: 117 starts, 38 games below 10 Game Score Curry: 141 starts, 15 games below 10 Game Score CP3: 149 starts, 30 games below 10 Game Score LeBron: 278 starts, 14 games below 10 Game Score (holy crap, didn't realize this) KD: 166 starts, 10 games below 10 Game Score Russ: 116 starts, 22 games below 10 Game Score I would argue when you want to build around a guy to be your primary option, especially if he's not a great defensive player who plays off the ball a lot, you want to see some consistency. You want to know when the series is on the line, you can probably count on him to keep your offense going. Harden is just a lot more likely than some of these other players to completely go silent, and since he's going to have the ball in his hands all game and take up a ton of possessions, when that happens, you're pretty much f***ed. That's why there is real, data-based evidence to support the narrative that he's "bad in the playoffs". I don't want to jump to say he's a choker or bad under pressure or whatever. I don't think the data necessarily supports that thesis. I just think that the way he plays lends itself to streaky, hot-or-cold play that is not good when trying to make a deep playoff run against great teams.
I mean, I don't disagree with you. But look at the rosters Harden has to play with during his time at the Rockets. All those other players you have named have played with pretty good teams for the most part. Harden pretty much only had a good team for maybe 2 seasons out of 8 (only including for the Rockets for now). Also, Curry, Lebron and KD were not running the point like Westbrook, Harden and CP3 typically do or have.... meaning, they're less likely to get double-teamed and more likely to score more points. Yet again, I know Harden has some bad games.... most superstars do. But I'm just saying he has had a very good playoff career. Definitely not as good as Lebron's, KD's or Curry's.... but people are wrong when they call him a choker or that he hasn't stepped up in the playoffs.
I think Doc Rivers record for losing is on Doc Rivers. Blaming Harden is silly. They were gonna fire Doc anyway.
Funny Sixers beat writer and insider Kyle Nuebeck said on the clap your hands podcast it will be Dantoni and Embiid wanted Dantoni over Doc in the first place. Dantoni was the offensive coach in Philadelphia under Brett brown and Embiid loved him.
Hold on.... where did you get the 38 games of below 10 points in the playoffs? He only has 16 games of them.... and most of them were when he was with the OKC as a 6th man. For instance, since he joined the Rockets till now, he's only had 3 games of below 10 points.
Harden can teach our players how to be play correctly and not be so selfish. His pass vision alone is why you should want him on this team. Jalen took a leap just hanging around Dennis Schroder what would happen with Harden?
