Curry is not a meh defender. He is the hole through which all teams score on the Warriors. He is the central target of every offense. He is an atrocious defender by playoff standards. All of the things you mentioned impact box score stats. Harden elevates his team more than anyone in the NBA. We are competing against a team consisting of 2 MVP's, an elite second scorer, a DPOY and a Finals MVP. Again, this is it with Harden. There's no more. There's no "do everything you're doing plus run around more". That's it. It's at least top 5 production in the NBA for $40m. There is no such thing as unlimited capacity. You can ask Draymond to hit his 3's but he can't. Energy is also a limited resource. No one is able to carry this load for this long and then bring it home against the Warriors. A lesser James Harden than this can win a title on a super team. Like Curry. Like Durant. Like Lebron. They couldn't do it without those components either. Harden can't, just like they can't.
Dude you must have missed that year Steph Curry took a declining star and a 6th man of the year to the title without homecourt. Was incredible.
That's true, if it's Kerr coaching the team and better ownership...and that's the problem. It really has little to do with Harden. True, he could do a lot of things better, but you can say that of every superstar. The difference is those other superstars have someone else to mask their imperfections. Harden doesn't. Max Kellerman was blaming Harden for missing a 3 point shot in this past series...then later in the series blames Harden for not being aggressive enough. There's no winning for him. If he takes all the shots people will say he's selfish and ball hogging and if he goes into a mode where he relies on his teammates he's being too passive. I just don't think that if you just swapped out the two players, player for player, change nothing else, Curry wouldn't win it here either. We'd all love him but outside fans would say he's soft, doesn't play defense, choker, etc etc.
If Morey can pull another rabbit out of the hat...if he can get us even a fringe all-star like Butler (not saying Butler...but a player like that) then I like our chances. I feel like for Harden, just one ring would be worth all of GSWs wins on a stacked team.
What did Kerr do exactly this series? What genius coaching moves did he make? That I would like to know. Sure he went to his bench in game 6 only cause he had to but I fail to see what he did exactly.
Except he doesn't elevate his team more than anyone. By impact stats harden is way behind Curry. It's not about him doing more. It's about fixing bad habits and stopping the things that have a negative impact, like turnovers and lack of pace
Let’s see him without Thompson, you know forget that. Even Green just take Draymond away from him and see how great his impacts stats are.
Morey: only stars matter. Role players are replaceable Rockets fans: stars don't matter. Role players win chips
You need both to win. The only problem was our other star didnt perform up to snuff(as much as I hate to admit it.
The thing is you have to get to the Finals consistently and keep on winning titles to determine what works and what does not work. We can only assume what works for Harden......we have tons of pages speculating what role players fit, who might be a better coach for Harden. In truth, MDA is probably the best one because he let's Harden roam free and do his thing even if that means Harden is passive when others initiate the Offense. It really is hard to come up with what works because this Harden led team hasn't been winning on the highest of pedestals, Morey can only continue to kick the can down the road with players. One year it is really close, but the next year, the League has changed the rules, and teams like Bucks are on an upward trend........Kawhi is playing mad bball. Teams have caught up. It is really strange and tough to build a contender for years. It surely isn't as easy as to swap the best player on 2 teams.
The Warriors have 3 guys who deserve the max. A 4th in Draymond who deserves close to it if not the max. And not that we had to worry about it, a 5th who if healthy might also get somewhat close to a max salary. The Rockets have 1 player who deserves the max. 1 guy getting it who doesn’t deserve it anymore. And after that no one even remotely close to even getting in the ball park of deserving a max. If we are to expect to win with only 1 guy who deserves the max against GS then the role players have to be superb and abundant. And even in that case you’d still expect the team built like GS to be favored because they have forced max level players into more role player type positions and workloads.
What does "deserve the max" mean? I think cp3 is worth the max, remember how trash the rockets looked before he got here Neither Klay nor Draymond are #1 guys to build your team around.
They make the max or damn near it and no one would call it a negative value contract for the team. Last year CP3 deserved every bit of it in the games he did play. Kinda missed too many games to say he deserved every bit of a max deal. This year maybe deserved about half of it. Im hoping next year he bumps that up to the 75% range.
I think he struggles in low movement offenses and iso offenses. That's not how he has played in the past. If they incorporate just a little more pace, movement and balance he'll show his value better. It's probably why he's complaining It's sort of how Curry looks bad when he plays next to Durant.
Disagree. Durant is a terrible passer and also doesn't like to move off the ball. He screws up their movement sets
I do see that as a possible problem going forward. Just might not be in the cards for him physically anymore. Last year if Harden wasn’t a thing the league would have marveled at how amazing CP3s isolation game was. This year his points per isolation cratered. I’d disagree that this is like Curry with Durant. Curry was still 1st team all nba this year with Durant.
You cannnot honestly believe they are better without Durant, it is simply not true. They are not a worse team without him. Thats flat out egregious.
