Lies lies lies. How can you say James Harden is solely responsible for Capela scoring “all-star points” whatever that means btw. You say it with such confidence and as if it were fact like Capela would be a scrub without Harden. Is James the only guy in the league that can penetrate and drop it off to Clint or throw lobs to him? You do realize CP3 averaged 8.2 assists per game and a Harden was at 7.5. But CP3 must’ve assisted to everyone other than CC. Have you ever considered the thought that Capela is a young player that was maybe going to improve regardless of the backcourt personnel? Have Steven Adams and Capela trade places and they’d probably put up similar numbers to what they did this past year. Everyone thought DJ would drop off completely on offense without CP3. I can admit I was part of that camp. I don’t even know who DJ’s point guards the last coupe years have been but he’s put up pretty much the same offensive numbers even without the Point God throwing him the perfect lobs. “James Harden is second only to Lebron setting up his teammates. Tucker, Gordon and Clint have career year after career year.” That’s not even remotely close to being true. How do you even make a statement like that and pass it off as if it were fact? Blind love for James Harden? Like I mentioned James averaged 7.5 APG a real factual number not some made up false narrative. It doesn’t take a math wizard to figure out 7.5 assists can only be spread and stretched out so far especially not to the point where 3 different guys have career years, year after year. I went back to look at Tucker and Gordon’s stats as Rockets and their career numbers just to double check even though I didn’t really need to. They’ve basically performed either right on cue with their career numbers or slightly worse compared to other years. I get that this is a Rockets forum and James Harden is a lot of posters idol that can do no wrong but lets try to keep it real around here at least just a little bit. Also, smaller sample size but maybe you can explain to me how Lou Williams never looked right or could fit into James Hardens ISO offense where he averaged less then 15 per game but had 2 years averaging 20+. This year he played the about the same minutes and had the same role off the bench. Now that’s a guy they had a career year after year and he did it without Harden’s ‘help’. Fact of the matter is it’s very difficult to pair another star/superstar alongside Harden because he’s a very ball dominant player that doesn’t move without the ball or play off the ball. It shouldn’t be this difficult to find “the perfect” match and it wouldn’t be if we played a team oriented style. With all that said one guy I hate to admit but would be the perfect 3rd guy is Draymond Green.
I think someone that has the following characteristics: 1. A long, atheletic wing that plays great d that can guard the top wing (sg/sf) of opposing team 2. Someone who is great at creating own shot and can initiate an offense especially when James has a cold streak 3. A wing w a bit of a post game since James doesn’t really post up. This is good for spacing 4. A strong leader. Can get the rest of guys to rally around including encouraging James to play hard nose defense 5. Someone who is clutch that can take the shot when game is on the line QUOTE="tonyt8605, post: 12467634, member: 45106"]What is the player type needed to best suit a co-role with Harden? Is it a PG? SF? PF? C? And from there, whats the play style of that position? Do we need a playmaking 4? Pure defender/rebounder big? What is it? I ask sincerely because it seems like the sentiment on Clutchfans is that it is not a playmaking PG like Paul and some people want Butler.[/QUOTE]
Throw the ****ing sink at the Wizards to get Beal. He is the only star who there is even a slight chance to land just because Washington is so ****ed up and that is even slim to none
High post passer who can hit the 3 and defend the paint. Anthony Davis, Giannis or Embiid would be ideal. Jokic and Draymond would easily work even though they have some flaws. Vucevic is interesting here as I've heard his defense has improved and his mobility looks very good. Klay Thompson is a perfect fit on the wing next to any superstar. Beal a close 2nd, McCollum 3rd. Obviously, Kawhi or Curry would fit seamlessly. Jimmy Butler would be a very good fit. As far as WHAT makes the perfect fit, it's basically an elite off ball scorer/defender and/or someone who can create shots for himself and teammates from the high low post. We're in a unique situation in that Harden is just insanely, historically, mind-blowingly good at generating points for the team with the ball in his hands on the perimeter. It can work with a player like Paul who can create from the perimeter too, but there's a little bit of redundancy there because the shots Paul can create for his teammates are mostly no different than the ones Harden can create. The defenses that can reduce Harden's impact will certainly shut down Paul's impact, and Paul can't go into deadly scorer mode anymore. A guy in the low/high post (Jokic, Gasol, Giannis, Draymond, etc) can create new types of shots, a whole other dimension. The defense that can slow down Harden will not necessarily slow down that guy, and vice versa. You can see this with the Warriors where they have the option of running an offense through Dray/Steph or going to Durant as an ISO scorer while Klay remains a deadly threat in both systems. A lot of people seem to think that our offense slows down because we don't move the ball, but we have effectively shut down the Warriors movement offense in a series many many times so much so that we forced them to rely heavily on their ISO offense. The Raptors clobbered the ball movement offense. As a similar example, when Kawhi couldn't get it going, the Raptors were able to run the offense through Gasol/Siakam/VanVleet. Only Kawhi was an elite option, but the variety of angles they could attack from generated enough offense for their defense to do the winning. Another interesting comparison is the Bucks. One of the best offenses and defenses. But when the time came, they did not have a 2nd guy who could generate different points than Giannis could. Whatever they were doing to Giannis would certainly shut down Bledsoe/Brogdon's creating ability. It's the only thing the Bucks are lacking, and it's no coincidence that Giannis ended up doing a great Harden impression when the time came. It's not a Harden problem for us. At the highest levels of basketball, the best defenses will shut down a one-dimensional offense, no matter how good it is. It's the teams that have a hybrid system, multi-faceted creators who can sustain that production. Harden actually sustains it better than anyone but a prime Lebron. It's amazing that he can do it for 3-4 entire games in a series against elite teams. It would be a great luxury to have someone like Klay who has excellent gravity in any system as a baseline, while also having a secondary creator who can both be effective in the PnR with Harden and help the 2nd unit create points. That's not to say it's the only way. Maybe multiple ISO scorers can work as long as the defense is tremendous. But at the moment, that's what's working in the NBA. I have yet to see a single player carrying a team to a title with mediocre shot creation around him since Dirk, and before that since Hakeem.
Absolutely no chance in hell Raptors replicate their playoff run with Harden instead of Kawhi. Like not even one in a million. https://www.forbes.com/sites/donyae...en-makes-history-can-houston-win-a-title/amp/ I understand Harden had to carry the load for the first part of the season and he deserves major props for that. But even after CP3 returned and started to get healthy and Rivers joining us he still dominated the ball while others stood around and watched like it was still November. I think he got so caught up in chasing stats for the MVP that his style became ‘the norm’ and nobody complained cause we were winning most nights. There was definitely games where it seemed clear he was trying to keep that 30 point game streak going when we could’ve won other ways. Kawhi always attributes Raptors success to playing as a team and making defense a priority. At the end of the year he’s a Champion. What’s Harden got to show for it? A meaningless record that only his hardcore fans care about and MVP runner up? Yay.
How can 14 NBA teams pass him up in the Draft......ridiculous. I know he was a tad raw when starting out.....smh.
kawhi also got to take 22 games off and play subpar in multiple playoffs games they still won because he had other teammates leading in scoring. i think TOR supporting cast was far superior to ours. and nick nurse coached a lot better than pringles has in the playoffs. also didn't hurt that GS was a lot more injured in their series
