Against one of the best teams of all time, we were literally a half away from going to the Finals and almost certainly winning a championship. What makes you think that Giannis or AD or Westbrook or Wall or George or Butler or Lillard or anyone else would have been able to do better? Is it all of the amazing team success that those guys have had? Nope. I'm down with Harden. He has come back almost every year better than the year before. I'm excited to see what he and the 2018-2019 version of the Rockets will do next year
Simple Question: who could have taken the Rockets further in these playoffs with the Same circumstances...... that is not name LeBron? Rocket River
This wasn’t for me but I’ll give my answer based on what I saw this year and have seen in past years. I think.. I think Harden is definitely the better all around player but CP3 is the more complete player and was better in his prime. On great teams I’d rather have CP3 than Harden. On worse teams I’d rather have Harden than CP3. For all the talk about playoff failures and needing talent around you, CP3s best teammates before this year were David West, Blake griffin and DeAndre jordan. Not exactly amazing. More than anything though at this point his problem is health. I’m honestly not sure he went 100% full bore at any point in the season because of injury risk concern.
If I’m being honest I have two problems with this approach. 1. My goal is to win championships not to get close. I understand from past discussions on this that others value the ride. And I don’t discount the ride. I enjoy it. There’s no doubt you’d take Rockets over Kings for the last 20 years. I just don’t loke the fallback of well we went as far as we could. 2. This whole way of thinking about it troubles me. He’s the MVP. He’s the best offensive player ever. Amazing vision. Yada yada. It’s just a thought process that ignores flaws. Still... he needs to get way better defensively. Still he can’t go 2-13, 1-10, 2-11, 1-7, 0-10 etc on threes game after game. Still... lower turnovers. Still... MOVE without the ball. Just not my favorite mentality. On the whole I judge people against themselves. Harden is always way better in the regular season and that’s disappointing.
No one. Never did I once even remotely imply trading Harden. Stop jumping around totally irellevent topics. People irrationally blame Lin for an entire series. That's my premise.
Barely. And only then because of the change in style of the nba and Dwight’s personality issues. But the Rockets (despite Hardens best efforts) did win that series and CP3 didn’t stem that 4th quarter avalanche. Currently Griffin is an albatross around the Pistons organization that led to their coach / GM getting canned.
I never said Paul was better. I was just saying that it would be foolish to have hope in Harden but not Paul. They both need and compliment each other.
The Problem I have with you approach is that ignores the competitive realities of the playoffs To put most or all the blame for the Rockets failing to make the championships on Harden's deficiencies is disingenuous This is like saying . . . . Someone could not climb the impossible mountain that no man could climb that is was all his deficiencies. . . . .the reality is if he had what every mentalities you wanted him to have He would have to play FLAWLESS INHUMAN basketball to Overcome the 4 All Stars and 3 Refs Even then I would be unsure if they would not have found another way Can HArden improve? Yes Was he going against Incredible near impossible odds? Yes EVERY PLAYER HAS FLAWS Put KD on this team and we would be b****ing about is 1-9 4th quarters Curry and we'd be talking about his shitty defense Klay . . .his inability to catch fire without catch and shoots off illegal picks The mercilessly hammer Harden for no other reason than he is NOT LEBRON or MJ is ridiculous . . . .. . Rocket River
Reality is . .. If Harden goes down in Game 5 instead of Paul Do we win the last two games? Do we even come close? Rocket River
Last year= Harden needed help This year= the help got injured What we learned- Harden can’t do it alone but we already knew that. Next season= the ceiling is the roof!
harden is a much better player then Chris and i don’t see how that is arguable but what Chris brings is the vocal leadership and grunt that players feed off. That is why they complement each other so well
It goes beyond the vocal leadership and grunt. It’s called ball security. Something Harden struggles mightily with. Harden is NOT a pg and we need to limit his ball handling responsibility hence why it’s vital to keep CP3.
Jesus, you're still hung up on 2014. Are you remotely saying that harden is the same or regressed player now as he was then? I know this is clutchfans where we don't let things go...like keeping a Lin thread for every new team he goes to, but the man has improved almost every year since then, even changed position. Lillard for Harden would be one of those dumb trades people like you would beg and plead Murry to fix...right after another first round exit, the third since 2014.
????? I'm in the camp that thinks if the Harden/CP3 combo got a shot at 6 & 7 that We're still playing. But some just want to blame Harden.
Prime for prime yes I could agree. But right now that's def not true at all. We've already seen this season what it's like with just Cp, make no mistake he came here for Harden and as much as I love cp(even more than Harden) there's no way we win game 6 and 7 if the situation is reversed
