Making Ryan Anderson disappear was what put them in this situation - If they had his contract on the books …. they'd have the financial ability to take on any player in the league making $24m or less … and still have the "assets" he sent out in dumping him / Knight / Chriss. Really I don't put that on Morey , I blame Tilman …. those weren't typical Morey trades where he nickels and dimes his way to improvement , it was all about luxury tax avoidance.
Improve shooting all around, his %'s could always be a bit better. Work on the right hand, especially across the body passes and the floater. But mostly change/shift his approach to the game. I want him to choose his spots a bit better and work with D'antoni to develop more variety in his attack. Why don't we ever see James harden in triple threat? Why don't we ever see him in the post with other guys cutting/curling? I'm not suggesting we fundamentally change the system, I think our PnR heavy offense works very well for the most part. But we need to work on ways to keep even the most elite defenses guessing in crunch time in the playoffs. Harden is without a doubt the most scouted player in the league, and the limited number of plays we run makes us easier to defend in late game playoff situations. Defenses always know where he will be in crunch time: at the top of the key outside the 3 pt line, either getting ready for an iso step back 3 or a PnR. We need to exploit the geometry of the court more and find more places from which Harden can attack. He is an all-word 1 on 1 isolation scorer while also being an extremely smart decision maker and passer, the fact that we don't get to see Harden in triple threat options ever is a bit tragic.
Post fade-away jumper like Kobe and Michael. Instead of going cold and not being able to buy a bucket for long stretches have a killer fade-away like all the top tier players have. Durant, Kobe and MJ kill you on that all day and are never shut down.
