Aspursfan
04-19-2016, 12:27 AM
The Rockettes had a chance tonight. They are on the road facing a team that has had the best won-loss record that this league has ever seen, even surpassing Jordan's bulls. The rockets lost every game they played this year to the Warriors. They are playing in Oracle and the Warriors only lost two games there all year. They have this one opportunity: Stephan Curry's injury. This is their one and only opportunity to win a game against the Warriors, especially in the Warriors own building. So, they have to make the most of it. What do they produce: as of this posting they have 16 @#$@##$ turnovers (still in the third quarter) and Harden has five himself with only 8 assists. Now, in general you are going to have a hard time winning a game on the road in the NBA with that many turnovers per quarter. Now, against the Warriors, the margin for error is less. The first thing on your mind should be to make sure you at least get a shot up. The Warriors score efficiently off of turnovers already. And since they are without the services of Curry tonight, then you need to make them work harder and be less efficient. You cannot manufacture points if you never get a shot up. They have this one opportunity to actually win a game in this series, an opportunity they may not have again.
Now, this leads me to my main point. A lot of us felt that Harden was a dangerous player for the Thunder coming off of the bench. He was going against the other team's second unit, but he himself had first unit talent. Harden demanded to become Batman, be the guy around whom the entire team would be built and operate. He demanded Batman money and Batman status; he declined to be Robin. However, as Robin, at the end of his ball at OKC, he was pretty efficient. His last year, he shot close to 49 percent. However, in Houston, he has not shot efficiently -- every season 44 percent or less, and his 3 point shooting percentage dropped from a respectable 39 percent in OKC to a current 35.9% . The reason seems obvious. Against the other team's bench players, he could lead the OKC second unit well. He could handle double teams and still be efficient. However, against the first unit of most teams, he could not shoot efficiently. I feel that if a player is going to be the guy for a team, that player must be able to be efficient from the field consistently. If you can't do that, you should not demand Batman money and Batman status. Accept Robin money and Robin status. He simply cannot against the first unit of most teams, get points efficiently shooting from the field. His primary way of scoring is to get to the free throw lane by being awkward and throwing himself into the opposition and tricking the refs. He was 5 for 15 from the field when I wrote this post. He cannot score efficiently from the field. He has to get from the free throw line to score. That is fairly pathetic. And OKC has this same problem from Westbrook at times because Westbrook takes shots that for him are not high percentage. I think the honest thing for him to do would be to acknowledge reality accept a pay cut in order to get enough help so that he could get enough help to become efficient and help the team become more successful .
I have a very poor opinion of players who cannot shoot efficiently from the floor very often and rely so heavily on getting to the free throw line in order to get points. I think that if Harden could not get to the free throw line by throwing himself around, flailing awkwardly and being bailed out by the refs, he would not be able to score. And this current result against the Warriors this one time where they actually were gifted with an opportunity to take a game puts this truth about Harden in stark relief.
/ Vent. :ihit:hat:bang
Now, this leads me to my main point. A lot of us felt that Harden was a dangerous player for the Thunder coming off of the bench. He was going against the other team's second unit, but he himself had first unit talent. Harden demanded to become Batman, be the guy around whom the entire team would be built and operate. He demanded Batman money and Batman status; he declined to be Robin. However, as Robin, at the end of his ball at OKC, he was pretty efficient. His last year, he shot close to 49 percent. However, in Houston, he has not shot efficiently -- every season 44 percent or less, and his 3 point shooting percentage dropped from a respectable 39 percent in OKC to a current 35.9% . The reason seems obvious. Against the other team's bench players, he could lead the OKC second unit well. He could handle double teams and still be efficient. However, against the first unit of most teams, he could not shoot efficiently. I feel that if a player is going to be the guy for a team, that player must be able to be efficient from the field consistently. If you can't do that, you should not demand Batman money and Batman status. Accept Robin money and Robin status. He simply cannot against the first unit of most teams, get points efficiently shooting from the field. His primary way of scoring is to get to the free throw lane by being awkward and throwing himself into the opposition and tricking the refs. He was 5 for 15 from the field when I wrote this post. He cannot score efficiently from the field. He has to get from the free throw line to score. That is fairly pathetic. And OKC has this same problem from Westbrook at times because Westbrook takes shots that for him are not high percentage. I think the honest thing for him to do would be to acknowledge reality accept a pay cut in order to get enough help so that he could get enough help to become efficient and help the team become more successful .
I have a very poor opinion of players who cannot shoot efficiently from the floor very often and rely so heavily on getting to the free throw line in order to get points. I think that if Harden could not get to the free throw line by throwing himself around, flailing awkwardly and being bailed out by the refs, he would not be able to score. And this current result against the Warriors this one time where they actually were gifted with an opportunity to take a game puts this truth about Harden in stark relief.
/ Vent. :ihit:hat:bang