James Harden reacts to criticism of Houston’s style of play (Brace Yourselves)

[NBA4Lyfe]

Luka Doncic has the highest career usage rate in NBA history lol and he is praised haha

[advent11]

Luka Doncic has the highest career usage rate in NBA history lol and he is praised haha

Harden shouldn't have been criticized and neither should Luka. Two wrongs don't make a right.

[One_and_Done]

https://clutchpoints.com/rockets-news-james-harden-reacts-to-criticism-of-houstons-style-of-play/

So,James Harden decided to defend his team's style of play in the latest GQ interview,regarding the ISO-centric offense of the Houston Rockets.
This is what he had to say:



Now,i'm not going to focus in and point out the obvious-as in-don't compare your team,yourself or your style of play to MJ,Shaq and Timmy...
Like,don't do that.Just don't James Harden...

But,Harden,to me,really seems out of touch with that answer.As does the reporter asking the question.(Out of touch basketball wise technically and out of touch with the fanbase criticism).
People aren't just criticizing the Rockets-ball as an Isolation-centric offense regarding "team productivity and team success".
They have a problem with the no-movement,4 people standing still at the 3 point line,Harden dribbling for 20 secs on the top of the key-offense,THAT LEADS to a Harden-bait-a-ref-lock-defender's-arm-3-FREE THROWS-to-HARDEN-OFFENSE.

It's a combination of ALL those things that people are being critical of.
Not one of them,all of them.

So,maybe,just maybe,if the Rockets add more ball movement or off ball player movement,if they don't dribble for so long or IF Harden stops going for the Free throw line and just goes for the basket,maybe fans will be less bored,irritated or critical of the Rockets style of play.
And,maybe,just maybe,the team will be more productive,and/or successful...

Either way,Jordan,Shaq and Duncan NEVER led an offense like THAT!

/rant over

What Jordan led was a clogged toilet offence that was so much worse. 4 guys stood around and watched Jordan pound the ball while the shot clock slowly expired before taking a contested midrange 2.

[NZB2323]

Do people believe that if Harden isolated less his team would have won a championship?

There’s lots of things I’ll criticize Harden for but he won an MVP and took the KD Warriors to game 7 when CP3 got hurt.

Harden didn’t do isolation basketball in last year’s playoffs and his team lost in the 2nd round.

[tsherkin]

Luka Doncic has the highest career usage rate in NBA history lol and he is praised haha

Half-decade necro FTW?

[Homer38]

Luka Doncic has the highest career usage rate in NBA history lol and he is praised haha

Luka is a much much better playoffs performer that Harden and this is not close

[Homer38]

Do people believe that if Harden isolated less his team would have won a championship?

There’s lots of things I’ll criticize Harden for but he won an MVP and took the KD Warriors to game 7 when CP3 got hurt.

Harden didn’t do isolation basketball in last year’s playoffs and his team lost in the 2nd round.

The lack of championship is not the biggest problem for Harden....His problem he has been awful way too often in big moment during his career....He and Embiid are the last one among superstar player you can trust in big moment....for the series vs warriors,do you remember the rockets won the crucial game 5 even if Harden had been like 5-21 19 points and 5-6 turnovers?

[NZB2323]

Do people believe that if Harden isolated less his team would have won a championship?

There’s lots of things I’ll criticize Harden for but he won an MVP and took the KD Warriors to game 7 when CP3 got hurt.

Harden didn’t do isolation basketball in last year’s playoffs and his team lost in the 2nd round.

The lack of championship is not the biggest problem for Harden....His problem he has been awful way too often in big moment during his career....He and Embiid are the last one among superstar player you can trust in big moment....for the series vs warriors,do you remember the rockets won the crucial game 5 even if Harden had been like 5-21 19 points and 5-6 turnovers?

That’s a separate issue than isolation basketball though. He’s come up short when playing isolation and when playing team basketball. Therefore, isolation is not the cause of him coming up short.

Like I said, if they ran a different offense in Houston would the Rockets have been more successful? I don’t think so.

[Homer38]

Do people believe that if Harden isolated less his team would have won a championship?

There’s lots of things I’ll criticize Harden for but he won an MVP and took the KD Warriors to game 7 when CP3 got hurt.

Harden didn’t do isolation basketball in last year’s playoffs and his team lost in the 2nd round.

The lack of championship is not the biggest problem for Harden....His problem he has been awful way too often in big moment during his career....He and Embiid are the last one among superstar player you can trust in big moment....for the series vs warriors,do you remember the rockets won the crucial game 5 even if Harden had been like 5-21 19 points and 5-6 turnovers?

That’s a separate issue than isolation basketball though. He’s come up short when playing isolation and when playing team basketball. Therefore, isolation is not the cause of him coming up short.

Like I said, if they ran a different offense in Houston would the Rockets have been more successful? I don’t think so.

Their lack of midrange hurt the rockets very often in close game

[NBA4Lyfe]

Luka Doncic has the highest career usage rate in NBA history lol and he is praised haha

Luka is a much much better playoffs performer that Harden and this is not close

better playoff performer but lost in the first round 2x and missed the playoffs altogether last year. also ran off porzingis AND jalen brunson(the media cant fool me and say that the mavs should have paid brunson). There was a guy who used to work for the mavs and their advanced stats department that said that luka runs that organization with an ironfist. And if luka wanted brunson to stay the mavs would have paid him. Fact is luka does not like sharing the basketball with other guards.. this goes all the way back to dennis smith jr. Buts its overlooked because unlike harden, luka is fawned over ironically for being a less imitation of harden

[jkvonny]

NBA4Lyfe will be here shortly.......

[tsherkin]

The lack of championship is not the biggest problem for Harden....His problem he has been awful way too often in big moment during his career....He and Embiid are the last one among superstar player you can trust in big moment....for the series vs warriors,do you remember the rockets won the crucial game 5 even if Harden had been like 5-21 19 points and 5-6 turnovers?

So here's a counterpoint...

In Game 6 of the 1996 Finals, Jordan was 5/19 from the floor, with 5 turnovers.

If Luc Longley hadn't gone 5/6 and Steve Kerr 3/4, they'd have been in a lot of trouble. Jordan was AWFUL in that game. Passed well, got to the line exceptionally well and shot very well when he was there, for sure. But holy spit balls, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with an artillery fusillade, and that was a critical game, and a lot of turnovers.

In 97, he "closed out" the Jazz by shooting 15/35 (42.9% FG), and in both of their losses that series, he shot under 41% from the floor (9/22 and 11/27).

In 98, we remember the final jumper, but in the loss the game prior (a game where they could have closed out the Jazz), he shot 9/26 (34.6% FG). That same year, he "closed out" the Pacers with 9/25 (36.0% FG) from the field. He did a lot of other things well, but...

The point is that some players are treated a little differently. Winning bias makes a big difference. If your teammates come through and you advance, particularly if you eventually win the title, you're remembered differently. Unless you're Lebron, then everyone just complains and bitches. But for MJ, he can shoot as poorly as he wants and he is remembered as an untouchably-perfect bastion of NBA purity, canonized for all-time as the basketball saint. Which is a little annoying, to be honest.

Harden had his flaws and his issues with hitting shots in the playoffs specifically, for sure, but people often act as if no star ever had a bad game.

Dirk in 2011 is remembered as this insanely clutch dude... but few people remember how stinky he was in the first halves of a couple games against Miami. And how he thundered back in the second half after relying heavily on his teammates to pick up his brutal slack. And that's fine, they won. And it was an amazing narrative. And he juked Chris Bosh with the slowest, most hilarious spin ever. And, and, and. Overall, he played quite well. But he had some rough patches. The difference is that his teammates carried him through, you know?

When Harden took the 2018 Warriors to 7 games, all people remember is that they lost. They don't remember that he put up 41/7 while they lost the first game as he shot over 58% from the field. They don't remember 32/6/6 as they lost game 7, or that he was 5/7 from the field for 10 points in the 4th quarter of that game. Or that Trevor Ariza was 0/12, Eric Gordon was 9/22, and Gerald Green was 1/7. They just remember that they lost, and Harden didn't have a sexy FG%.

That was a 9-point game. What would it look like if Ariza was 4/12 and they won? Do you think perception of Harden would/should have been any different in that instance?

I wonder. There's this frustrating thread of thought in basketball fandom that you have to be perfect to win, and that isn't how it works, but that allowance doesn't seem to be afforded to all players. Surely, titles and so forth make a difference to final all-time ranking after some threshold, but like, Harden's style could very easily have won a title if three of his guys hadn't combined for 24.4% on 41 FGA (45.6% of Houston's total shooting volume that game)? They were 4/20 combined in the second half.

The Rockets were up 11 at the half. They got hammered 33-15 in the 3rd, and Harden happened to struggle at that time as well (2/7 FG) but he got noooo help. Ariza, Green and Gordon combined for 2/14 that quarter. In 2011 when Dirk was struggling, his guys came through when he had whole halves of poor shooting. One quarter made all the difference in that game.

In 97, Chicago beat Miami in 5. When they lost in Game 4, Jordan had shot 9/35 (25.7%) from the field. A truly terrible performance. A game later, he shot 11/31 (35.5% FG). When he was 1/8 in the 2nd quarter, the rest of the team scored 28 points. When he was 1/4 in the 3rd quarter, it was a little rough and the team only scored 14 points. When he was 3/9 in the 4th quarter, they added 12. So mind that, he shot 5/21 over the last 3 quarters of that game, but they were still able to win.

If that happened to any non-Jordan focal star today, he'd be CRUCIFIED for his performance.

The standards involved in how we evaluate players are worth review, you know what I mean?

[NBA4Lyfe]

Do people believe that if Harden isolated less his team would have won a championship?

There’s lots of things I’ll criticize Harden for but he won an MVP and took the KD Warriors to game 7 when CP3 got hurt.

Harden didn’t do isolation basketball in last year’s playoffs and his team lost in the 2nd round.

the fact that in 2018 game 6 and game 7 harden was by himself and had to play a full 48 minutes because of cp3's injury againist 4 all-stars and still should have at WORST made the nba finals without corrupt officiating told me id never have curry or durant ranked ahead of james harden all-time EVER.

Fact is Harden at his very best clears curry and durant at there very best, only the league could stop harden and even then all they really did was try and minimize his global impact, but the harden imitators are all across the league and not even adam silver changing the foul rules ( which were it seems to only target harden), could do anything to derail how influential harden had become at every level in basketball in the world

[OxAndFox]

https://clutchpoints.com/rockets-news-james-harden-reacts-to-criticism-of-houstons-style-of-play/

So,James Harden decided to defend his team's style of play in the latest GQ interview,regarding the ISO-centric offense of the Houston Rockets.
This is what he had to say:



Now,i'm not going to focus in and point out the obvious-as in-don't compare your team,yourself or your style of play to MJ,Shaq and Timmy...
Like,don't do that.Just don't James Harden...

But,Harden,to me,really seems out of touch with that answer.As does the reporter asking the question.(Out of touch basketball wise technically and out of touch with the fanbase criticism).
People aren't just criticizing the Rockets-ball as an Isolation-centric offense regarding "team productivity and team success".
They have a problem with the no-movement,4 people standing still at the 3 point line,Harden dribbling for 20 secs on the top of the key-offense,THAT LEADS to a Harden-bait-a-ref-lock-defender's-arm-3-FREE THROWS-to-HARDEN-OFFENSE.

It's a combination of ALL those things that people are being critical of.
Not one of them,all of them.

So,maybe,just maybe,if the Rockets add more ball movement or off ball player movement,if they don't dribble for so long or IF Harden stops going for the Free throw line and just goes for the basket,maybe fans will be less bored,irritated or critical of the Rockets style of play.
And,maybe,just maybe,the team will be more productive,and/or successful...

Either way,Jordan,Shaq and Duncan NEVER led an offense like THAT!

/rant over

What Jordan led was a clogged toilet offence that was so much worse. 4 guys stood around and watched Jordan pound the ball while the shot clock slowly expired before taking a contested midrange 2.

It's clear you didn't watch the Bulls dude.

[OxAndFox]

NBA4Lyfe will be here shortly.......

He beat you to it.

[Homer38]

Do people believe that if Harden isolated less his team would have won a championship?

There’s lots of things I’ll criticize Harden for but he won an MVP and took the KD Warriors to game 7 when CP3 got hurt.

Harden didn’t do isolation basketball in last year’s playoffs and his team lost in the 2nd round.

the fact that in 2018 game 6 and game 7 harden was by himself and had to play a full 48 minutes because of cp3's injury againist 4 all-stars and still should have at WORST made the nba finals without corrupt officiating told me id never have curry or durant ranked ahead of james harden all-time EVER.

Fact is Harden at his very best clears curry and durant at there very best, only the league could stop harden and even then all they really did was try and minimize his global impact, but the harden imitators are all across the league and not even adam silver changing the foul rules ( which were it seems to only target harden), could do anything to derail how influential harden had become at every level in basketball in the world

The league hates Harden so much that Harden had 11-13 FTA per game at one point on so many soft call,so much that some defender against him had their hand behind their back....it was that bad

[jkvonny]

NBA4Lyfe will be here shortly.......

He beat you to it.

[Homer38]

The lack of championship is not the biggest problem for Harden....His problem he has been awful way too often in big moment during his career....He and Embiid are the last one among superstar player you can trust in big moment....for the series vs warriors,do you remember the rockets won the crucial game 5 even if Harden had been like 5-21 19 points and 5-6 turnovers?

So here's a counterpoint...

In Game 6 of the 1996 Finals, Jordan was 5/19 from the floor, with 5 turnovers.

If Luc Longley hadn't gone 5/6 and Steve Kerr 3/4, they'd have been in a lot of trouble. Jordan was AWFUL in that game. Passed well, got to the line exceptionally well and shot very well when he was there, for sure. But holy spit balls, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with an artillery fusillade, and that was a critical game, and a lot of turnovers.

In 97, he "closed out" the Jazz by shooting 15/35 (42.9% FG), and in both of their losses that series, he shot under 41% from the floor (9/22 and 11/27).

In 98, we remember the final jumper, but in the loss the game prior (a game where they could have closed out the Jazz), he shot 9/26 (34.6% FG). That same year, he "closed out" the Pacers with 9/25 (36.0% FG) from the field. He did a lot of other things well, but...

The point is that some players are treated a little differently. Winning bias makes a big difference. If your teammates come through and you advance, particularly if you eventually win the title, you're remembered differently. Unless you're Lebron, then everyone just complains and bitches. But for MJ, he can shoot as poorly as he wants and he is remembered as an untouchably-perfect bastion of NBA purity, canonized for all-time as the basketball saint. Which is a little annoying, to be honest.

Harden had his flaws and his issues with hitting shots in the playoffs specifically, for sure, but people often act as if no star ever had a bad game.

Dirk in 2011 is remembered as this insanely clutch dude... but few people remember how stinky he was in the first halves of a couple games against Miami. And how he thundered back in the second half after relying heavily on his teammates to pick up his brutal slack. And that's fine, they won. And it was an amazing narrative. And he juked Chris Bosh with the slowest, most hilarious spin ever. And, and, and. Overall, he played quite well. But he had some rough patches. The difference is that his teammates carried him through, you know?

When Harden took the 2018 Warriors to 7 games, all people remember is that they lost. They don't remember that he put up 41/7 while they lost the first game as he shot over 58% from the field. They don't remember 32/6/6 as they lost game 7, or that he was 5/7 from the field for 10 points in the 4th quarter of that game. Or that Trevor Ariza was 0/12, Eric Gordon was 9/22, and Gerald Green was 1/7. They just remember that they lost, and Harden didn't have a sexy FG%.

That was a 9-point game. What would it look like if Ariza was 4/12 and they won? Do you think perception of Harden would/should have been any different in that instance?

I wonder. There's this frustrating thread of thought in basketball fandom that you have to be perfect to win, and that isn't how it works, but that allowance doesn't seem to be afforded to all players. Surely, titles and so forth make a difference to final all-time ranking after some threshold, but like, Harden's style could very easily have won a title if three of his guys hadn't combined for 24.4% on 41 FGA (45.6% of Houston's total shooting volume that game)? They were 4/20 combined in the second half.

The Rockets were up 11 at the half. They got hammered 33-15 in the 3rd, and Harden happened to struggle at that time as well (2/7 FG) but he got noooo help. Ariza, Green and Gordon combined for 2/14 that quarter. In 2011 when Dirk was struggling, his guys came through when he had whole halves of poor shooting. One quarter made all the difference in that game.

In 97, Chicago beat Miami in 5. When they lost in Game 4, Jordan had shot 9/35 (25.7%) from the field. A truly terrible performance. A game later, he shot 11/31 (35.5% FG). When he was 1/8 in the 2nd quarter, the rest of the team scored 28 points. When he was 1/4 in the 3rd quarter, it was a little rough and the team only scored 14 points. When he was 3/9 in the 4th quarter, they added 12. So mind that, he shot 5/21 over the last 3 quarters of that game, but they were still able to win.

If that happened to any non-Jordan focal star today, he'd be CRUCIFIED for his performance.

The standards involved in how we evaluate players are worth review, you know what I mean?

everyone can have bad games at the worst possible time....it happens to the best like LBJ, Jordan, Magic, etc....Problem for Harden, he has never had a major playoff moment in his career.Remember he was compared to Jordan as scorer back in 2019 when he was on a crazy streak but he never had a big moment in the playoffs.This is the problem

[alebaba]

https://clutchpoints.com/rockets-news-james-harden-reacts-to-criticism-of-houstons-style-of-play/

So,James Harden decided to defend his team's style of play in the latest GQ interview,regarding the ISO-centric offense of the Houston Rockets.
This is what he had to say:



Now,i'm not going to focus in and point out the obvious-as in-don't compare your team,yourself or your style of play to MJ,Shaq and Timmy...
Like,don't do that.Just don't James Harden...

But,Harden,to me,really seems out of touch with that answer.As does the reporter asking the question.(Out of touch basketball wise technically and out of touch with the fanbase criticism).
People aren't just criticizing the Rockets-ball as an Isolation-centric offense regarding "team productivity and team success".
They have a problem with the no-movement,4 people standing still at the 3 point line,Harden dribbling for 20 secs on the top of the key-offense,THAT LEADS to a Harden-bait-a-ref-lock-defender's-arm-3-FREE THROWS-to-HARDEN-OFFENSE.

It's a combination of ALL those things that people are being critical of.
Not one of them,all of them.

So,maybe,just maybe,if the Rockets add more ball movement or off ball player movement,if they don't dribble for so long or IF Harden stops going for the Free throw line and just goes for the basket,maybe fans will be less bored,irritated or critical of the Rockets style of play.
And,maybe,just maybe,the team will be more productive,and/or successful...

Either way,Jordan,Shaq and Duncan NEVER led an offense like THAT!

/rant over

What Jordan led was a clogged toilet offence that was so much worse. 4 guys stood around and watched Jordan pound the ball while the shot clock slowly expired before taking a contested midrange 2.

Have you ever taken the time to watch a Bulls game, or are you simply speaking without any basis? Jordan's style of play doesn't involve hogging the ball; he rarely dribbles excessively, instead score in the flow of the offense. Jordan off ball was one of the best in the game. It's evident that Kerr recognized this, as he had Curry study footage of Jordan's off-ball movements.

[Homer38]

Luka Doncic has the highest career usage rate in NBA history lol and he is praised haha

Luka is a much much better playoffs performer that Harden and this is not close

better playoff performer but lost in the first round 2x and missed the playoffs altogether last year. also ran off porzingis AND jalen brunson(the media cant fool me and say that the mavs should have paid brunson). There was a guy who used to work for the mavs and their advanced stats department that said that luka runs that organization with an ironfist. And if luka wanted brunson to stay the mavs would have paid him. Fact is luka does not like sharing the basketball with other guards.. this goes all the way back to dennis smith jr. Buts its overlooked because unlike harden, luka is fawned over ironically for being a less imitation of harden

Who cares about what you think...Win or lose, Luka is a much better playoff performer than Harden...In a big game, I take Luka before Harden everytime