Steve Nash believes James Harden is unfairly treated by the new rules

[Kobeskillz]

I've seen at least 3 times the defender jumped into his landing space on a 3-point attempt, not called. I feel like the refs have a hypersensitive radar now, and that any contact against James is now viewed flopping or baiting. Even normal contact that other players would get.

I'm confident the refs will adjust and we'll see him get back to 6-7 FTA per game, as he should.

I guess thats what happens when you cry wolf.

[Marrrcuss]

To be completely honest, out of the foul baiting guards, Trae and Curry are way more egregious than Harden in jumping into player and/or touch fouls baiting.

Harden definitely is being targeted unfairly. If you can't see that you are not an objective fan and are just a straight up hater. Curry, Morant, Trae are still living at the line this season pulling the same crap they pull every year.

And on he topic of non jump shooting fouls, Harden is literally getting hit and hacked without calls. This is the same type of fouls that FT leaders like Giannis, Davis, Butler gets.

You cannot have two sets of standards, one for Harden, another for the rest of the league.

I loved how you just threw out an untrue claim -- that Trae and Curry being more egregious in baiting fouls -- then went on a rant as if your falsehood was a fact. It's especially lovely it was in the same post where you called out other people for not being objective if they didn't agree with you.

You were too lazy to do a simple Google search. If you had, you would have found this:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26662160/the-sour-science-driving-james-harden-vexing-genius

Over the past three seasons, the Charlotte Hornets rank second in the NBA with 185 3-point shooting fouls drawn. Harden has drawn 288 by himself.

The article is from 2019 -- but, at that time, Harden was drawing fouls on 3 point attempts 350% more often than Curry. If you object to two sets of rules existing for the league -- one for Harden and one for the rest of the league -- you should be thrilled that the league has finally corrected their overly generous allocation of FTs to Harden.

Id agree with the beginning of your post. Curry was never as bad as Harden. He didnt have to be.

They still are reffing him with the old rules as his is currently like 6th in FT attempts a game

[G R E Y]

Incredible. SO glad to see the back of this:

Read on Twitter

[dautjazz]

For as good as Harden is, his efficiency has always been bs, all inflated by foul bating. I'm sure he'll still be well over 20ppg, but he got a huge bump in scoring due to bs calls.

[CptCrunch]

To be completely honest, out of the foul baiting guards, Trae and Curry are way more egregious than Harden in jumping into player and/or touch fouls baiting.

Harden definitely is being targeted unfairly. If you can't see that you are not an objective fan and are just a straight up hater. Curry, Morant, Trae are still living at the line this season pulling the same crap they pull every year.

And on he topic of non jump shooting fouls, Harden is literally getting hit and hacked without calls. This is the same type of fouls that FT leaders like Giannis, Davis, Butler gets.

You cannot have two sets of standards, one for Harden, another for the rest of the league.

I loved how you just threw out an untrue claim -- that Trae and Curry being more egregious in baiting fouls -- then went on a rant as if your falsehood was a fact. It's especially lovely it was in the same post where you called out other people for not being objective if they didn't agree with you.

You were too lazy to do a simple Google search. If you had, you would have found this:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26662160/the-sour-science-driving-james-harden-vexing-genius

Over the past three seasons, the Charlotte Hornets rank second in the NBA with 185 3-point shooting fouls drawn. Harden has drawn 288 by himself.

The article is from 2019 -- but, at that time, Harden was drawing fouls on 3 point attempts 350% more often than Curry. If you object to two sets of rules existing for the league -- one for Harden and one for the rest of the league -- you should be thrilled that the league has finally corrected their overly generous allocation of FTs to Harden.

I hope that you understand James Harden actually gets fouled. James Harden is elite at drawing fouls. He is two stages below Curry/Trae at drawing touch fouls and three stages below Durant at drawing phantom fouls. One can cry up a storm about Harden taking a billion FT's off 3 pointers if they actually watch his games instead of crap posting with misleading stats summarized by media members with a narrative, they would see that he actually gets fouled under the rules of the game.

Harden historically has based much of his game on foul drawing. The league has changed its rules for the second time to hinder his game. That is fine and dandy except when these rules are not being uniformly applied to all players. This has clearly been the case for these first 3 games.

[xdrta+]

To be completely honest, out of the foul baiting guards, Trae and Curry are way more egregious than Harden in jumping into player and/or touch fouls baiting.

Harden definitely is being targeted unfairly. If you can't see that you are not an objective fan and are just a straight up hater. Curry, Morant, Trae are still living at the line this season pulling the same crap they pull every year.

And on he topic of non jump shooting fouls, Harden is literally getting hit and hacked without calls. This is the same type of fouls that FT leaders like Giannis, Davis, Butler gets.

You cannot have two sets of standards, one for Harden, another for the rest of the league.

I loved how you just threw out an untrue claim -- that Trae and Curry being more egregious in baiting fouls -- then went on a rant as if your falsehood was a fact. It's especially lovely it was in the same post where you called out other people for not being objective if they didn't agree with you.

You were too lazy to do a simple Google search. If you had, you would have found this:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26662160/the-sour-science-driving-james-harden-vexing-genius

Over the past three seasons, the Charlotte Hornets rank second in the NBA with 185 3-point shooting fouls drawn. Harden has drawn 288 by himself.

The article is from 2019 -- but, at that time, Harden was drawing fouls on 3 point attempts 350% more often than Curry. If you object to two sets of rules existing for the league -- one for Harden and one for the rest of the league -- you should be thrilled that the league has finally corrected their overly generous allocation of FTs to Harden.

I hope that you understand James Harden actually gets fouled. James Harden is elite at drawing fouls. He is two stages below Curry/Trae at drawing touch fouls and three stages below Durant at drawing phantom fouls. One can cry up a storm about Harden taking a billion FT's off 3 pointers if they actually watch his games instead of crap posting with misleading stats summarized by media members with a narrative, they would see that he actually gets fouled under the rules of the game.

Harden historically has based much of his game on foul drawing. The league has changed its rules for the second time to hinder his game. That is fine and dandy except when these rules are not being uniformly applied to all players. This has clearly been the case for these first 3 games.

Well, this sounds objective, "Harden actually gets fouled" but Curry and the rest are just being gifted, for some unspecified reason.

[KembaWalker]

James Harden doesn't deserve any free throws right now, he's fat and slow and lost all his explosiveness so far from what I've seen
his only effective moves are pullups and stepback, not exactly gonna rack up the free throws with that. He can't drive right now

[Richard Miller]

I hope that you understand James Harden actually gets fouled.

Plenty of players get fouled

[Myth]

Watch on YouTube

[Hello Brooklyn]

Much of his scoring is predicated upon defenders being afraid to get close to him. He's a great shooter, playmaker and ballhandler but his stats have been unfairly boosted for almost a decade by ridiculous flopping and foul baiting calls.

We saw what happened to him in the postseason several times when he didn't get the whistle. His game fell apart and he just began chucking stepback threes and glaring at the refs wtih every clank.

Even during Harden's worst moments he was putting up 30+ every night against arguably the best team in NBA history. And lost Chris Paul to injury.

Has he had issues performing in the clutch? Sure.

But saying his game "falls apart" in the playoffs is a ridiculous exaggeration. Getting to the WCF multiple times and a Game 7 against the 2017 Warriors is no small task.

[art_tatum]

The power of the NBA to manufacture superstars. They took it away from harden but are still gifting the new models Luka and Trae. It's sad.

[HMFFL]

Read on Twitter

Already complaining LMAO

This just comes off bad.
Steve Nash just needs to stop it.

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM mobile app

[Kurt Heimlich]

Harden's reputation was earned. Nash is just trying to play the psychology game to try and make Harden's (well earned) reputation seem like he's become a target under the updated rules, which were made in large part due to the style of play Harden popularized. Totally reasonable move on his part.

[KnicksGadfly]

Read on Twitter

Already complaining LMAO

The real question is where do I get that poster Nash was talking about

[nfmos]

Because Steve previously made comments about how he felt Trae Young was getting BS calls, he's not allowed to comment that Harden isn't getting fairly officiated? As in now not getting the normal calls throughout the game that any other NBA player would get if his name wasn't James Harden?

Nash made stance and his bed with his Trae bashing; and he needs to accept his fate. Foul baiting is foul baiting. The refs probably lost a lot of respect for Nash the coach; if they ever had any respect for him as a coach.

He's not claiming Harden should be getting 11 FTA a game like it's 2017. Definitely a percentage of Harden's fouls were complete BS and baiting. That's not the argument.

What he's saying is that James isn't even getting a fair deal right now. If you've watched the games, you would have seen multiple times when regular fouls were not called for some unknown reason. "Oh it's Harden, he's a ref baiter so we're not going to call fouls for him anymore" isn't a valid excuse. Or maybe they just missed the call, that's possible too.

All Nash is asking is for the game to be called fairly for everyone, and for now, it appears as if the refs are still in some growing paints adjusting to the rules and over compensating so far. This will change in the near future and he'll be back to at least a reasonable FTA rate again.

Honestly, good. You dont think all the refs that Harden got to make fools of the last few years don't relish being able to get back at him a little bit now? Its not just the falling on the 3s thing (which by the way contrary to what someone on here said, Harden did wayyyy more than anyone else), its all the other little non basketball tricks he would do, hooking peoples arms, leaning and falling on people and having them get called for fouls, and driving to the hoop with more intent to draw a foul than make the shot. Im a Warriors fan and i dont at all mind Steph not getting those calls anymore, im pretty sure he will still be making 3s regardless of any rule changes.

The annoying thing about Harden is that he is obviously an amazing player and extremely talented but he also is wasting that by being so damn lazy and also looking for the easy way out. Always showing up to the season out of shape, lacking engagement if he isnt a focal point of the offense, looking to trick the refs for free throws instead of just exerting himself more, etc etc.

Maybe this will be a wake up call to him to start putting in that effort. For all these years of putting refs in unwinnable positions, he deserves the payback.

[nfmos]

I can kinda see both sides tbh. For quite a few years now players have modeled their games and teams have built their rosters based on a certain way the game has been called. Now overnight that's no longer viable. It takes a pretty self aware individual to not find that frustrating. And, to be clear, I'm not advocating changing course nor am I blind to the fact that the same thing happened when rules changed in favor of perimeter players but the reactions are to be expected.

I could see if a team traded for Curry and then all of a sudden the league eliminates 3 point shots, how crushing and frustrating that would be as a fan of his new team. But everyone knew that Harden was always making a mockery of the rules and taking advantage of refs, so i don't have a lot of sympathy for fans of his new team being mad that he doesnt get to do that anymore. Harden had discovered loopholes and disproportionately abused them relative to the rest of the league, and now the league has closed those loopholes up. Now its on him to adjust.

[jayu70]

Trae's take:

“I think the refs are trying to learn as much as we are with these calls and stuff. It’s frustrating whenever it’s on one end and it’s not on the other, but I think we’re all learning and we’re all trying to get better......

[Bankai]

Harden admitted himself that he works on moves to "fool the Refs" instead of putting the Ball in the Hoop. He emphasizes that he does things to get the Refs to blow the whistle. If he is the Poster boy then he brought it on himself if now whistles get swallowed.

[rtiff68]

To be completely honest, out of the foul baiting guards, Trae and Curry are way more egregious than Harden in jumping into player and/or touch fouls baiting.

Harden definitely is being targeted unfairly. If you can't see that you are not an objective fan and are just a straight up a hater. Curry, Morant, Trae are still living at the line this season pulling the same crap they pull every year.

And on the topic of non jump shooting fouls, Harden is literally getting hit and hacked without calls. This is the same type of fouls that FT leaders like Giannis, Davis, Butler gets.

You cannot have two sets of standards, one for Harden, another for the rest of the league.

To be completely honest, you are 100% incorrect. Steph Curry might do the occasional lean-in (which I don't like), but in general he foul-hunts as little or less than any other volume scorer in the league.

He's a 2x scoring champion, and during those years had two of the fewest FT attempts by a scoring champion in league history. If he's foul baiting to the degree that you're claiming, there is no way that would be true.

To lump him in with how Trae Young and James Harden play is ridiculous. For the record, I am not taking shots at them, just pointing out that their games have always been predicated on getting to the line. No volume scorer goes to the line less than Steph.

[pr0wler]

Harden admitted himself that he works on moves to "fool the Refs" instead of putting the Ball in the Hoop. He emphasizes that he does things to get the Refs to blow the whistle. If he is the Poster boy then he brought it on himself if now whistles get swallowed.

Clever wording. He works on moves to take full advantage of the rules as written, not to "fool the refs".

Also, two wrongs don't make a right. Even if the first argument is true, which I don't agree with entirely, but we'll say that he did just for arguments sake. So now that the refs have "figured him out", he should be punished going forward and their revenge is justified and because the refs maybe called too many fouls in the past? Ok