Hoops

Rockets need an overhaul

To be somewhat fair to Harden Kevin McFail hardly qualifies as a quality coach. The man might have been better then the interm Coach JB Bickerstaf but that hardly makes him a good coach. Just ask the folks in Minny.

He was a terrible coach. Last seasons success is more attributed to Hardens MVP calibre season then anything McHale did.

OP no way is 1 max player going to sign with the rockets let alone a 2nd to turn them into a contender and no decent coach will go near them while head case harden is around killing coaches.

Harden dosent play defence but he is better then Westbrook

Just stop it.

The rockets problems start with Harden. He is the most overrated player in the NBA and a world away from being rated in the top 5 players in the NBA.
If you watch Rockets games he just dribbles the air out of the ball while the other players stand and watch, then with shot clock winding down he tries to draw a foul on the defender and go to the place where he scores half his points!!

And to top it off he plays absolutely no defence! in fact its a disgrace the type of defence he plays!! Any other player and they wouldn't come off the bench!!!

Cram I think it is widely acknowledged that Jeff Van Gundy a Houston resident will be their new coach and hopefully he is someone that can muster some understanding with Harden that defence matters. Having had to be a fan and put up with last seasons fiasco was tiresome and hard to take.

As for Harden the only thing that is stopping him from greatness is defence and turnovers.If he cant turn it around on the defensive end under Van Gundy who is one of the best defensive minded coaches in a while then the Rockets management need to seriously contemplate the idea of moving him.

That is why he won the PLAYERS MVP choice because he was carrying a bunch of scrubs on his shoulders.

Howard missed 41 games but all throughout that season guys like Beverley and Montijunes also missed a number of games. You think it was only ward missing. Harden was wining games with the likes of Tarik Black and Pappanikolu or whatever thee names were starting. He had even less talent then what Russ had.

A quote I read yesterday - "Harden is unique in that he's capable of carrying a team that more or less quits because of him."

Umm Harden isnt top 5 in the NBA. He is pretty much the sole reason that team is above the 76er type squads, BUT for the same reason, the reason the Rockets arent even in the same discussion as the top 6 in the West. If the Jazz had beaten that depleted Clipper squad at home towards the end of the regular season, they wouldnt have even made it. The Rockets lost to the damn Phoenix Suns at home... sad team. Sad 'leader'. Drake are you related to the Khardashians, get off the beards nuts. Look at the NBA forums etc he is being blasted for his style of play.

Trade Harden NOW while he is still somewhat respected and still has some cache, and get as many draft picks and assets you can for him. The LOLakers will be looking for a new "Star", trade him there for some of their youth maybe, if they're stupid enough to take it of course.

Let D12 go as well, and rebuild from the ground up.

I personally can't stand Harden as a player, especially as a so-called "Star". If I was a GM building a new team from scratch, he wouldn't even get a mention in the boardroom. No point guard worth a damn will ever want to play alongside Harden. It's a death knell for their future contract signing possibilities. Beverly-types are the perfect pgs to have next to him, guys who are selfless and play D. Not many of them around.

I respect Harden as a scorer who knows how to milk the refs and defenders' incompetence but I would never have him on my team.

People complained that nobody would go to the Lakers while Kobe was there, and I agree with the comment above that good players won't go to Houston while Harden is there. Same with New York while Carmelo is there.

It might seem fine being paid millions per season to be on the same team as these ball-hogging studs, but if your career is going to go downhill as a scorer because you don't see much of the ball, then I can't see too many young and ambitious players liking it.

Why oh why did they ever get rid of McHale?!

Considering Harden is having a say in the new coach, I doubt they are going to sign one that will bust his balls until he plays decent D.

I think they should trade him if they can get a decent return.

Maybe Boston are interested, one of the Nets unprotected picks would be tempting.
If they could get this years Nets and Mavericks picks from Boston they should go for it.

Get a new GM that actually understands team chemistry ands wants to build a team not just a bunch of assets to use in trades.

Its silly to compare how Harden fared with a Howard-less Rockets to how Westbrook fared with a Durant-less Thunder.
It ignores so many other things, like how the remaining Rockets players stacked up against the remaining Thunder players, or that Durant and Westbrook both missed 16 games at the start of the season where the Thunder lost 12 of those.

Also, Howard played 41 games in that season, Durant played 27. Houston won 11 more games than OKC so if either Durant played another 14 games, or OKC didn't play 16 games missing both their stars, then you could say they would easily have won another 11 games.

So yeah, no real argument left to be made...

Problem is no one will go to Houston to play with Harden, who would want to play with someone like that.

Yep no real argument left to be made. That is all you have left?

Harden isnt in the same league as Westbrook, Russ can break a game open in so many ways. Im done, cant read this crap hah

Really? Harden carried the howard less rockets to the second seed in the west with 56 wins and all the way to the WCF's? How is it silly?

How would Harden have gone leading the same Durant-less Thunder team? Nowhere near the playoffs!

What a silly comparison.

I also think he really needs a coach who can instill some grit and mental toughness into him. A hardnosed coach like Jeff Van Gundy ill do him wonders.

Harden has 3 issues he needs to address.

1:Defensive awareness which is farsical. He gets caught ball watching and gambles a lot on the defensive end and gets blown by to easily. Needs to learn how to react better and move his feet

Turnovers: He makes a lot of careless bounce passes which are to easy to ready and pick off. Granted he actually does possess pretty good playmaking ability, but he tends to make some silly mistake with the ball.

Maturity and conditioning: This is what is probably is the root of all of his defensive problems are turnovers. Sure he played with a bad ankle all throught the season, but he was rerally out of shape this season and it showed.

BTW, I posted with a handle I have from another forum as ammo.

Macdub you cant be serious? not top 50 or 30? at worst he is top 10. Just last season he was the MVP runner up

Westbrook better then Harden? How did the Thunder go without DURANT last season with Westbrook as their leader? Right out of the PLAYOFFS RACE.

Harden dosent play defence but he is better then Westbrook and Paul. Kawahi LBJ,Durant, Curry are ALL BETTER PLAYERS but after that it is a tossup.

Harden is simply a glorifed professional scorer. He is also a known loser.

FWIW, I don't have Harden in the top 30 players, let a lone the top 5. That's from a talent POV.

But if i was selecting a team, i'd say that there were 50 or more guys than I would select before Harden.

Trade Harden whilst he can at least garner interest from teams due to his age (still only 26). Means Houston could still get some good pieces for him.

Houston can retain him for a few years if they want, but a) they won't do any better and b) by the end of those few years Harden's trade worth would have declined even further.

He is tracking a similar path to Carmelo. A lot of teams wanted Melo in his last F.Agency..now very few teams do (his contract situation is also another factor i know).

On what planet is Harden clearly a top 5 player? Steph, Kawhi, LeBron, Durant, Westbrook, CP3 and I'd personally take the second best two way player PG any day of the week over him. I guess you've seen plenty of him though haven't you Drake.

Lead the league in scoring you say, he also set the record the most turnovers ever in an NBA season (ABA one is crazy). Looking at the top 4 teams I couldn't imagine a scenario where Harden can be the best player on a championship team.

I dont care what his stats say, Harden is far from a top five player in the league.

Just a thought. What do people think of the Asia Pacific region talking to the NBA about entering a summer league team to show off talented individuals. Its extremely hard for Aussies to make it to the NBA, would sending a team to this provide some more opportunities to be seen. Would the NBA even like the idea.