hello friends it's the 2018 NBA Playoffs, a place where dreams GO 2 DIE

harden is in fact bad

The likelihood of the Rockets, a 36.2% three-point shooting team, missing 26 threes in a row is .00084% or a 1 in 118757 chance.

— Eric Sidewater (@SixersScience) May 29, 2018

*looks at scrap of paper that says "have you ever thought about having $40 million? that'd be cool."*

harden traded for cash considerations

harden is better than "kevin durant"

"no" he isn't

he's better.....at losing playoff games

Harden 32 for 122 from deep vs Utah/GSW

draymond’s kid is adorable

we are on the brink of being able to say "2-time nba champion javale mcgee"

why would you choose to say that, you don't have to

i agree w/ bise that for now harden and wb basically seem to be gimmicks that don't work in the postseason

― G.O.A.T. rodeo (Clay), Monday, May 28, 2018 11:24 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ehh. very good chance he has a ring if cp didn’t get hurt. gordon is the only other guy on their roster tonight who could dribble the ball

i don't think saying they would have won w/cp precludes saying harden's shit doesn't work in the playoffs

harden is better than "kevin durant"

I most respectfully beg to differ. Harden is better at certain hoops skills than Durant. Durant is better than Harden at a different set of skills. As to which player's total skill set is "better", that is not possible to sort out. Both are consensus All-Stars. Both are unicorns of a sort.

If I were choosing a player to build a team around I'd go with Durant rn, because I think his skills are less common and less easy to duplicate using other players than are Harden's.

it works less, but clearly he is good enough to be the best player on a championship team. he just can’t do it alone like lebron

xp

he shot awful from 3 and can't play defense! by the end of the series he was basically providing gravity and some driving/foul drawing. he got them the 1 seed which is valuable but hasn't really distinguished himself since.

like having a 1.2/1 ast/to ratio is a great way to diminish yr 28/6/6 series line

harden gets super gassed in the offs he can absoultely be the best player on a championship team but he needs to be on a team that can put out a real lineup when hes on the bench

also yeah i dont actually think harden is better than kd if youre trying to construct a team, the flexibility is more important than the raw output

if harden put as much effort into his conditioning as lebron does maybe he could play 48 minutes in a game 7 and not entirely suck on defence

if they put treadmills at strip clubs itd be over

there are def structural issues w/ harden's game in the playoffs that he needs to address. haberstroh has tweeted a lot about harden's ppg numbers in game 1 of a series vs every game after.

but i think we need to remember dirk and his reputation and how long he was the best player on a team that ended up pulling out a title before we say harden can't be the best player on a championship team

im not saying never, im just saying prolly not

lost a game 7 of a conference final to one of the very best squad in history of the sport and people are like 'yeah harden is actually bad'

his game def has some serious issues man idk

the mvp is not given to 'bad' players

harden is a d-league scrub

i bet if he shaved his beard he'd average 10-3-2.1

he's an incredible scorer but i think he'd do well to diversify his offensive game a bit. only taking 3s or layups/dunks is the best way to play mathematically but i think in the playoffs if you're gonna be a guy who singlehandedly drags his team to the finals you need to be able to score in more ways than just step back 3/steamrolling to the rim. like it seems like he's rarely moving off the ball... ppl say he's stout as a post defender but he has no post game... he could get more creative around the rim... i think guys like lebron, KD, steph etc all finally got over the hump when their skillsets expanded, we'll see if harden has it in him (and if the system can accommodate it)

i think a lot about how shocking it will be when harden finally shaves his beard... i bet there's like a 20% chance he does it this offseason to build up some inner soul searching offseason narrative

he's an incredible scorer but i think he'd do well to diversify his offensive game a bit. only taking 3s or layups/dunks is the best way to play mathematically but i think in the playoffs if you're gonna be a guy who singlehandedly drags his team to the finals you need to be able to score in more ways than just step back 3/steamrolling to the rim.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 29, 2018 12:39 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otfm the best shots are —open shots—

also needs to ditch the novelty foul begging shit, only take real shots

i do wonder if he'll eventually just become a guy like lebron/durant who gets calls routinely at the end of tight playoff games, or if he'll always just kinda be getting punked by the refs

his game def has some serious issues man idk

― G.O.A.T. rodeo (Clay), Tuesday, May 29, 2018 12:36 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah like leading the win shares in 3 of the past 4 seasons.

Harden is a fantastic player who might never win a ring because the Warriors and LeBron exist.

also bc he shits the bed in the playoffs

let's not deny james harden's agency...

he has at this point had many notable playoff failures and the reasons for them are pretty obvious and make sense by the laws of basketball and the offs

he made strides towards making his game more realistic and less theoretical this season but theres still a lot of work to do, obvs he got put in a pretty impossible situation with cp3 out but he also made a ton of unnecessarily bad plays

building so much of his game around the idea that you have to respect that stepback three well i dont love it, that shot is insanely difficult

also he's travelling

hes not tho

I'm not going to argue that he is the best player in the league either, of course someone like Harden needs to improve, it seems also fairly obvious that the difference between this season's Rockets and last was the addition of CP3 and the blossoming of Capela (who I find to be an exciting player). However the skip-baylesque narrative of clutch and ringz is very tiring, like give or take he is in top 10 players in the league, he was a key component for a team that had top 4 finish and that's just not good enough for some basketball fans.

Saying that he should diversify his game even more is true and I think Jordan is otm, but that's not the same as saying he is a gimmick or has deep issues.

im (mostly) joking, he's extremely good and has been a top 5 player in the league for several years, will be a first ballot HOFer at this rate. if bron goes to HOU its lights out. harden is definitely a worse player in the playoffs, tho, and that is extremely fun to point out as a spurs fan.

my boy damian lillard's another one who relies on a tricky three move to open up floor (the super deep three vs harden's stepback, tho dame can do both i suppose) and also has a game that seems to break down in the offs (also historic problems w/ effort on D, tho both have improved notably, with occasional bad lapses)

I think my root problem with the perception of Harden is that the gap between being great in the playoffs and being great in the regular season is widening to a degree that makes the regular season rather kinda obsolete? The Cavs were a mess that required slightly dramatic trades midway through the season and you had the feeling the Warriors were coasting just to peak at the right time, having learned the 2016 lesson the harshest of ways. Now they are both in the finals for the 4th consecutive time and whatever great stuff Harden did over 72 (!!!) games is almost moot.

ha the regular season/playoffs split is one of my fave things about the league

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey: "We should have won tonight. I don't have much else to say."

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) May 29, 2018

poor daryl

Stephen Wardell Curry

warriors didnt deserve to win this series imo. perfect gameplan from dantoni to beat them, great roster built by morey to do it. CP injury (and the Luc Moute injury) really ended it. the margin was always thin and they got the break they needed with andre going down. they had their chances in g6-7 but just couldnt push the lead enough... then ran out of gas. feel bad for ariza really.

steph's defense and effort was so good all series. durant series was very weird, lots of weird energy and some really poor effort (first half in both games 6-7) and yet he dropped 34-5-5-1-3 tonight idk