Harden then having a party in the US with a model holding a “Daryl Morey is a liar” sign definitely puts it over the top.

The definition of taking inside business out into the streets.

I’m more inclined to the fat suit. The Morey is a liar moment was funny but compared to that fat suit moment, it’s not something out of pocket.

As someone who thinks Harden sucking in the playoffs is overstated, it’s not this simple.

Harden quite literally instills a system wherever he goes. There’s a ton of good that comes from this (most notably others being set up well), but there’s also some bad that comes from it. Most notably, the ball tends to stick to Harden on both good games and bad games.

He controls the tempo of the game, and on the nights he disappears in the playoffs, it’s not like he’s just hiding in the corner. He’s still dominating the ball, but just playing insanely passively. Kawhi is a bigger playoff riser than basically anyone, and it’s not like we could just “spread out” the good Kawhi and Harden games.

Just pray that it doesn’t go to Game 7 with James or you are cooked.

I wanted to believe that on the Clippers, but good luck… He’s had the opportunity to do that with Kawhi, Embiid, George, Durant, Irving, Westbrook, CP3, Howard, etc., and by virtue of Harden being “the system”, the team’s eventually can’t withstand his bad games. He has had plenty of opportunities to develop into an offball player, and it just isn’t going to work. Then you also have to deal with having the two best offensive players on your team being defensive targets.

I sadly agree. Garland’s offensive numbers drop significantly in the playoffs, and he’s an absolute liability defensively.

Last year played half the games, and even a few of the games he played he looked too injured to compete.

and then shot ⁷⁄₂₇, ¹⁄₁₁ from 3pt in the final 2 games

People say he becomes PASSIVE , not that he just plays bad There’s a difference

So we’re going to act like in the past season he didn’t shit the bed in game 7 against the Nuggets, typical Harden game 7 fashion? Do you watch the fucking games?

He had to carry last postseason?

That sounds like a nightmare. Just as capped out as you were with garland but with ¹⁄₄ of your cap space going to an aging guard nearing his 40s? I’m sure that’ll keep Mitchell and Mobley happy

I’m replying to you in the hopes that when  my prediction is correct I too get my flowers. 

My prediction is that the raptors do a thing. 

im in the same boat so here’s my reply

Same lol

OKC legend James Harden strikes again

Yes, it takes up some of that money we were hoarding. But its only 1 year at that $44M-ish number, so we still have a ton of room - enough for another max player if we can get one.

If Garland wasn’t 26 years old, I don’t think the deal gets done. Because it’s not like the books are completely clear after 2027 - Zu is still signed into 2028 too. But it’s because Garland has the potential to be part of the next good Clippers team (like Zu does), I bet that’s why we were willing to take on that money there.

Combination of factors in my opinion:

• Health and Availability - Their most premium players missed a lot of games. Paul George’s peak with the Clippers was 74 games played, but he averaged about 52 games over 5 years with the team. Kawhi is a similar story with a peak of 68 games played but an average of 50 games played over 6 years, plus missing the entire 2021-22 season.
• Slow Starts: For whatever reason, this team has been prone to slow starts and early season obstacles. This is dating back to Doc Rivers too but it’s been especially frequent under Lue. These slow starts pretty much cap the ceiling of every Clippers team to 4th seed or lower, and therefore tougher matchups based on seeding
• Long Playoff Series: Since Kawhi joined in 2019-20, the team has played in a total of 8 playoff rounds. Of those rounds, 7 of them have been 6+ games series. The only exception was a 1-4 first round series loss against the 2022-23 Suns. Over the same stretch since 2019-20, Clippers have 8th most playoff games played despite only reaching the WCF once. All 7 teams above them have reached NBA Finals - Celtics, Nuggets, Heat, Bucks, Mavericks, and Suns. These Clippers teams are playing in more games than other contenders, and have been noticeably gassed by the middle of the second round series assuming they reached that far.
• Depth at Center - This has been an underrated issue for almost the entirety of Lue’s tenure as coach. The drop-off between Zubac and his backup has been steep every year. The Clippers rosters were arguably pretty stacked elsewhere even if the talent wasn’t young. But Center has been brutally weak, and the stats for rebounds and FG% shift significantly when Zubac is off court. This year they finally have established good enough depth at the position, but only time will tell if it’s formidable against postseason teams.

It’s still a better timeline than “let’s grab every old guy we possibly can, mortgage the whole future and pray that Kawhi’s knees have one last run”.

They’re basically just saying that they won’t double-down on the current window at the expense of the future. It’s sort of a rebirth of the ‘18-‘19 thinking but with Kawhi instead of Lou Williams.

I am dead lol

Bro thought he cooked with this comment lol

…he did 

Good lord xD

lmao

Hah great comment

lol

2018 Rockets won 65 games & I think they win 38-44 without Harden. Chris Paul was solid that year, Capela was a decent rim running lob threat, ariza, Gordon, Tucker, Luc, Anderson all decent pieces. but cp3 is the only player that could handle the ball, create for others and only him & gordon could create for themselves. EPM has Harden’s Estimated Wins that year at 19.2 (1st in 2018).

Donovan was also very good as a rookie and he won his first playoff series against an OKC team that many thought would be a contender with Prime Russ doing his thing next to PG who was 3rd in MVP. That Jazz team had prime Gobert, prime Joe ingles, prime ricky rubio, prime derrick favors, jae crowder, royce o’neal.

2019 was a down year for chris paul, rockets lost a lot of their guys, everyone else just got a year older, the replacement players weren’t as good. after battling KD warriors to 7 games they came back the next season and started 4-7 in their first 11 games. then Harden had 28 games with 40+ points, 9 games with 50+ points, & 2 games with 60+ points and averaged nearly 8 assists a game. He was the entirety of an offense with insanely high usage rate while staying efficient. EPM had him at 24.4 Estimated wins that year (1st in 2019). One of the most underrated carry jobs. Harden then averaged 35/7/6 against the warriors in the playoffs & had a series high 2.7 stocks.

because Harden was on those teams

Them being the better team because they had Capela, right?

This is the willful ignorance I come to this sub for

Harden has 15 playoff series wins which is more than about 99% of players

Yes NBA fans and media compromise the bottom half of the IQ bell curve.

Yep. One good playoff run and Harden and Mitchell erase the narratives against them. It’s dumb but that’s how it is.

It’s both wanting money and wanting to compete. LAC was definitively not doing the latter, so I don’t understand how them getting their shit together and winning is relevant when we’ve seen this story time and time again with LAC.

Fertitti was actively getting under the luxury tax by 2019 and 2020.

Harden declined an extension in November 2020.

Westbrook just tore his hamstring and was ass.

Injuries happen. They each wanted to play together, that’s why Russ was traded there.

Nets 2022 was a disaster class with kyrie sitting out and kd injured

And when Harden had a chance to help weather the storm, he quit on them.

This clippers team was 6-21 and might make playin despite going 15-3 or somthing crazy.

And when a Harden team fell short of expectations, he quit on them.

Sensing a pattern here…

It might be more along those lines if a loud portion of the fanbase and media didn’t obsess over ring culture

yeah it absolutely screws up the fan/player relationship in a really sad way…i wish it wasn’t this way but i also can’t think of a way that would fix it that would be agreeable to both parties 😩

You said when has he EVER competed buddy that’s your words not mine