[Bill Simmons Pod] Doc Rivers on James Harden: “James doesn’t give everybody else enough room to be great, he is the only one that can be great on his team.”
Embiid literally won MVP with Harden’s only full season as a Sixer under Doc lol
Also.. if CP3 didn’t have that ?hamstring? injury with the rockets they might have won that year.
So many things have to line up for a team to win the championship outside of the star players responsibility.
I’m a Harden fan, but CP3 leaving just the in the 19-20 season (17-18 was the playoff run), when he clearly still had something left in the tank, does speak to some level of teammate grade deficiency.
Chris Paul was fucking terrible in his final season in Houston. Him getting traded sparked something in him to change his diet to become better in OKC. He should have done that in Houston.
Dude i vividly remember watching cp3 struggle to beat kevon looney off the dribble at times. He was fucking horrible that last ywar w the rockets
I will not stand for this Kevon Looney slander.
Fr Looney was amazing at staying in front of guards because he just never bit on any fakes.
Looney could’ve been a Monstar, that’s still no excuse for a HoF PG to not get past and beat a Center.
He’s on record saying getting traded to the Thunder was a wake up call for him. I can’t remember the exact details but basically having to leave his family behind and head to Oklahoma City alone after being comfortable in Houston for so long made him reflect on being in a position where a team might not want him solely for his own faults and the thought of not making decisions on his own terms motivated him enough to take his time with the Thunder as an opportunity to reset himself.
I believe he also said the low expectations for the Thunder that year pushed him even harder to use their success as part of his reinvention, so them at least making the playoffs was a personal goal of his. Basically, the Thunder and Chris Paul were both in the same position with the belief that their best years were behind them and that connection made the success of the team a big part of his own identity as a player. It wasn’t enough for him to have his own success; the team needed to exceed expectations as well.
This is more speculative but I think playing in Oklahoma City again also helped him since his career started there. I would think it was a full circle moment where he had to face what he no longer was in the city where it all began. Recognizing that what happened next was no longer building up to greater successes later down the road like it was when he was younger, but was now fully up to him to decide as an older player made him want the “revival” right then even more.
It’s hard to say but I really doubt he has a second wind if he doesn’t get traded to the Thunder. At the very least, I really doubt the end of his career sees the success that it did.
CP3 looked fucking washed his last season in Houston. He did turn it around with OKC and then the Suns but it was a fair opinion to think he wasn’t the same player after his last Houston season.
Hardens refusal to let CP3 orchestrate the offense and play more off the ball was the issue more than CP3’s decline as he demonstrated the moment he left.
You’re saying he sucked because Harden didn’t let him orchestrate
But maybe Harden didn’t let him orchestrate because he sucked
CP3 is the most effective getting other people in position to maximize the offense; and he did it with a young OKC team Harden nearly choked to and the Suns. Which exemplifies that Harden was indeed the problem.
Harden tried to turn CP3 into a bail out spot up shooter, and you’re surprised why his percentages tanked? It’s the dumbest shit ive ever seen and should have been grounds for any coaching staff who allowed that shit to be immediately fired. However I’m sure you’ll dress it up differently and pretend like Harden did no wrong.
They had a great system in the 2017-2018 season. They took turns leading the offense. That team won 65 games and almost took down the Warriors.
Chris Paul’s production dropped off significantly in the 2018-2019 season. That’s just a fact. I’m not dressing it up at all, it’s just what happened.
Blaming Harden for Paul having a terrible shooting year in the same exact offense is stupid
If you are a Harden fan that was around during that time there’s no way you’d have had this take after the 18-19 playoffs.
Like respectfully this take makes no sense. He “clearly still had something left in the tank?” Like, what? The only way this makes sense is if you say it AFTER the 19-20 season
Even then, still wrong. Embed won the MVP with Harden while Harden lead the league in assists. This is Doc trying to get a head of not winning anything in Philly.
That’s more a credit to Paul for focusing on recovery (I think he changed his diet as well during this time) and the injury fully healing by the time he got to OKC. His second year in Houston he was a liability on both offense and defense, unreliable to the point Harden had to take on even greater offense responsibility ie. the Harden 40 for 40
To be fair people thought CP3 would fall off way quicker than he did. He hadn’t been an All Star for a few years, was getting hurt more and more frequently, and it was thought his contract would age horribly. Him returning to form in OKC and Phoenix was not something people expected at the time. The fact that he got another huge contract in 2021 was unthinkable in 2019.
No the best example is Harden letting brain dead Westbrook take more shots than him, that was the washed 31 year old version too and Harden was way better
He still averaged more points
To be fair to Harden, at this point there are like five teams that have learned that there is no “letting” Russ take awful shots. He’s going to do it no matter what. He is a true force of nature when it comes to airball pull-up threes with 18 seconds on the shot clock
The thing I would point to here regarding Harden’s shots is that the Lakers were double teaming him to force the ball out of his hands. This naturally decreased his shot attempts compared to the other guys in the floor. Westbrook was often a guy they doubled off or left open so it makes sense if he took more shots (not to say the Rockets wanted him to do that).
Harden was legit doubled probably every game for a couple years there.
Westbrook was not washed on the rockets wtf, how old are you? He got off to a slow start but was playing great ball before the Covid lockdown
The backlash on Russ has gone so far overboard. Some of these dudes act like he’s a bum and you can tell this just didn’t watch ball in the 2010s or have had their brain cooked by tiktok.
The dude put up one more tripple double season after the Rockets.
People say he was washed during his triple double season in Washington when he dragged the wizards to the playoffs
He was incredible. His play-in game against the Pacers was jaw-dropping. I’m amazed that we got Westbrook to have career highs in assists and rebounds.
Yeah, he might not be a great ceiling raiser, but prime Russ is one of the GOAT floor raisers. I loved Wizards Westbrook, IIRC he had more than one 20/20/20 game that season.
its cause Lebron stans want to revise history and act like Westbrook suddenly became washed right after another triple double season and justify the Lakers superteam missing the PLAY-INs
IDK, I kinda feel like the Westbrook ‘hate’ is pretty much right where it should be. He’s a conflicting player who has his detractors and his stans. Long career with some great accomplishments and peaks, no real playoff success after KD which gives ammunition to his detractors. He has an MVP so he’s not a bum but it’s arguably the weakest MVP in the past 20 years so he might be the ‘bum’ of the MVPs (which isn’t even that bad, Derrick Rose or Embiid 2023 is just ahead of him). Enigma.
Bro he’s a first ballot hall of famer. Easy. He was the second or third best pointguard of the 2010s.
Russ leads all point guards all-time in points. He’s 5th all time for the whole league in assists.
You can not like him. You can say you don’t want him on your team.
But it is disconnected from reality to look at his career and say “bum”.
Lol at the idea of a “weak MVP” like he was just barely the best player in the league that season
He’s a “weak MVP” because he’s Westbrook. Anyone else does what he did and that season is glazed eternally.
Absolutely not. Dude is super hated and his career is diminished at every opportunity. One of the greatest PGs of all time and a truly unprecedented player in terms of what numbers he did in his prime.
He shot a career best .472% with the Rockets.
Bill is on some shit-on-harden streak lately
He was talking all time rankings post finals and says he gives barkley a pass for not winning because he had to face Jordan and didn’t have help
But James should’ve beat the 73-9 warriors with Ryan anderson and then the KD warriors with Eric gordon (after Chris went down) apparently. What a choker he couldn’t stop 4 hall of famers by his damn self.
It’s funny because he adores Luka, who suffers from all the same issues, except he’s in worse shape and not an iron man like prime Harden.
It’s always funny how many Harden haters will change their tune for Luka.
“You can’t win a championship with a 1-man offensive engine who brings nothing to the defensive side and a bunch of role players who stand around waiting for him. BTW, Luka is a generational player, and LA needs to surround him with 3&D wings and a rim runner so they can win a championship.”
I know the playoff drop-offs are a massive factor, but Harden stayed in great shape (despite the criticisms) and was an iron man during his prime.
He definitely does not adore Luka anymore. Especially now that he’s a Laker
Still makes excuses for him just like this sub
Why would not anyone make excuses for Luka? He has overperformed with the rosters he had
Oh, don’t get me started on his Luka harden hypocrisy. Dude used to act like Luka invented the pocket pass like harden hadn’t been feeding starving centers with it for years.
He’s completely on his RINGZ CULTURE bullshit. One recent pod he said “this isn’t rings culture” then six seconds later “the ONLY goal is to win a title.”
Later in the same pod, “the whole point of basketball is to be the best guy on a title team.”
But totally not RINGZ CULTURE.
Anyway Harden had the misfortune of going up against four hall of famers in their prime (including two of the twenty best players of all time). Doesn’t mean Harden isn’t also an all timer.
eh, to be fair to him, the only goal for players and orgs should be to strive to win a ring because their effort and drive to do that is 100% within their control.
but as fans, our ratings of players shouldn’t be based on whether or not they achieve that, because so many things play into whether it happens, like owners being cheap, or players being injured, or players being shit.
we shouldn’t blame harden for not being able to win with whatever the fuck that rockets team was, just like we shouldn’t blame lebron for not winning in cleveland until 2016.
but the statements “the only goal is to win a title” and “ring culture sucks” aren’t contradictory because there are multiple ways to look at this stuff!
I disagree entirely with Docs point, but Embiid was already very much in that type of air. He finished 2nd the two seasons before hand, and then when Harden left he was the front runner through 48 games on course for a historic season.
Doc’s point would be that that wouldn’t be possible, and not only was it possible, Harden’s contribution could be argued as being enough to push him over the hump to get his only MVP.
I don’t think the first comment is trying to imply that Harden turned Embiid into an MVP-caliber player, but rather trying to emphasize what a ridiculous point Doc is trying to make. He literally coached the team that proves his point to be incorrect.
Sure but did Harden give room for Embiid to be great or not?
If harden took more shots to the detriment of Embiid then Embiids stats look worse and he doesn’t win.
Yeah, even as a certified Harden hater I am bewildered by this statement from Doc. Harden looks like a very good teammate all things considered. Dude just shrinks in big moments. But I can hardly think of anyone that plays worse when they are with Harden compared to elsewhere.
I listened to the podcast, and that’s also what Doc bases his idea off from. He believes James Harden’s greatest asset is the passing and creation, while he says James believed its his scoring.
I’m not saying Doc is right, and I’m always happy with a Doc Rivers L, but its not because he doesn’t believe in Harden’s passing ability.
I think docs still wrong if that is the more nuanced version of the clip. Harden stated numerous times that he doesn’t want to play like he did in Houston if it was up to him, and he took a step back (no pun) in Brooklyn immediately after leaving the Rockets and has done so every since. Throughout the RS he was more impactful and more important to the team than KD, and he did it with creation over scoring. He kinda did it with Westbrook, too, letting him take more shots and letting him dominate the ball to equal parts.
At the same time, once you are 2 months into a season and average 36, you dann well try to maintain it. And this style of play would have gotten him a likely championship in a lot of other eras. Just a tiny bit of luck and he could have done it vs the KD warriors, too.
I think what really skewed his chances negatively is the fact that he’s just not doing anything off-ball. Part of it is by design but if he just used his gravity with a bit of movement or did more timely cuts within the flow of the offense, he could be so much better in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong, Harden still beats you 90% of the time, it’s just not mentally challenging for the opponent and the predictability of Harden not having the ball (iso by secondary guard or an okay ish 3), it’s just too easy and doesn’t fatigue the opponent.
Similarly he should have expanded his playmaking past p’n’r and drive and kicks which he easily could have accomplished to be more unpredictable there as well. Hardens offense was super efficient but I feel like these two points skewed his chances in a playoff setting where the margins are very thin. Either way the reason is not a headline hot take by doc Rivers
But that is the season he is mentioning. The slow slide back to the “selfish” basketball. I saw the whole season with a microscope. And Doc is spot on. As much as I hate the Knicks. I love that they showed the NBA a more team oriented way forward. Harden - to Docs point - cant play that way.
Name a better duo than Doc Rivers and throwing his players under the buss
If you listen to the full podcast his point is just that… Harden started going away from what you are referencing and that’s why he’s not a champ.
Yeah, I’m not particularly fond of James Harden, but fuck Doc Rivers
He’s wrong and he’s a clown
He actually addressed this in the pod whether its true or not. He said that year embiid won mvp Harden was playing his best basketball. Allowing his team to shine and sharing the ball, but then towards the latter half of the season and in the playoffs he went away from that (maybe because of the all star snub? I think doc mentioned this before in a separate pod).
Fwiw, harden does have a small dip in both scoring, efficiency, and assists post all star break, but it’s not massive. His last month and in the playoffs there is a very big dip though, but that could just be classic playoff Harden. He was also dealing w some injuries which could have played a role.
Yeah, but was he great?
Coming from a guy that blames everybody but himself is pretty rich .
The all time coaching King of throwing his players under the bus to explain why nothing’s ever his fault
him VS todd bowles would be a match for the century.
Bowles staying employed was the biggest nfl non-firing surprise since Hue Jackson kept his job after going 0-16, something about Baker Mayfield idk
sometimes i wonder how much of bill simmon’s friendship with doc rivers is real and how much of it is is cause he knows having doc on the podcast will get himself tons of juicy stories doc shouldn’t be saying publicly.
Unblameable force vs unblameable object
Gonna sit on this a while but i think it might be fire
Game recognizes game
I mean Harden doesn’t really blame anything on anyone. He probably the most dogged on player who hasn’t said anything controversial
Harden has never thrown a team mate under the bus ever. He had plenty of opportunities to call Kyrie out for the anti vax and he didn’t when interviewed about it on that Netflix series.
Legit I’ve never heard him talk bad about a former teammate in his whole career. Even if it was warranted.
Was gonna say right back atcha doc
Doc on his retirement tour before applying to ESPN’s First Take, I see.
Maybe back in his Rockets days, but Harden has changed his playstyle since then to be more of a playmaker so idk how he could say this.
Harden has taken a backseat to other stars like Mitchell, Kawhi, Embiid etc
It’s Doc BS. This guy is a joke and hasn’t won anything ever since his Celtics days.
Clippers literally looked great this year and died off once Harden left, Brooklyn Harden was the best playmaker in the league and fed Kyrie and KD like no other, and Philly wise Harden took the backseat for Maxey and Embiid
All of his co-stars have some of their best and most efficient seasons playing next to him
What is doc on???
When Harden is playmaking he leads some of the best offenses in the NBA. Those Brooklyn teams were deadly when he was healthy
All 16 games
No not even. When KD and Kyrie were both out Harden played some of the best most unselfish basketball I’ve ever seen. He made our g leaguers look like all stars. It was seriously insane.
It was the best version of ball he ever played.
He was a legit MVP candidate that year and legit deserved it. He was playing the most free I ever seen him play.
In Houston we forced a ton of his sets. A lot of our coaching became give James the ball and gtfo of the way. It’s not surprising he got tired of it.
Thank you for showing love. He really was at his peak with y’all before the hamstring injury took his prime away. Like he went to y’all as the best version of Rockets Harden there ever was. Dude would set up others and score freely.
It’s an absolute shame he tore that hammy. Took his prime away and he never really got his first step back after that injury.
You work with the sample you have
they were good even without Harden. Nets win a title if Giannis doesn’t injure Kyrie
I remember when harden was with us in Philly, first half of the season was BEAUTIFUL. Averaging damn near triple doubles and shit, but he didn’t make the all star team. Like 15/11/7 or some shit.
Second half of the season he started playing DIFFERENT! It could’ve been his beef with the front office or doc. But if he maintained what he didn’t in the first half of the season, we could’ve got a ring that year.
Doc’s mouth will fuck up a good team though. Shit went south for Philly ever since he told the world we could’ve won with anybody other than Ben Simmons. Lmao. Buddy shut down after that. Ben’s non shooting ass averaged a triple double, he ain’t never gotta shoot. He couldn’t hit his fucking free throws though so he stopped driving to the rim as much.
They had a better win% in their last 20 games than they did before the ASB. Don’t believe doc rivers.
Doc pretty much said this in the pod. That harden first half was lights out then he got snubbed and went back to his old self.
There is literally nothing to support that and the only people that say it say it because they heard it on the ringer.
Go look at the stats and the 76ers win%. there is nothing suggesting anything changed.
They ended the season going like 14-6 in their last 20 games
Maxey himself has personally credited harden for helping unlock his game
What? Clippers were 19 and 13 after the harden trade. They were 23 and 27 before the harden trade lmao. Isolating to just harden clips were 21-23 with harden and 21-17 without him.
Kawhi turned his ankle bad early on and missed 10 games, Clips went 1-9 in that stretch which sunk their record with Harden in that time. Once Kawhi came back they were playing really well with both stars before the trade request
Sure but they didnt die off at all after the harden trade. They were still on a 50 win game pace post Harden trade.
To be fair only Phil Jackson and Pat Riley has coached more than one team to a championship
Fuck Doc Rivers
The ultimate common denominator for every fanbase that had to suffer from his bullshit and his insufferable grandiose ego
It was shocking how much shit Harden got in the ECF when Mitchell was supposed to be their star player
And Mobley makes 50 million a year lol
To avg 12 points and get cooked by Scotty Barnes lol
“But he needs the ball more to unlock him.”
People are enamored with the idea of Mobley but not the reality
For all the shit people say about Harden’s defense, I don’t think as many really realize Mitchell’s is like 5x worse at minimum. Offensively he doesn’t really elevate his teammates either the way Harden does even when he’s not scoring. Mitchell also doesn’t play off-ball worth a shit compared to someone like Brunson who makes way more effort running around to get a look, fighting through screens, setting his own screens, etc. I don’t think he can be the #1 on a serious team.
tbf harden has a special talent where when he’s off it looks like way worse than others. like his lowlights look BAD
Very true, it’s a weird thing but definitely see what your saying
Mitchell is a black hole if he’s not scoring and that’s literally their main issue. In the modern NBA you can’t have a ball stopper be the main guy unless he performs. Esp if he can’t create for anyone other than himself.
It’s ridiculous. He’s not the guy anymore and hasn’t been for a while but he still always gets blamed like he’s the number one.
Ppl just hate him here and always have.
Not to mention on the Nets he wanted literally anybody else to be great but had to play through injury and Kyrie’s bs
Doc Rivers mentioned in the clip how Harden can over dribble the ball which I do agree is a very fair critque
That part is a fair critique. But saying he doesn’t allow others to be great is a fucking absurd take.
it wasn’t even true at the rockets either, he was a very willing passer with a high assist rate and when he did have absurdly high scoring usage it was usually because the alternatives were so poor due to injuries. it’s a myth that he suddenly became a playmaker overnight when he left.
Dude literally played every minute of a playoff game with a hamstring injury. Seems pretty selfless to me.
A bunch of Rockets players had career years next to Harden.
His short stint on the Nets was literally him taking a step back to let others eat
You could say he took a stepback for his costars to thrive 😄
I’m not some Harden truther but i feel like this statement severely downplays how amazing of a playmaker he is
It’s flat-out untrue. Harden took a backseat in Brooklyn and that team looked practically unbeatable when healthy. He helped Joel win an MVP in Philly. This is just Doc shitting on someone to try and remove the spotlight from his own coaching ineptitude.
He also made Clint Capela look like a star on the Rockets. Did Westbrook not put up a triple double season on the Rockets? The only time this was maybe true was when he played with Dwight Howard
That was mostly because Shaq got in Dwight’s head about being a post up player, and Kevin McHale went out of his way to draw a bunch of post ups for him. Dwight would have been much better suited as the Michael Jordan of Clint Capelas instead of his bad attempt at being a post player.
Fuck Shaq man. Had Dwight dumb ass posting up instead of being the a PNR runner. Statistically Dwight and Harden PNR was literally the most efficient play the Rockets had but Shaq got in his head and Dwight wanted to post up.
Problem is for those last seasons of all star Dwight his post up PPP was atrocious. He was regularly the least efficient big man with post ups and maintained that inefficiency even while he was on the Hawks.
You say fuck Shaq like Dwight not a grown man and made his own decision to not play to his strength
He fully unlocked Zubac in the PNR
He’s a PNR savant
This got clipped. I listened to the pod and Doc had just gotten done saying that he felt Harden’s playmaking was his biggest strength/asset, but that he moves away from it in favor of scoring first.
Everything has to be clipped for the maximum drama.
He was a huge part of Embiid winning mvp
Got Embiid sooooo many easy shots. The fact that we went that long without a playmaker is criminal
He does talk about how great of a playmaker Harden was on the podcast and how it’s his favorite part of his game, obv not defending him just saying
I mean he did say he had the best vision he’s ever seen outside rondo and Paul
In Docs defense (not defending him overall just this one point) he states he thinks Harden is a generational type playmaker that just has never been willing to lean into that fully the way he should’ve.
which is still bullshit. On the Rockets he never had the team where he didn’t have to be the number one scorer. On every team since he has taken on the role of primary playmaker and secondary scorer.
Doc even said that his playmaking is his greatest attribute in the same segment so he probably agrees with you
Worst coach to ever win a ring.
it’s a crime against basketball that this mf was voted into the 15 all-time coaches list for the league’s 75th anniversary
He so fucking lucky man. Celtics won in spite of him.
And he’s a fraudulent medical practitioner.
He’s not even a real river
That Cs team should’ve won at least one more year but this dumbass can’t coach. They won in 08 in spite of him not because of him
my favorite part of this pod is at one point doc goes on this rant about needing a closer to win rings as if he has closing out a series down to a science. the guy who’s probably blown the most amount of series he should’ve won.
Harden was seemingly great for maxey’s development and fed embiid easy buckets in his spot
Bill should do a segment where doc goes through all his blown 3-1 leads and explains why it was someone else’s fault
Ironically Bill used to have beef with Doc, but then forgot about it after the 2008 ring.
They had beef even after that. He forgot about it when he and Doc realized they could just make money together by burying the hatchet.
lmao
I can’t believe this fucker was our head coach for the past two and a half seasons. What a joke. No surprise he went straight back to podcasting.
He went on record and said he couldn’t believe they hired him either !
Worst coach I’ve ever witnessed
I was against his hiring from day 1 (actually made a post praying he wouldn’t)
Shit ass coach and shit ass person
Ego the size of Jupiter and zero accountability and humility
Harden since his Brooklyn days has always made it clear he wants to be more of an ancillary piece and it shows how he’s become more of a playmaker than a 30+ ppg scorer he was in Houston. Problem is, almost everywhere he’s gone since, he’s had moments where the game demands him to channel some of that old scoring prowess for longer stretches than he actually can.
That’s the real reason the Cavs lost. It was inevitable they were gonna lose, but they put the game on Harden way too much cause nobody else on that team wanted to meet the moment
Doc can be the only doc on the team. He dosn’t let any other team docs to be docs on the team
Doc rivers doesn’t give everybody else enough room to throw people under the bus, he is the only one that can throw people under the bus
Joel Embiid shot a worse FG% than Harden vs the Celtics btw
The annoying thing about Doc’s comments about Harden’s time in Philly, is that the only time that the 76ers were dangerous to the Celtics in the playoffs was when Harden took it back to the Houston days and started cooking.
Doc said “you could see that he wanted to go back to [his old style]…”. They should have let him because those 40 piece games were more effective than Embiid
Embiid was massively struggling with injuries in that series. The fact he was just slightly injured this year and played far better even if the Celtics are worse is support for that
No Al Horford just shut him down every gd time
Doc practices basketball malpractice
Fuck that clown
I know Harden doesn’t have a great track record, but Philly would’ve gotten swept in 23 if Harden wasn’t taking over games, even if it ended badly
Once again, this dude throws players under the bus instead of looking at himself. Clown.
No wonder he can’t coach for shit. I’m not even a fan of Harden but Rivers is fn ridiculous with his opinions.
Holy shit I’m choosing Harden in a hate battle.
I’ve been critical of harden but this is a flat out lie
Doc Rivers is a certified moron.
Doc is so full of poop. Anyone that has watched him on Philly, cavs, clippers - knows that isn’t true
Doc is full of it. Ever since he left Houston, Harden has taken a backseat and settled into a facilitator‘s role, at times to his own detriment.
Brooklyn, he lets Kyrie and KD be iso scorers while he gets the rest of the team looks.
Philly, he’s told by Doc and Morey that it’s Embiid’s team, and they want him to help Maxey grow. Harden becomes a prototypical point guard.
Clippers, he has PG, Russ, and Kawhi on the team, he just sets the table. PG and Russ leave, Norm Powell makes the all star game and Zubac looks like an elite center due to Harden’s playmaking.
Cleveland, he’s traded and 4 months later, they’re in the conference finals. The Clippers fall off and can’t even make the play-in despite Kawhi having his best offensive season in years
I think in general NBA fans just do not appreciate great playmakers. If you ask the average NBA fan they see guys like Harden and Young as absolute ball-hogs akin to Cam Thomas.
Trae Young averaged 11.6 assists a game last season passing to guys like Dyson Daniels, Caris LeVert, Terrance Mann, David Roddy, DeAndre Hunter, Mo Gueye, Georges Niang, Larry Nance Jr, & Rookie Risacher and the common narrative is still somehow that he’s a ball-hog who only jacks up shots.
At least on the Nets, Harden was unselfish and absolutely let KD be the star. If anything, he was hoping to be backseat to a championship. Easily can lead the NBA in assists any year he wanted to, he was that good with Brooklyn
If anyone would know about not letting players be great it’s Doc.
…except for the dozens and dozens of players that had career years playing with him
It really is just open season for Media to say whatever bullshit about Harden that they want isn’t it
It’s always the incompetent coaches like McHale and Rivers that criticize Harden.
The Harden hate is out of control. LeBron got people thinking you can be “that guy” in the league at 36.
this is just false, especially post-houston harden
So KD and Kyrie weren’t great when Harden was playing with them on the nets?
Doc has always been a snake. Pathetic.
I know he was young but he did win 6MOY
The thing Harden doesn’t get enough credit for is that he can pull back and change his role if necessary.
That’s bullshit, Harden was the league leader in assists in 2023
I cannot stand this guy, holy fuck.
Another chapter in Glen vs accountability
Saying this about post Houston Harden is just insane
He was a good playmaker in Houston too.
Harden has been trying to find a spot as the second option for like 5 years only to end up as the first option in every playoff run lol
Bro, hell no Glenn.
Doc “it’s everybody elses fault but mine” Rivers is doing hit pieces on his former Players now?
You can’t make this up LMAO
Check Harden’s resume doc.
I’ll take that over a coach who constantly holds back talent teams lol
Nobody throws their players under the bus quite like Doc Rivers.
A lot of players do not like Doc. James is one of them,
Mr Accountability himself
Seemed like he was great with less shots on nets.
There were moments he felt like the most serious of kd/kyrie/himself
Doc is born to be a pundit but forced to be a coach somehow. Nothing but negative takes while other coaches will fall on the sword for their guys long after they have changed teams. Kinda gotta appreciate the generational hater that is Doc Rivers
I trust Doc Rivers as far as I can throw him
Why is this controversial? Even if harden gets you easy buckets with his great passing his ball dominate nature and not getting involved in the offense at all when he doesn’t have the ball does not help a player become their best version of themselves.
Some hating shi lol
Over time I convinced myself Doc is a terrible coach and has pretty bad ideas and takes
Doc really doesnt allow his players to be great.
Dont even fuck with Harden but im not taking Glenns opinion on anything seriously unless it has to do with throat losanges
When he was with the Rockets, I could believe that to an extent. It’s definitely not the case nowadays, despite what many may want to believe.
This is also saying something about Doc… who coached him. Part of his responsibility is getting his players to buy-in and making sure they don’t have that mentality.
Why is this guy such a relentless piece of shit
I guess Doc would know best on how to not be a winner
Doc would say the same about LeBron if he coached him
The claim by Rivers is demonstrably wrong. Lets go home
Lying sack of 💩. I always think im hating on him too much, but damn if he doesn’t remind me that I dont hate him enough. he led the league in assists under you, but you wanna blame the team under performing on him? F*** y**!
Horrible coach So many superteams underachieving
Doc Rivers is an idiot, literally had his career saved only by a stacked Celtics roster and that’s the only thing on his resume since. Embiid and Maxey literally grew leaps and bounds with James as their teammate.
The most overrated coach of all time, talking about one of the most overrated players of all time is hilariously ironic.
Sounded crazy, but I get what Doc is saying. I don’t think James Harden is a selfish player. I think James Harden is a great teammate, and does accept others greatness, but I do feel like the team plays well, and James Harden plays well when the whole offense run through him. It’s like he have so much more confident when he can dictate the game. He doesn’t have to be your first option, but if the team and the players can put their trust in him then he plays better. Like earlier this year, he looks better, and played better on the Clipper when the team can knowledge that he’s the engine of the team along with Kawhi. James Harden is good when he’s the teams first and second option, but kind of fall off when there’s another second option on the team.
That’s what made Phil Jackson so great, his ability to get guys to buy in
Oh fuck off Doc