Ya’ll are saying we just fleeced them but I say we just fleeced ourselves. We just gave 2 elite defenders who put up decent threes and wanted to give their hearts on the floor for this team. For Harden. We just got way too small, lost a big chunk of our depth and an even bigger chunk of our defense believe it or not, without looking at stats I can tell you these guys were the shot blockers for our team besides Zu and I can for sure say they were bigger than Zu at times. Won’t even talk about steals. So before all of you starstruck fans get happy, get down to the ground because unless harden gives me 2 steals per game and PJ gives me 2 blocks per game and 2-3 threes per game, I’m not hyped. I know we all got different feelings about this, but for me this is the first L that L Frank takes in a while. This was unneeded and it will take Harden a ton + a signed contract next year to prove me wrong. I don’t believe this beard guy and I never wanted him on my team so rn I’m not going to be watching these games with joy. The first three games, I was so happy, I couldn’t wait for the games to start, we were perfect as a team for the first time, we had everything, now we have guards who need the ball in their hand. I can see locker room problems coming with this guy, Harden is a guy who judges a lot, so I could imagine shit happening with maybe like Bones and him. TLDR: I fucking hope I’m wrong and Harden better make more points than we are going to give out defensively and by losing rebounds in our paint, which was 30 before he came, you can imagine this number about to get higher. Fuck man, I was finally happy with my team…
It all evens out.
Sure - on paper we’ve become a bit less balanced when it comes to our depth but we won’t need those 2/3 threes from Batum anymore because James Harden makes like 5 of them per game - but what Harden gives us that Batum doesn’t on offense is ability to get 10+assists every game (his averages for last year prove that)
Look at it this way
What does RoCo and Batum give us?You said around 4 combined blocks and maybe 2/3 combined threes a game. And that’s basically it - good defense that directly saves us around 8 pts (no one is blocking threes) and around 10 combined points on offense (on a good day)
What we get back is a guy who averages 20ppg and 11ast. You see how it all balances out?
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But there’s a completely different angle that you missed which is…, Mr. Terance “untouchable” Mann.
The team we’ve seen to start the season is not what Ty Lue envisioned.His idea for this team was TMann starting, RoCo from the bench - which makes Nico in this scenario a benchwarmer.
With this trade we’ve basically replaced RoCo with James Harden and Nico (who wouldn’t really see the floor) with PJ Tucker (who also probably won’t see much playing time).We’ve pushed TMann back to the bench. And our starting 5 got a 20ppg/11ast player calling the shots.
Even when I’m typing it all up I cannot believe we got James Harden without losing any of TMann, Norm or Bones.
We got significantly better and there’s no other way to look at it.
We went from a lineup of:RW/PG/Kawhi/TMann/ZuBones/Norm/RoCo/Nico/PlumGod
To a lineup of:RW/Harden/PG/Kawhi/ZuBones/Norm/TMann/Tucker/PlumGod
You see? This is a W and there’s no other way to look at it!
Spot on . Hundred percent agreed with this. Ok top of that harden is a locker room canceer and team chemistry killer.
No team can win a chip with harden.