He needs to be a glue guy, Harden is the sytsem
The only way this team succeeds is if Harden runs the offense and leads the team in usage. He should lead the team in assists and points. Harden is USELESS off ball. On ball he gets everyone involved driving the lane coming off the pnr, defense comes to help and he finishes, gets fouled, or kicks it to an open shooter.
So far he hasn’t been able to get in a rhythm. He’s not even being played as a point guard. Plays most possessions off ball watching Kawhi chuck from the post or turn it over when the double team comes. There’s no structure to our offense, everyone is just randomly taking turns to go iso. When Harden gets it, other guys don’t know how to play off ball, nobody is in the corner.
Harden is the opposite of getting everyone involved. He plays with the LeBron James “Go stand over there while I drive and kick” playstyle. Russ did a lot of this during his OKC tenure, but since then he’s learned to be a more effective off ball player and has always been good sharing the rock with other stars, albeit while historically having a higher usage (not so much the last few years though)
He does need to be more aggressive, but he also needs to learn how to fit in. Or he needs to play off the bench.
Our stars need to build rhythm and he does not help with that.