Houston beat a pretty good (on paper) Atlanta team 109-102. James Harden lit up former Bull Kyle Korver, who started the game for Atlanta but didn't get many minutes. Harden ended up with 45 points. Omer is starting for Houston now. He's played 34 minutes a nite the first two games, and is shooting .385 from the field, 6 points, 3 TO, and 14 rebounds. He's 2-6 from the charity stripe. Last night he went 0-7 but grabbed 19 rebounds.
There was speculation among the hoops media gurus as to whether Harden, who had been the 3rd scoring option with OKC, would thrive as the #1 for the Rockets. Through 2 games, Harden leads the NBA in scoring per game by over 10ppg. Harden's clearly overwhelmed by the added defensive attention God help the league when Harden actually learns Houston's offense. Asik leads all centers in rpg. People called Houston crazy for their offseason moves. Like a fox?
Last night was impressive, but I'm still not convinced about Harden as a #1 option. Or maybe even a #2 on a true contender. Like I said before, I think he's kind of a Boozer-like player. Very solid and definitely good enough to have a real impact, but someone who needs to ride the coattails of other players to be truly successful. Asik's performance is hardly surprising. So far he's been fantastic on defense and terrible on offense. About what you'd expect.
Can't agree. I feel that I've got as good an imagination as the next guy, but I can't imagine Boozer scoring 82 points in only 2 games as Harden has. Has Boozer in his 10 NBA seasons done what Harden has done in the last two games?
Boozer's career high is 41 points in a game. He did it twice in the 2007 season, a month apart. I don't know what to make of Harden yet. He's clearly a terrific player. His role so far has been Boozer-like, since all but a couple of his games were with OKC. In the other thread, where Paxson explained why he hasn't put a 2nd superstar on the team with Rose yet - maybe he was talking about not getting Harden? Given the way the Harden deal went down, the Bulls could have packaged Taj, Mirotic, the Charlotte pick, a couple of their own 1st picks. Or a deal involving Deng (they have Durant, though) or Noah (OKC could use a center) who have similar sized contracts to KMart or what Harden turned down. Maybe the Bulls didn't sign Taj so a trade could be facilitated. Or maybe the Bulls made a call and had nothing they were willing to part with.
As an aside... Asik has a PER under 10 for the first two games. I think game 3 isn't going to help him any. Yeah, yeah. 3 games isn't anything to convince me his PER is going to remain under 10.
The Boozer we have now definitely does not have the capacity for volume scoring as the current Harden. But I don't see prime Harden being as good as prime Boozer, and I still see their careers more or less being in the same boat. If you paired prime Harden with Deron Williams would you have a perennial 50 win team? I think you'd have a 40-something win team. In Boozer's best year he finished in the top 10 in MVP voting....don't see Harden doing that either.
Is Harden the best shooting guard in the NBA? I think you could make a relatively strong argument that he is. I was never one of the people who looked to the new CBA as a mechanism to improve parity in the NBA, but I think the agreement has made things worse. Now they're are only four or five owners who are willing to spend into the tax when there were many before. What do you make of this league when the second best team self-destructs for financial reasons?
Asik's PER is 7.6. TS .353, eFG% .350, DWS .2, WS/48 -.017 But he is leading the league in rebounding.
