It appears that the majority of NBA players want the season to resume sooner than later, but not all of them feel that way.
The longer the layoff goes, the more difficult it will be for players to just “flip the switch” and get back into game shape. It could be even more difficult for veteran players, as they’re not really built to transition back and forth so quickly. Younger players, however, are more suited to react to change on the fly, with their bodies cooperating, and responding well.
But not everyone is prioritizing time before everyone else, apparently.
Rockets superstar James Harden doesn’t want to play games until the coronavirus has “calmed all the way down,” which he told CNBC’s Jabari Young.
“I want it to be safe,” said Harden when asked about returning. “I want it to be entertaining for the fans and players to get out there and compete. As soon as we can get this ramped up, I’m ready to go. I feel like the majority of the players feel the same way.
He did add that he isn’t comfortable playing until the pandemic has “calmed all the way down,” and we commend Harden for putting the safety of himself and others before money. However, that may not happen until 2021, when there’s a vaccine, so by that logic, the NBA would need to cancel the 2019-20 season for Harden to feel comfortable. SHARE TWEET EMAIL
With each passing day, there is a new development between NBA players and owners, with both sides working on resuming the 2019-2020 season. And on Monday, some of the league’s biggest stars came together for a conference call to help provide a united front for the players in their quest to finish what they started. Yahoo Sources: […]
With each passing day, there is a new development between NBA players and owners, with both sides working on resuming the 2019-2020 season.
And on Monday, some of the league’s biggest stars came together for a conference call to help provide a united front for the players in their quest to finish what they started.Chris Haynes✔@ChrisBHaynes
The call featured Chris Paul, the President of the National Basketball Players Association, as well as former league MVPs LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
But there was one noticeable omission that immediately caught the eyes of fans and pundits alike.
There hasn’t been any explanation for why 6-time All-NBA performer and 2018 NBA MVP James Harden wasn’t on the conference call, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation, with some wondering if he was excluded due to his rocky relationship with Paul, his former teammate in Houston.
The two played together from 2017-2019, and their first season together produced a league-best 66 wins and a trip to the Western Conference Finals, where they would lose in seven games to the eventual champion Golden State Warriors.
After an injury-riddled second season in Houston, in which Paul would miss 24 games, the Rockets would once again be eliminated by the Warriors, this time in six games in the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals.
In the postgame press conference after Game 6, Harden alluded to changes that needed to be made to the roster.
Today’s NBA has drawn criticism from older generations for a lack of heated rivalries. Now, players form close friendships with other guys in the league, so it’s rare to see players really go at it with one another with genuine hatred fueling competition. There might still be a place for that with James Harden and…
James Harden and Russell Westbrook made headlines Tuesday, but not for what you’d expect. The two Houston Rockets stars were unveiled as GQ’s newest cover stars. Harden and Westbrook grace the magazine’s cover as the “most stylish duo sports.” The two All-Stars paid homage to the hip hop group OutKast in the photo shoot. For…
James Harden scored 41 points, including 22 in the first quarter, to lead the Houston Rockets over Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks 122-115 on Wednesday night. Harden had 10 assists and 10 rebounds for his second straight triple-double. Young had 42 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. He and Harden are the first players […]
(14-7) HOUSTON ROCKETS, 119 VS. (15-6) TORONTO RAPTORS, 109 SCOTIABANK ARENA THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019
TORONTO RAPTORS QUOTES
NICK NURSE (HEAD COACH)
On the amount of threes Houston took… I think that we gave up a couple too many. I think there is a twenty number there and there was a couple of crucial ones and things like that. But I don’t think we played offence well enough. I thought we missed open shots, we just didn’t shoot it very well on the back end. We had a few careless possessions where they scored in transition so it really had nothing to do with the double teams or the offensive rebounding. I think the transition defence hurt us, they did a good job of capitalizing whenever we turned it over and I just think we didn’t play offence well enough either. We didn’t shoot well enough and we didn’t play it well enough.
Is it players not moving on offence? It was just us not being as sharp as we needed to be versus the switching. We really gave in to the switching and when you are switching all over the floor you are trying to keep the ball in front of you and when they would make a switch we would make a six or seven dribbles with the same player. That is falling right into what they want you to do. They load up the rest of players and you are playing one on one and you are not getting as good of looks. Then we always say keep playing, just keep playing through the switches, and don’t react to the switches. We have to be better at that. We are normally better than that offensively.
On Pascal Siakam’s aggressiveness… I think again this is a little bit of a learning work in progress with him, about what is going on each night, what coverages he is seeing, where help is coming from etcetera. I think you need to make your moves and be aggressive but when there are more bodies there you got to be able to find the next play out. I think he knows where his spots are and I think he would probably be the first one to say he probably outside of his spots where he was, makes that spin move and he is not quite to where he wants to be. Well, those probably have to go out, but again it’s a little bit of a learning process and finding those things and we got to be good to get the spacing right, the relocation right and all that stuff so he does have an outlet and space to operate in.
PASCAL SIAKAM (24 points, nine rebounds)
Were you satisfied with how aggressive you were offensively tonight?
I think I did a decent job early on. I got into it a little bit, with the fouls and I felt like, maybe it was fouls, but I have to find a way to not let that take me out of my game or out of rhythm, and just continue to play. But I think early on I was aggressive enough, got a couple of fouls, but I think I did a decent job, you know maybe out there in the fourth quarter finding other ways to score and attack better. I think overall I’m pretty satisfied with what we did. We didn’t play as well, we were banking on them not making shots and they did, so you are going to take that and that was the game plan. Maybe we could have executed a little better, but we will take that.
On double-teaming Harden as much you did… At the end of the day you have to give something up. If we doubled Harden that means someone is going to be open and like I said, we were banking on them not making those shots and they did. I don’t know if you are happy with the result, but that’s what you want to give up; you are going to take that.
FRED VANVLEET (20 points, six rebounds, five assists) On the risk versus reward of doubling Harden…
I thought we did a pretty good job on executing our game plan. I don’t think you make that gamble expecting them to shoot 40 percent and make 22, so give those guys credit, they knocked down shots. That’s what we came up with before the game and you just try to go out there and execute the game plan to the best of your ability. I thought we could have flew around a little bit more, chased down some rebounds to be perfect in it, but for the most part we did a pretty good job. I just thought our offence got stalled out at times and didn’t really help us as much. What did they score, 120 or 119? We would have needed to score a bit more and make some more shots and that’s the game, you roll the dice sometimes and sometimes you lose.
KYLE LOWRY (19 points, five rebounds, eight assists)
On the defensive game plan tonight… I’m not happy we lost the game. At the end of the day, coach and coaching staff put this game plan in and we followed it. We took a chance and we believed in it as players, and they made shots. Ben McLemore eight threes, PJ Tucker, five. Those guys made shots and made threes.
On taking a few games to integrate players back into lineup… You do have a full team and you get guys back. I know people say this, that and the other, but you have to have a full team. When you get everybody healthy, everyone has to find themselves again. It takes time and you know two games, we are 15-6 and I’m sure the world, the earth, is not falling right now, so we are just going to get better and worry about ourselves and continue to get better.
HOUSTON ROCKETS QUOTES
MIKE D’ANTONI (HEAD COACH)
Did you expect them to come out of that (double team of James Harden) to take something else away? They’re known to change up, I didn’t know what they were going to do, triangle and two, box and one, whatever. But the other guys stepped up and James (Harden) is more than happy to just draw the double team. Other than Russ (Russell Westbrook) and James, we took 40 threes and made 19 of them. That’s what you’ve got to do, is wide open shots just knock them down. We put up 119 with James only having 23, so that’s good.
On James contributing defensively as well…
He’s one of our better defenders. A post defender, he’s one of the best in the league and then when he’s on somebody he wants to stop, he carries such a burden sometimes he has lapses as anybody who gets tired would, but he’s a very good defender. He did it tonight, he took the challenge.
DANUEL HOUSE JR. (16 points, three assists)
On Toronto’s defense… We were just trying to find the best open shot. It didn’t matter who took the open shot, we just wanted to make sure that we were all contributing and making the right basketball play to help us win.
Did it surprise you that Toronto stuck with that defense all game? Yeah. After guys start hitting a few shots usually coaches change their defensive scheme. I guess they felt like we were going to cool down, but when you’re giving guys – NBA pros – open looks like that, especially with the amount of time we had, guys are going to knock it down all night.
JAMES HARDEN (23 points, seven rebounds, three assists, five steals)
How much better do you feel the team is at executing against some of these defenses? We’re good. We’re good, especially when we are making shots. We’ve seen so many different defenses throughout the course of the year. Tonight was the first time seeing this defense, but guys did an unbelievable job of moving their bodies and being ready to shoot.
With that many corner threes did you think they were going to change their defensive scheme? I don’t know what they were thinking, but they did a really good job of packing the paint. Even without that defense they are one of the top three in paint points, so we knew we were going to have open threes.
Did you expect to see the blitz for 48 minutes? Nope, and I’ve been seeing it all year long, all year long. All year long I’ve been seeing it, so nothing changed that’s why it was no surprise. That’s why we were able to capitalize like we did. If teams want to go at us like that, it’s opportunities for guys to step up, which I think everybody did.
