It’s been a short offseason, but at the same time an exciting one featuring lots of new players on a new

team. The most interesting one was Russell Westbrook was traded to the Wizards and John Wall was traded to the Rockets because it just doesn’t seem like a good fit for James Harden. If you like to have the ball in your hands for more than three seconds, then you’re not a good fit for James Harden and that is a big problem.

Nobody can take away James Harden’s scoring ability because he actually might be the best scorer in

league history. He averaged over 30 for consecutive seasons and seems to put up 40 points ever night

with no problem. The way he is scoring is a problem, however, due to his horrendous efficiency. He likes

to play iso ball all game, and how he plays will determine if the Rockets win or lose that game. Chucking

up ten contested three pointers won’t win you games as proven. His play making skills aren’t great and

at times his defense is non-existent. If he wanted to, he could be an average defender, but he doesn’t

seem to try on that end which is extremely frustrating.

James Harden has had the luxury to play with some great Hall of Fame players in his career. He’s played

with Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, and Russell Westbrook on two different occasions. Chris Paul will be a first

ballot Hall of Famer and is known for his great playmaking abilities. His job was to make life easy on

Harden and he certainly did that. Harden was the best player on that team, but everything that Paul was

doing was the biggest reason why they made it far in the playoffs. In Chris Paul’s first year, they were up

3-2 in the Western Conference Championship on the extremely stacked Warriors. Chris had an injury so

he couldn’t finish the job up, and the Warriors were able to win the final two games and eventually the

championship. They played another unsuccessful season and chemistry were bad between the two, so

they traded Chris for Russell Westbrook. Harden and Westbrook are very good friends so the trade

made some sense there, but from a basketball standpoint it made no sense. Westbrook has had the ball

in his hands as much as Harden does, and there is only one ball that is used during the game. It also

doesn’t help that Westbrook can’t shoot unlike Chris Paul, so playing off-ball would be tough for him. It

was one of the Rockets worst seasons as they finished as the four seed and played the Thunder in the

first. The Thunder were a very underrated team, but had nowhere near enough talent to handle the

Rockets, but it came down to the final shot in game seven. The Rockets played the eventual champions

in the next round, the Los Angeles Lakers and got destroyed 4-1. Some players were unhappy and

Westbrook was eventually traded for John Wall. May the cycle continue.

The Rockets can continue to change their point guard every year, but it has shown that it won’t change

the outcome of the team. If someone needs to go, it should be James Harden and it needs to be soon

while he’s still in his prime. If James Harden stays the next season, expect another decent regular season

and then a choke in the playoffs, because he couldn’t get it done.