I miss Ben

22 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

I miss Ben

how about now?

3 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

how about now?

Harden isn't going to put up more than about 20 save for a one off event once or twice but he's 50x better in the playoffs then Ben.  Ben is a regular season fast court break junkie whose only chance to play in the 4th quarter of a playoff game is a a D specialist rotating out anytime the clock stops and his team has the ball.

So I said during the Raptors series that I thought the Sixers would either lose to Toronto or they’d make it through to the conference final.
 

Of course, I didn’t expect that Embiid would miss the first two games against Miami, but I just thought the Sixers matched up way better against the Heat than the Raptors. I think we are seeing that right now.
 

Miami is a good team obviously, but I think with Embiid in the lineup it’s a tough matchup for that team. 
 

I say if the Sixers can steal game 5 in Miami, they’ll close it out in 6. If not, Sixers in 7. 

1 hour ago, DrPhilly said:

Harden isn't going to put up more than about 20 save for a one off event once or twice but he's 50x better in the playoffs then Ben.  Ben is a regular season fast court break junkie whose only chance to play in the 4th quarter of a playoff game is a a D specialist rotating out anytime the clock stops and his team has the ball.

This was Harden’s best game as a Sixer, other than a few bad turnovers. He’s not the player he was of course, but he’s still a far better PG for the playoffs than Ben was.  Put this version of Harden on the team instead of Ben last year and they definitely beat the hawks, then who knows what happens in the conference final. 
 

I still don’t think I’d give Harden that big max contract at his age, but for now he’s at least a competent player in a playoff series unlike the dude he replaced. 

1 hour ago, nipples said:

This was Harden’s best game as a Sixer, other than a few bad turnovers. He’s not the player he was of course, but he’s still a far better PG for the playoffs than Ben was.  Put this version of Harden on the team instead of Ben last year and they definitely beat the hawks, then who knows what happens in the conference final. 
 

I still don’t think I’d give Harden that big max contract at his age, but for now he’s at least a competent player in a playoff series unlike the dude he replaced. 

Yep. I wrote about it earlier but give me two years of Harden and not at a max contract. He will learn to be that complimentary player to Maxey and Embiid. Together with Harris they have the nucleus to contend. Maybe this year but probably the next two thru addressing the bench. 

harden was great but just imagine what haliburton would've done!   

 

 

56 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Yep. I wrote about it earlier but give me two years of Harden and not at a max contract. He will learn to be that complimentary player to Maxey and Embiid. Together with Harris they have the nucleus to contend. Maybe this year but probably the next two thru addressing the bench. 

Do you guys think it's possible that Harden is in a transitional phase of his career now and that he could still become a better player than he is now by becoming what Chris Paul currently is? It feels like he's dropped from a 90% player to a 70% player but could take it back up to 80/85% in a different role, by learning how to perfect the art of making the stars on your team look great.

1 minute ago, iladelphxx said:

 

 

meh, no surprise here really. this should fire embiid up even more as he goes for some different hardware. 

3 minutes ago, iladelphxx said:

 

 

That's ridiculous and just not right.  Not a shock....but still BS.  

embiid will never win an mvp unless he can improve his VORP! 

17 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

meh, no surprise here really. this should fire embiid up even more as he goes for some different hardware. 

Just have to hope it doesn't bring out mopy embiid. That alter ego exists and we haven't seen it yet this season. 

3 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

Just have to hope it doesn't bring out mopy embiid. That alter ego exists and we haven't seen it yet this season. 

true, i'm just hoping that embiid is a thing of the past. 

He can still win MVP of the Finals. 

5 minutes ago, Khani1 said:

He can still win MVP of the Finals. 

Nah - he's not a good enough passer  

1 hour ago, bbabraham said:

Do you guys think it's possible that Harden is in a transitional phase of his career now and that he could still become a better player than he is now by becoming what Chris Paul currently is? It feels like he's dropped from a 90% player to a 70% player but could take it back up to 80/85% in a different role, by learning how to perfect the art of making the stars on your team look great.

Certainly there is a chance. Plenty of players in all sports have extended their careers by adjusting their games   I don’t know enough about Harden to know if he is mentally prepared to do that but I would think he is good enough physically to get a couple of years out of an adjustment. 

2 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Certainly there is a chance. Plenty of players in all sports have extended their careers by adjusting their games   I don’t know enough about Harden to know if he is mentally prepared to do that but I would think he is good enough physically to get a couple of years out of an adjustment. 

I think it's been pretty clear that he's willing to embrace a support role. I think he'd even showed that in Brooklyn already. Hopefully it's just a case of time to perfect that role.

BS, but the analytics nerds won out. Funny how every current player who has said anything about the MVP has said it’s Embiid. 
 

Oh well, hopefully this just makes him even more determined to dominate. Go get finals MVP. 

MVP voting has been a joke for a long ass time. That's why I never cared about it. 

2 hours ago, bbabraham said:

Do you guys think it's possible that Harden is in a transitional phase of his career now and that he could still become a better player than he is now by becoming what Chris Paul currently is? It feels like he's dropped from a 90% player to a 70% player but could take it back up to 80/85% in a different role, by learning how to perfect the art of making the stars on your team look great.

CP3 is the last of the dying breed of traditional PGs and one of the greatest to do it so that is a pretty big leap 

Now if Harden wants to talk to CP3 about changing his diet and taking care of his body then sure. 

56 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

CP3 is the last of the dying breed of traditional PGs and one of the greatest to do it so that is a pretty big leap 

Now if Harden wants to talk to CP3 about changing his diet and taking care of his body then sure. 

Yea one of the talking heads talked about how Magic Johnson was great at getting everyone involved and keeping everyone hot, that is what a true PG can do and I see that in CP3. I can't think of any of the current crop of stars as true PGs. Most if not all are really SGs masquerading as PGs