Rockets GM Daryl Morey rightfully defends James Harden on Twitter
Things seem a little stressed in Houston.
By
Zach Harper
•
2 min read
The disappointment that is the Houston Rockets this season has opened the door for them to be a meme once again. A couple years ago as the Rockets were coming together and James Harden's star was getting a brighter spotlight shined on it, his infamous defensive lapses were becoming everybody's favorite Vines and YouTube mixes. They were almost impossibly bad as he wouldn't show much effort at all on that end of the floor.
Last season, those mostly went away. The Rockets fought through injuries, became the 2-seed in the West and eventually fought their way to the conference finals. The criticism of Harden and the Rockets had died down quite a bit and everybody seemed more appreciative of a newfound effort. This season? That is all gone now.
The Rockets have struggled with effort, execution and most things that seemed to have been corrected last season. They've fired their coach and despite a bevy of talent on the roster, the Rockets are barely hanging onto the 8-seed right now. It's not how they were supposed to build on last season. Add in that Harden is once again quite Vine-worthy on the defensive end of the floor and regression has hit quite hard.
In a recent victory over the Toronto Raptors, Harden went off for 40 points, 14 assists and five rebounds. And yet, this Vine was started to get passed around because it was the "same old Harden defense."
James Harden defense (via @TheCauldron) https://t.co/3JJPiffsNZ
— SI NBA (@si_nba) March 7, 2016
That's something Daryl Morey didn't take too kindly to. Maybe some of this is the stress of a very disappointing season and maybe some of it is just sticking up for your guy when it looks like he may carry them to a playoff berth just yet. Regardless, Morey got snarky with the social media world and mockingly wanted people to focus on the standstill defense instead of the impressive numbers.
dont mess w/narrative, your focus should be on 1 possession in gm, not Harden 40/5/14 &1 of only 7 wins @TOR this yr https://t.co/cfypizmfbG
— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) March 7, 2016
The funny thing about Morey's "lashing out" at the criticism of his star player is it's not even correct criticism. While it looks like Harden is just standing and watching the offense, he's actually staying home on a strong side corner shooter. That's exactly what you're supposed to do in the most basic of help defense schemes. The help almost always rotates over from the weak side because there's more time to scramble and recover due to longer passes.
Bad defense from Harden would've been helping over enough to allow a quick pass to the strong corner for a 3-point shot. Not only is Morey's snark justified but the criticism of Harden in that respect was just weak and forced. At least Houston knows that Morey has his players' backs, except for maybe Dwight Howard who he tried to trade.
