**OFFICIAL 2019 NBA OFFSEASON THREAD**

[Tony $now]

Perk turning into straight twitter fingers out here

Love to see it
Perk, Stak and all the other tough guys need to go home and be family men. The I’m tougher than you on a basketball court is corny. Like who’s really going to fight mid game.

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

Steph is so tough when he's front running. Can't wait to see him get humbled AGAIN.

 

[lawdog1]

INFLUENCE

Why Kids Want to Be James Harden The stepback 3-pointer is the next big thing in youth basketball. The players love it. And their coaches hate it.

By Ben Cohen, Aug 6, 2019

Brooklyn Nets guard Joe Harris has spent part of his summer for the last five years hosting a camp for youth basketball players, and he’s learned that being around kids all day is a useful way of understanding the recent history and the inevitable future of his sport.

“In those five years,” he said, “it’s been crazy to me to see how these kids play.”

The first crazy thing he noticed was the number of 3-pointers they were taking. The next crazy thing was that they would come to the gym and begin their warmups from behind the 3-point line, which is something that not even Harris does, and he’s the league’s reigning leader in 3-point shooting percentage. But what he saw this summer was the craziest thing yet.

The kids weren’t just taking 3-pointers. They were taking stepback 3-pointers.


“Everyone wants to be like James Harden,” Harris said.

This seems to make as much sense as trying to grow a beard like Harden’s. His stepback 3-pointer is a bit like his magnificent facial hair: It requires patience, years of practice and even then almost nobody will be able to look like him.

That’s because the shot he’s mastered could very well be the most deranged shot in basketball. Harden makes the stepback 3-pointer look effortless. It’s not. It’s a shot that’s too physically demanding for almost everyone else in the league.

But not even the fact that their favorite NBA players won’t try stepback 3-pointers is enough to deter this generation of youth basketball players.

“The stepback three, in my opinion, has become a problem,” said Allen Skeens, the coach of an elite youth team in Kansas.

This problem will be on full display when the best 13- and 14-year-old boys and girls teams around the world convene this week for the Jr. NBA Global Championship. This celebration of youth basketball might as well be called Hardenpalooza. LeBron James and Stephen Curry are the most popular players among the kids at the tournament, according to NBA data, but Curry and Harden are the most influential. They are responsible for the biggest shifts in human behavior on the basketball court over the last five years.

It took the adults in the world of youth basketball several years to get used to the avalanche of 3-pointers that roiled the sport. Now they’re trying to wrap their minds around the sudden prevalence of stepback threes.

The stepback three is Harden’s highly unorthodox way of creating enough space to shoot more 3-pointers than anyone the game has ever seen. It requires him to do something counterintuitive: step away from the basket. He’s strong enough to shoot with his body pulling him in another direction. The average 12-year-old boy is not.

In that way Harden’s stepback three is more like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook than Allen Iverson’s crossover or Michael Jordan’s fadeaway jumper. Not everyone who practices it can perfect it. And the great majority of them will look ridiculous trying.

Skeens knows how to have success at this level: His team won the Jr. NBA boys championship last year. But he’s puzzled when he sees other coaches encourage their young players to shoot stepback 3-pointers. He says there’s a good reason that he makes sure his team doesn’t practice this particular shot.

“It’s not a good shot,” he said. “You’re just throwing a ball if you’re 12 years old. You can’t shoot the ball that far.”

As the coach of a youth team in Texas, Aaron Espinosa is used to the odd sight of a stepback 3-pointer, and he’s come to realize there is almost nothing he can do about it. “I get on them all the time,” he said. If one of his players happens to make a stepback 3-pointer, he immediately lets that player know he’s coming out of the game when he misses one. “That’s a bad shot,” Espinosa said, “and I don’t want to reinforce bad shots.”

But the issue is that it’s not a bad shot for Harden. He took a staggering 540 stepback threes last year—more than the total number of 3-point attempts of all but 11 players last season—and he still made 38.9% of them. That return of 1.17 points per shot made this highly inefficient shot more efficient for Harden than the most efficient offense in the history of the NBA.

Whether or not to imitate Harden is an especially tricky issue in China, the home of Yao Ming, who gave the country with the world’s biggest population a compelling reason to root for a team in Houston. Yang Xing, the coach of the Chinese boys team at the Jr. NBA championships, said through a translator that he discourages his players from taking stepback 3-pointers, even if that happens to be the signature move of the Rockets’ star player.

Other coaches have decided to meet their players in the middle. Craig Stratford has kids from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam on his Asia Pacific team, and he doesn’t mind when they pretend to be Harden. He just doesn’t want them practicing their stepback and sidesteps from behind the 3-point line. “We actually use it more from the mid-range,” he said.

James Harden himself is helping to breed this army of miniature clones. The young players at his camp this summer went home with autographs, photos and the graduate degree known as the “exclusive James Harden signature move certification.”

“These young kids, they’re learning very fast,” Harden said last season. “They’re on Instagram. They’re watching basketball. And they’re going out working on this move. It’ll be a normal move very soon.”

A future with players dribbling out the shot clock and launching stepback 3-pointers (and maybe even traveling along the way) like Harden sounds like a bleak dystopia to some NBA executives. The way the Rockets play is the New Jersey Turnpike of offense: as ugly as it is effective. It works for them only because they have Harden. But the history of basketball suggests that innovations are sneered at until they slowly become acceptable. “Hopefully the move that I’m doing, the stepback and the way that I create space, is ahead of its time,” Harden said.

The players at the Jr. NBA Global Championships are the ones who are going to determine how basketball looks a decade from now. And it might not be long before doing their best impressions of Harden means they’re flaunting another, more inventive move.

“You’ve got to find ways of creating an advantage every single year, and that’s what I’m doing,” Harden said earlier this summer. “I’m going to come up with something more creative.”

Link
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-kids-want-to-be-james-harden-11565100311


This is facts though. 2 years ago it was kids doing jelly layups during warmups that got me.

So. Many. Words.

 

[JPS]

Duality implies there's internal conflict. There is no conflict with me. Bron is a clown he will always be one to me. He's on the clock. He mortgaged our future for a last ditch effort to win, get it done (that's what the self proclaimed GOAT is supposed to do). If not the wrath is coming.

The Lakers success will ultimately hinge on AD becoming the best player in the world this season.

Bron the best player on the lakers since Shaq. Get over yourself tbh

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

No way in hell I'mma read that many words about harden. But I do have a confession to make. The other day I tried to watch some harden highlights with an open mind. I went in with a blank slate and about 45 seconds in I was quickly reminded why I hate watching him play. The way he sticks his forearm out everytime he drives. The constant flopping especially on 3 pointers. The excessive dribbling. The way he completely avoids 30% of the court on offense. The redundancy of every shot attempt. Everything he does revolves around trying to cheat the system instead of just hooping.

Said all that to say, the last thing the game needs is more James hardens. Men, father your sons. Put a stop to this before it becomes a virus

 

[dman14]

No different from kids over dribbling trying to be like iverson, fade like mj, dream shake, or launching from deep like steph

 

[MVP]

Bron the best player on the lakers since Shaq. Get over yourself tbh

Whatever faux Laker fan

 

[VARNELL HILL]

LeBron James and Stephen Curry are the most popular players among the kids at the tournament, according to NBA data, but Curry and Harden are the most influential. They are responsible for the biggest shifts in human behavior on the basketball court over the last five years.

 

[buc em]

Euphoria

 

[freeze]

@ Perk switching up on KD and on Twitter of all places

It be ya own *****s

I'm in tears

I can't believe this happened and I'm loving every second.

 

[air jsarg]

No way in hell I'mma read that many words about harden. But I do have a confession to make. The other day I tried to watch some harden highlights with an open mind. I went in with a blank slate and about 45 seconds in I was quickly reminded why I hate watching him play. The way he sticks his forearm out everytime he drives. The constant flopping especially on 3 pointers. The excessive dribbling. The way he completely avoids 30% of the court on offense. The redundancy of every shot attempt. Everything he does revolves around trying to cheat the system instead of just hooping.

Said all that to say, the last thing the game needs is more James hardens. Men, father your sons. Put a stop to this before it becomes a virus

This right here.

And I am actually impressed how Harden can do the things he does for an entire game. Doing a stepback 3 is freaking tiring to perform repeatedly, on top of that he drives and so forth. And as impressive as his conditioning is, it still doesn't produce an inspiring type of play that makes you want to emulate him as a basketball player.

One observation off the top of my head - I don't think I see him move without the ball, like literally ever, and i'm almost positive it's because he's using the time he doesn't have the ball to rest. Which would be somewhat excusable if it was something out of necessity, however it's merely a result of his irrational offense and over-use of extreme isolation ball.

 

[HOU$TON]

No way in hell I'mma read that many words about harden. But I do have a confession to make. The other day I tried to watch some harden highlights with an open mind. I went in with a blank slate and about 45 seconds in I was quickly reminded why I hate watching him play. The way he sticks his forearm out everytime he drives. The constant flopping especially on 3 pointers. The excessive dribbling. The way he completely avoids 30% of the court on offense. The redundancy of every shot attempt. Everything he does revolves around trying to cheat the system instead of just hooping.

Said all that to say, the last thing the game needs is more James hardens. Men, father your sons. Put a stop to this before it becomes a virus

Which highlights did you watch? Here’s a few I recommend..

 

[HOU$TON]

INFLUENCE

Why Kids Want to Be James Harden The stepback 3-pointer is the next big thing in youth basketball. The players love it. And their coaches hate it.

By Ben Cohen, Aug 6, 2019

Brooklyn Nets guard Joe Harris has spent part of his summer for the last five years hosting a camp for youth basketball players, and he’s learned that being around kids all day is a useful way of understanding the recent history and the inevitable future of his sport.

“In those five years,” he said, “it’s been crazy to me to see how these kids play.”

The first crazy thing he noticed was the number of 3-pointers they were taking. The next crazy thing was that they would come to the gym and begin their warmups from behind the 3-point line, which is something that not even Harris does, and he’s the league’s reigning leader in 3-point shooting percentage. But what he saw this summer was the craziest thing yet.

The kids weren’t just taking 3-pointers. They were taking stepback 3-pointers.


“Everyone wants to be like James Harden,” Harris said.

This seems to make as much sense as trying to grow a beard like Harden’s. His stepback 3-pointer is a bit like his magnificent facial hair: It requires patience, years of practice and even then almost nobody will be able to look like him.

That’s because the shot he’s mastered could very well be the most deranged shot in basketball. Harden makes the stepback 3-pointer look effortless. It’s not. It’s a shot that’s too physically demanding for almost everyone else in the league.

But not even the fact that their favorite NBA players won’t try stepback 3-pointers is enough to deter this generation of youth basketball players.

“The stepback three, in my opinion, has become a problem,” said Allen Skeens, the coach of an elite youth team in Kansas.

This problem will be on full display when the best 13- and 14-year-old boys and girls teams around the world convene this week for the Jr. NBA Global Championship. This celebration of youth basketball might as well be called Hardenpalooza. LeBron James and Stephen Curry are the most popular players among the kids at the tournament, according to NBA data, but Curry and Harden are the most influential. They are responsible for the biggest shifts in human behavior on the basketball court over the last five years.

It took the adults in the world of youth basketball several years to get used to the avalanche of 3-pointers that roiled the sport. Now they’re trying to wrap their minds around the sudden prevalence of stepback threes.

The stepback three is Harden’s highly unorthodox way of creating enough space to shoot more 3-pointers than anyone the game has ever seen. It requires him to do something counterintuitive: step away from the basket. He’s strong enough to shoot with his body pulling him in another direction. The average 12-year-old boy is not.

In that way Harden’s stepback three is more like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook than Allen Iverson’s crossover or Michael Jordan’s fadeaway jumper. Not everyone who practices it can perfect it. And the great majority of them will look ridiculous trying.

Skeens knows how to have success at this level: His team won the Jr. NBA boys championship last year. But he’s puzzled when he sees other coaches encourage their young players to shoot stepback 3-pointers. He says there’s a good reason that he makes sure his team doesn’t practice this particular shot.

“It’s not a good shot,” he said. “You’re just throwing a ball if you’re 12 years old. You can’t shoot the ball that far.”

As the coach of a youth team in Texas, Aaron Espinosa is used to the odd sight of a stepback 3-pointer, and he’s come to realize there is almost nothing he can do about it. “I get on them all the time,” he said. If one of his players happens to make a stepback 3-pointer, he immediately lets that player know he’s coming out of the game when he misses one. “That’s a bad shot,” Espinosa said, “and I don’t want to reinforce bad shots.”

But the issue is that it’s not a bad shot for Harden. He took a staggering 540 stepback threes last year—more than the total number of 3-point attempts of all but 11 players last season—and he still made 38.9% of them. That return of 1.17 points per shot made this highly inefficient shot more efficient for Harden than the most efficient offense in the history of the NBA.

Whether or not to imitate Harden is an especially tricky issue in China, the home of Yao Ming, who gave the country with the world’s biggest population a compelling reason to root for a team in Houston. Yang Xing, the coach of the Chinese boys team at the Jr. NBA championships, said through a translator that he discourages his players from taking stepback 3-pointers, even if that happens to be the signature move of the Rockets’ star player.

Other coaches have decided to meet their players in the middle. Craig Stratford has kids from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam on his Asia Pacific team, and he doesn’t mind when they pretend to be Harden. He just doesn’t want them practicing their stepback and sidesteps from behind the 3-point line. “We actually use it more from the mid-range,” he said.

James Harden himself is helping to breed this army of miniature clones. The young players at his camp this summer went home with autographs, photos and the graduate degree known as the “exclusive James Harden signature move certification.”

“These young kids, they’re learning very fast,” Harden said last season. “They’re on Instagram. They’re watching basketball. And they’re going out working on this move. It’ll be a normal move very soon.”

A future with players dribbling out the shot clock and launching stepback 3-pointers (and maybe even traveling along the way) like Harden sounds like a bleak dystopia to some NBA executives. The way the Rockets play is the New Jersey Turnpike of offense: as ugly as it is effective. It works for them only because they have Harden. But the history of basketball suggests that innovations are sneered at until they slowly become acceptable. “Hopefully the move that I’m doing, the stepback and the way that I create space, is ahead of its time,” Harden said.

The players at the Jr. NBA Global Championships are the ones who are going to determine how basketball looks a decade from now. And it might not be long before doing their best impressions of Harden means they’re flaunting another, more inventive move.

“You’ve got to find ways of creating an advantage every single year, and that’s what I’m doing,” Harden said earlier this summer. “I’m going to come up with something more creative.”

Link
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-kids-want-to-be-james-harden-11565100311


This is facts though. 2 years ago it was kids doing jelly layups during warmups that got me.

#Influence
Best offensive player in the game

 

[monstar]

I'd love to see how effective harden is in FIBA play honestly.

Travel is getting called hand check is present and weak side defender can sit in the lane.

 

[pums]

He averaged 36 a game and people still act like his scoring is a gimmick and one dimensional.

His scoring and offense is layers and layers of skill and technique.

 

[freeze]

I'd love to see how effective harden is in FIBA play honestly.

Travel is getting called hand check is present and weak side defender can sit in the lane.

Plot twist....he pulled out for this exact reason.

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

I'd love to see how effective harden is in FIBA play honestly.

Travel is getting called hand check is present and weak side defender can sit in the lane.

He already did and it was borderline disgusting to watch, specifically talking about 2014 World Cup fished for fouls constantly. Effective af tho

 

[MajinZuub]

Honestly the players that are getting sent for FIBA are a pretty good fit, people are sleeping, which is crazy to say for USA basketball

 

[monstar]

He averaged 36 a game and people still act like his scoring is a gimmick and one dimensional.

His scoring and offense is layers and layers of skill and technique.

I agree. If you hoop you realize, what he is doing on the court is not an easy thing to do and very few can do this. I just think if you bring hand checking back and make him see a help side defender waiting for him it changes his game big time.

I need defensive 3 seconds to go

 

[shotsrangout]

He averaged 36 a game and people still act like his scoring is a gimmick and one dimensional.

His scoring and offense is layers and layers of skill and technique.

he’s an offensive genius. just start ignoring dudes who talk nonsense.

 

[antidope]

I said James Harden changed basketball forever and people ITT laughed lol.

 

[buc em]

Nobody has said Harden isn’t highly skilled. But he manipulates the rules unlike any player in any sport I can ever think of. Disgusting as hell to watch most of the time.

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

He averaged 36 a game and people still act like his scoring is a gimmick and one dimensional.

His scoring and offense is layers and layers of skill and technique.

I hate when people say stuff like this as if they're watching a different game that nobody else can comprehend . His scoring is a gimmick and one dimensional, that's why he always gets shutdown in the playoffs. Now watch somebody bring up the handful of great playoff games he's had like that's the rule and not the exception. The 'layers' to his game involve things like flopping on 3 pointers to discourage the defense from contesting. That's his version of chess.

 

[buc em]

freeze @bballkid11 whose mans is this?

 

[antidope]

Hall of fame lol. That guy has zero chance.