NBA Rumors: Houston Rockets' James Harden Disappoints In Defense; Dwight Howard, Donatas Motiejunas Want Ty Lawson Out

Dec 04, 2015 01:53 PM EST

The Houston Rockets have been experiencing a turbulent start of the NBA season. With high expectations from 2014 MVP runner-up James Harden, fans and followers of the basketball team went through disappointing first games. The Beard has been described as an inconsistent player in the Houston Rockets roster - an observation that presumably carried over to the rest of the NBA team. Apart from the lackluster performance of Khloe Kardashian's boyfriend, the entry of Ty Lawson to the Dwight Howard squad proved to be unsatisfactory as well.

"Remember when James Harden had supposedly vastly improved his defense last season?" asked Des Bieler of the Washington Post. The sports analyst added, "Which is to say, the Houston Rockets guard went from terrible to not-quite-as-terrible? Yeah, those days appear to be over. Except that now, Harden seems to have gone from 'terrible' to 'thoroughly apathetic.'"

For his part, Harden pointed out the number of minutes he is in the court as one of the major reasons for his substandard performance this NBA season.

"I mean, 40 a night is pretty tough, especially if you want to be efficient on both ends of the floor," shared Harden, according to ESPN. He added, "We got to figure out how to get guys more minutes and be more effective on the court so as a team we can get better."

Harden went on to state, "Who do you know now who is playing 40 minutes at a high level on both ends of the floor nowadays?" He further shared, Playing those minutes, you're going to have some lapses, you're going to have some mistakes. I try not to worry about them. I try to give it my all on both ends of the floor and live with the results."

Meanwhile, former Denver Nuggets star Lawson has been the subject of trade rumors as of late. Prior to the start of the regular season, fans of the Houston Rockets anticipated the explosive partnership of Lawson and Harden. However, things turned sour when the two failed to make their chemistry work. Hence, the NBA team opted to bench Lawson to alleviate the issues plaguing the basketball group.

However, it looks like the rumors are turning out to be authentic. Lawson himself confirmed that the Houston Rockets front office confronted him the issues and presented him with the potential ramifications.

"They're pretty honest here and they would come up to me and tell me that," said Lawson, according to ESPN. He added, "When that story came out, they came up to me and told me like there is no truth to it. I'm just playing here every day, go day by day, working hard and if things happen, things happen."