[NBA.com] Harden on All-Decade Team 1st Team

I would put CP3 ahead of Leonard. People put way, way too much focus on Titles in the NBA. He's a superstar, but he hasn't even had half a decade at that level.

Paul was one of the 5 (or close to it) most valuable players every season until last year. It's not his fault he was surrounded by chokers in LA.

 

Solid point - weird for him to make the all decade team when he was missed an entire season in that span, played more than 65 games exactly twice, started 380 games in 7 seasons, and was the best player on his team exactly 3 times over that decade. He is certainly a great player but franchise star/foundational type of player is a relatively recent thing - we suspected it in San Antonio but really the last year is the only time he has proven it. If we are just going with recency bias, we mind as well put Giannis on the first team.

 

People do not realize how good and consistent Chris Paul has been in his career.

He has been a great defender every single season..... he has been extremely efficient...... he can shoot from anywhere on the floor, he has an excellent assist to turnover ratio. He has been the epitome of a franchise player from the first time he stepped on the court.

Finding a dominant, consistent and efficient player that doesn't destroy a locker room for 10-15 seasons is EXTREMELY rare.

 

Don't forget Gasol. While way past his prime, Gasol was an All-Star just two years ago.

 

Melo should be over him.

 

The Rockets and Harden couldn't beat a Durant-less Warriors, Toronto did.

 

I guess we should just discount the post season period if you put Melo over Kawhi. Melo was a gifted isolation scorer but couldn’t even get his team into the playoffs in a weak East. His defense was nonexistent and never seemed to be interested in winning.

There aren’t any other forwards you can honestly place above Kawhi. I’ll take a 2 time champion and a two way killer over a guy who didn’t care about winning, and was all about stats and money.

 

How is Kobe even on there? He didn't do anything past 2010.

 

Should be Paul/Curry/Harden/Lebron/Durant

I realize win shares aren’t the be all end all but these 5 are clearly out ahead of the pack when you combine both regular season and playoff win shares.

Regular season win shares for the decade
http://bkref.com/tiny/HtWAa
Postseason win shares for the decade
http://bkref.com/tiny/jhDua

Didn’t realize how little Kawhi has done in the regular season this decade until I did the win shares search. Nearly half the win shares of the top few guys.

 

I think he’s better than Kobe

 

Lol the same Warriors team that was without Klay Thompson?

 

I was recently watching some highlights from Harden’s final season in OKC...to think years down the line he’d be an MVP and average 36 ppg for a season...what he’s managed to accomplish is insane

 

He is.

Harden has done more with less.

 

That's even funnier than the first post. He's had less, sure, but he's done WAY less.

Seriously, go take a minute and line up Harden's career achievements next to Kobe's. No question Kobe had better teammates, but his resume blows Harden's out of the water.

 

He missed one game of the Rockets series. You know that.

 

The only thing better on his resume is championships and that is because he had much better teammates and coaching.

His actual stats do not blow Hardens out of the water.

 

My favorite part of any Harden apologist discussion is how quickly they try to casually dismiss winning as a criterion. It just never gets old.

Say, how many All-Defensive first teams has Harden been on? I'll just wait while you look that up.

 

Ehhh. I think it’s fairly easy to see that some guys who have won titles are not as good as some guys who haven’t. Even players within the same general tier.

And come on. There may not be a player in history who “earned” more all nba awards based off “potential” and reputation than Kobe rather than actually deserving the award. He had the ability of a lockdown guy, but more often wasn’t.

I’m not going to really get into the argument of who is better, but I truly believe that while Kobe is no doubt one of the best 30 guys to ever play he at the very same time is one of the most overrated in that group. Superb teammates throughout the majority of his career and was handed plenty of awards he had no business getting.

 

Man I'm kinda embarrassed I made that "third best shooting guard in NBA history" comment now that we're talking about Kobe v. Harden. I actually ranked the guards in this order:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Clyde Drexler
3. James Harden



#sarcasm