Nick Wright Impressed by James Harden makes history with 55 points in win vs Cavs

Mutiple sauces is a moron, "if you gave kobe that many shots, he'd put up same numbers?" he did, and his team also only won 45 games. Or insert RB, man he has no clue about how efficiency works...

 

Well its a debate show so someone has to take a side plus Broussard is a fan of Harden.

 

If anyone tries to argue something in basketball and discards TS% or eFG% in favor of FG% or 3pt% in isolation, I’m walking away right there. It’s like trying to reason with someone from another planet.

Kobe is the most overrated player in history. Twenty years from now, kids who never watched Harden, Kobe, or Wade play will be wondering why there’s any debate at all about who the second best SG in history is.

 

The Rockets have the second most efficient offense in the league, and that's a direct result of Harden's brilliance. That's the thing Harden critics keep overlooking. If Harden is so inefficient and ball-dominant, how the hell are the Rockets winning so many games on the strength of their offense? They have no answer to this question. They will just pivot to, "Well, let's see him do it in the playoffs!"

 

the play of the game last nite was tucker's 3 in the right corner to seal the victory. but i just want to stop and marvel at the pass thrown to him. harden kept the defense in front of him and then ever so softly, calmly, and right on the money... blew that kiss of the ball into tucker's shooting pocket. i've been watching this game 4 decades now, and literally every time i watch harden i'm just in awe and amazement. the talent, cerebral and physical skill level... i'm without words.

 

Harden would be considered a Top 25 player of all time if he had a Lakers uniform on

 

Great point. I actually looked this up at some point last year to check and see what the team offenses looked like of every player over a certain usage. I can't find the results so what I'm about to say is just based on my memory, but if you look at the 38ppg Jordan bulls, the 35ppg kobe lakers, Iversons sixers, etc, and look at the team ortg, you'll find that it's typically not great. Usually when guys took 25+ shots per game their overall offenses were pretty inefficient, even adjusted for the time period. The bulls were like 12th in the league, sixers were 17th, lakers were 9th, Westbrooks thunder were 10th...basically a way to answer the question of whether or not this ball domination actually results in an effective offense. No high usage player besides Harden has ever been on a team with a top 5 ORtg, except Harden who has done it TWICE, and his offenses in those years were 1st and 2nd in the league. It's really incredible what he can do.

 

The moment I hear phrases like "D'Antoni's system" or "anyone could do it if..." then I know that there will be no intelligent conversation from that person. Best to just walk away from the walking internet comment section passing themselves off as a real person.

 

I hate the fact they keep saying, "oh, but if those guys shot as many 3pt shots as Harden they would score way more points."

That simply isn't true. Kobe shooting more 3pt shots would have hurt the team rather than help it. He wasn't all that good of a consistent 3pt shooter. If Harden had Kobe's support, he would have had a couple of rings. Harden hasn't really had that good of a Rockets team in all his years with the Rockets. He got a CP3 who was still good but past his prime. He's got Westbrook who is still very good..... but his past 2 seasons with OKC were definitely declining, not to mention that he can't hit a 3pt shot.

The fact of the matter is Harden has had to carry the load with the Rockets because his team hasn't really had the support for him. KD is very good, but he had to go to one of the best teams of all time just so he could win a ring. Curry was struggling this season before he got injured that he couldn't carry the Warriors team. That injury literally saved him, because people would have seen him continue to struggle. Look at last season.... Harden carried a bunch of G League players from 14th to 4th in a tough conference. And he continues to carry his team to the playoffs every single season. Not many players can do that without consistent support.

 

i went tru half of that video and it doesnt even mention harden

 

The volume of 3 point shots will always be used to try to knock down what Harden is doing. Basketball "purists" disregard efg% when it comes to Harden because they don't believe he earns his free throws. They think that it's some nerd trick bring used to bolster Harden's place in basketball history.

It's a shame, but due to a combination of media narratives and the "purists" who feel like they have to protect the true history of the game, Harden will never get the love or respect that he deserves.

Kareem wasn't liked by the media either. He didn't kiss their ass to put it lightly. But he paid the price in terms of how is remembered. The all time leading scorer with 6 rings and 6 mvp's (I'm going off of memory) and the most un-guardable shot ever never gets mentioned in the GOAT conversation. He is largely forgotten even when people put together their Mount Rushmore of basketball. All because the media in large part disliked him.

I'm hopeful that Harden can get at least one ring to take away that talking point. But as far as history goes the narrative will never put Harden even over Kobe. Rockets fans should just appreciate him while we still have him. There are not enough of us to swing the narrative in the other direction.

 

It's linked to a timestamp of 3:41, where it starts

 

Nobody is arguing for Kobe over Jordan for the #2 spot....

 

Had some time to kill, so I looked up some scoring numbers for Harden, Kobe, and MJ. Here, TSA stands for true shot attempts (estimated with FGA + 0.44*FTA, as used in the formula for TS%), and rTS% is TS% relative to league average that year. rTS% is a more fair comparison across seasons, since there are significant shifts in scoring efficiency league wide based on various offensive/defensive trends.

Code:

         TSA / 100 poss                  rTS%
Year   Harden  Kobe   MJ         Harden  Kobe   MJ
----   --------------------      -------------------
1      20.2    23.7   30.1       0.9%    0.7%   4.8%
2      19.8    27.8   40.9       5.5%    2.3%  -0.8%
3      21.0    25.1   41.3       13.2%   3.7%   2.4%
4      28.3    27.7   36.1       6.4%    2.4%   6.6%
5      26.8    33.0   32.6       7.8%    3.3%   7.6%
6      30.5    31.6   35.3       7.2%    2.4%   6.9%
7      31.2    34.2   35.3       5.8%    3.0%   7.1%
8      31.3    30.0   34.1       6.1%    3.6%   4.7%
9      34.1    31.7   38.1       6.5%    3.3%   2.8%
10     39.2    40.8   36.2       5.6%    2.3%  -4.9%
11     37.2    34.2   36.4       7.4%    3.8%   4.1%
12             31.7   36.9               3.5%   3.1%
13             33.7   37.5               1.7%   1.0%
14             33.0   38.2               0.2%  -5.3%
15             36.1   30.0               0.7%  -2.7%
16             36.4                      0.0% 
17             31.6                      3.6% 
18             22.7                     -3.8%
19             34.7                     -5.7%
20             33.3                     -7.2%

And here's a picture depicting the same info:



Note, in particular, that the frequency of Harden scoring attempts is not way out of proportion compared to what Kobe and MJ were doing at similar points in their career. Moreover, Harden's scoring efficiency relative to league average is consistently better than Kobe's, and on par with MJ's best seasons even with the much higher load the past few years.

 

Does ANYBODY think that Barkley would have taken any of his teams to the Finals if he would've faced the Warriors in his conference??

Sauces has absolutely ZERO credibility in my book!! He's like the Maytag repairman .... absolutely USELESS!!

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Wright touched on that in which Broussard countered with the fact that Barkley would still have to run the gauntlet (Hakeem's Rockets, Robinson's Spurs, etc) but today's Durant/Curry Warriors would be like if Robinson and Hakeem played on the same team, back in the day.

Barkley would definitely not be able to drag Phoenix past that team.

 

Broussard actually has the gall to say even Westbrook could do this, in MDA's system. Uhh, with all of the attention on Harden, which should actually make Westbrook's life easier, he's still inefficient (as of now) and is only putting up 22.5 ppg.

And Wright makes an excellent point - if everyone could do it, why wouldn't they? It would directly lead to bigger contracts, bigger sponsorships and you'd be viewed as a dominant player in a league of the best people to do it, on the planet.

Not everyone can do it.

 

Inside the NBA had an "who's on your all-decade (2010s) team?" and everyone agreed Kobe was better than Harden.

And those dudes influence opinions greatly.