You mean the series with the comeback in which the bench lifted the Rockets to victory? The series in which the role players all caught fire and hit their shots? To answer your question. No, DWill/Booz/Okur isn't better, but Hardens team was better than what TMac was working with. Harden wouldn't help Luther Head make a shot. Also comes down to matchups when you got a player like Yao on your team. Against DJ, Yao would have destroyed the Clippers alone.
Are we sure this smoothie king idiot doesn’t have a medical reason as well? Perhaps dropped on his head as a baby? Damage to his frontal lobe?
Winning is a team thing, not an individual thing. This is similar to the ring-counting arguments. Superstars (including Hakeem) who won fewer championships are not necessarily inferior to those who won more (Duncan, Kobe). Context matters. Harden has been criticized for his playoffs performance because of a few memorable melt downs and probably the main cause of the team's losing the series. But if you looked at his overall numbers, like KAT argued, you'd knew that he wasn't a bad playoffs performer.
The numbers are not even close from an efficiency standpoint. There is is reason why Harden has gotten out of the first round. Tmac was a glorified chucker.
You know why that series got a game 6? Because Harden was amazing in Game 5. You know how the series ended? Yes, another amazing game by Harden in Game 7. So basically, Harden was amazing in 3 of the 4 wins. Can you say the same for TMac? Because from what I remember, it was Yao who dominated for the wins and also the one who got abused for the loses. Did you know that we also won a series against the MVP? We also won against the DPOY. In Harden’s 7 seasons with Rockets, we have 6 series wins and 7 series losses. Tmac meanwhile is 0-3.
1. Compare hardens first round stats vs MeMac 2. Harden has mostly been eliminated by ALL TIME great teams. The Heatles and The Warriors
tmac averaged 25-6-7. He was great individually. I know this new arcade NBA taught you those are basic numbers even a bench player can average now, but remember it was a different league. And before bringing up his efficiency, look at how bad everyone's efficiency was. Even post up and easy fed baskets via tmac-Yao only averaged 44% fg. Harden would probably have similar averages playing under JVG in that era, with worse defense than T-Mac provided.
lol, u need to stop Harden is a far better offensive player, and player in general, than McGrady...Mcgrady averaged 25 points on 24 shots...he had a 36% usage rate...he was terrible for much of the series just chucking up jumpers 25 and 7 on 24 shots and 36% usage is nowhere close to being great individually unless your standards are very low
This comparison is silly. Compare Barkley to Harden, I get it. Both players were great regular season performers, MVPs, led multiple teams to playoffs, conference finals, even a finals loss. Comparing Harden to a player who could not win even ONE playoff series in his prime is ludicrous. He played for 3 teams during his prime and the trend was telling. Especially when Yao and Artest were able to get out of first round when Tmac sat out.
starting at 1:29 with the game tied at 91 and 3:30 left to go. (can go even further back if you want) -Yao fade away airball -as a result of Yao having to switch to Boozer-Okur hits ridiculous 3 over shorter Chuck wagon 91-94 score -Yao dunk fed by deep post up pass from T-MAC 93-94 score -Dwill easy layup while slow footed and uncertain Yao in high screen and roll-hesitates to come help and arrives too late 93-96 -3rd consecutive slow play call for Yao. Yao stripped. Turnover. Luckily Harpring misses bad shot. -T-Mac doubled up top-escapes and makes great pass inside for 13th assist to Chuck Wagon for the layup(he traveled-no call) 95-96 -timeout j*zz 1:40 remaining 95-96 -Yao gets lost on a high screen and boozer-the roll man is left wide open under basket as slowfooted yao struggles to get back, but luckily Okur shoots 3 instead, no matter- as a result of Yao arriving late to defend the basket, Boozer gets the offensive rebound over Yao and tips it back to Dwill-full 24 reset 1:23 remaining -Boozer screen up high for Dwill and Yao switches to Dwill as if he could dare keep up, the entire Rockets defense sucked into the paint as a result-AK47 open in the corner for a 3, dwill makes pass to top left for open Okur 3. 95-99 1:15 to go -Rockets run another play for Yao where T-mac comes off screen and Yao posts switched AK47, T-Mac feeds Yao perfect as always, Yao gets fouled on dunk attempt. Sinks both FT's 97-99 57.8 to go -Hakeem watches the game in his dapper yellow nitted sweater, rubs his face in shame as he would have finished the dunk and made the ft for 3 pt play-has a look of zero confidence in this team to win-a face he never made as a player. -Steve Kerr on TNT broadcast mentions Jazz should keep abusing Yao with Boozer matchup. -Okur found in the corner for a contested 3-MISS. OREB tip Boozer over...yep. Yao. Harpring secures and passes out. 35 seconds. -Okur misses open 3 with late hustling T-Mac to scare- LONG MISS....Boozer rushes to OREB over....Yao. Boozer fouled. Sinks both FTs 97-101 w/19.9sec to go -T-Mac doubled, forced to give it up, no one moving to get open, tmac gets ball back and drives for easy layup 9.8sec to go -Jazz inbound, Rockets don't foul. Jazz push ball up til slow footed yao is first to attempt to foul, laughable fails as Rockets are freebied a phantom foul though Ak47 clearly got the ball out before being fouled nad game should have ended on a 10 second run off LMAO. -AK47 sinks 2nd FT to seal it. 1.7 left and game over, but JVG timeout for lulz to draw up a Yao airball mid range shot. T-Mac can't get out of the 1st round. Harden would have won.
T-Mac is more talented and never played in a system quite fitted to him or a roster that could help. Harden plays in an arcade style, touch foul happy, 3pt happy NBA AND plays in a system tailored to him with some of the highest USG% ever in that system tailed to him. Let Harden play under JVG grind it out, first one to 80 wins type of games and he's a completely different player statistically. JVG allowed T-mac to take his heat checks, but that's about it. Harden aint chucking 3s under JVG. I'd take Harden over T-mac simply because of durability only. I don't really put too much into a players 3pter as a weapon as it's clearly been shown enough that with enough practice and heavy focus on the 3, even bigs who never shot 3s have adapted into better % 3pt shooters than great marksman of old. We all know T-Mac could catch fire and light it up, but only when he was really allowed to. Give him the mental freedom that he won't be punished for chucking 3s and practicing heavily at 3s his whole career, and he'd be a 28-29ppg career avg player today with peaks in the mid 30s in his prime and less FT attempts than Harden.
Give young athleitc prime T-Mac the adjustments of playing in todays NBA and he's a 34-8-8 player int his league with less FT attempts and USG and no rule bending that Harden benefits from and better defense. And the Rockets would be a lot more loved by fans outside of Houston. Probably a top 3 most popular team with prime T-Mac.
Tony Parker was less efficient than McGrady, and he won 4 championships and 1 Finals MVP because he was lucky enough to play on a great team.
That 2009 team was one of my favorites. McGrady didn't have Artest when we lost Yao for the '08 playoffs. The next best scorer was Rafer Alston and Scola (who was a 27-year-old "rookie"). How was he supposed to win? Look, I know it's extremely unpopular to defend TMac here. And I'm not. I just think that the "not get out of first round" thing is overblown and a lazy way to criticize a guy without considering the context.
Tmac was more physically gifted then anyone not named Lebron in his prime however he never fully worked on it to realise its full potential. He was 6’9jumping jack with immense natural god given talent. Harden is more built for the NFL or the WWE then the nba but the man has harnessed a unique skill set due to working on his craft.