Daryl Morey says Harden may be the best ISO player EVER... True or false?

Best Iso player I ever saw? DR34M.

 

Harden Isolation points per possession = 1.27

“Peak” MJ 89-92 = 1.23

Kobe = 1.03

The media still is not very good at math as Harden does it in a different way because of more reliance on threes and freethrows.

If you need ONE bucket, then sure. Harden might not your guy.
But over the course of a season, Harden has scored the most points per possession in isolation.

Special note is that Prince Luc is 1.43, lol.

 

Why is Kobe even in this conversation? He was extremely inefficient, and people knew it even while he was playing. He was a product of constant media hype.

 

Imagine if we could truly isolate Harden like we did Francis and Cat where he could go one on one with Stockton.

 

Morey needs to stop saying stupid **** like this.

 

I find it hard to say that anyone ever has been, or ever will be, better at isolation than Chamberlain.

 

Where/how did you get those numbers for MJ and Kobe?

Edit: Found this thread for Jordan:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1399444

It covers a 140 game sample during those years -- '89 - '92. I imagine this sample is skewed towards his better games in that period. He scored 13.9 points per game out of isolation with a 1.23 PPP. Harden's output this season on isolation is quite comparable, which is pretty impressive since we're talking about Jordan pretty much at the peak of his scoring powers.

Someone earlier in the thread pointed out that Harden may be benefiting from the switching defense league trend. Clearly a big part of the Rockets offensive attack is to force switches on the perimeter and have Harden or Paul attack against the mismatch.

 

The iso is a product of teams adjusting.

Last year and early this year on the high pnr, bigs hedged to give the guard a little time to recover.
That freed Ryno up and was usually how he got all his shots in our offense.

This year, the defenses are switching a lot which means that the opposing center/pf is guarding the Harden/Paul iso.

You can make the arguement that this falsely elevates the ppp because Jordan did it mostly against his primary defensive assignments.

However, you can also make the arguement that those defenses were not as sophisticated pre-Thibadeux. And there are a million other arguements about relevant factors.

But in the end, it doesn’t negate the claim that Harden on a ppp basis is one of the best the league has seen.

 

Why is the focus on MJ and wings / guards only? Glad someone pointed out Hakeem as well, but what about Duncan, Dirk, KG? Maybe from the old era guys like Wilt, McHale, Bill Russell, Kareem? Just because they didn't shoot threes or do well in some statistical categories does not mean they wouldn't up there with the best iso player in history. Hell, Shaq is probably one of the best. Nobody could stop that monster!

 

I think people mistakenly think of iso as the same as 1 on 1. Wings get the attention because 1 on 1 you start at the perimeter. Iso in a game is not the same as 1 on 1.

 

You can't compare eras - Jordan faced a lot more physical of a defense than Harden does in the modern era. Who knows how many more dunks he would have had in an era sans hand checking.

 

What about Iso Zhou? Iso is in his name!

 

Wow this Hakeem dude is the best

 

As mentioned in the link you provided, Jordan's FG% in the sample is 53.5% compared to 52.8% over those 3 seasons. So as far as efficiency is concerned, the bias shouldn't be that big.

The stats in that link, if they're true, are really ridiculous. 44.9 net on/off rating, 1.98 ppp in transition, 78.4 points per 48 minutes, these are non human numbers. If you take Lebron's best season as a comparison, his best net on/off rating is 21.2, his best points per 48 minutes in clutch time is 66.1, not even close to prime Jordan. Besides, no active players are even close to Lebron in those two categories.

 

Reasons why a statement like this looks so dumb:

• Should start the statement with "This season". Harden in previous seasons has a ppp < 1.0
• Qualify it with "regular season" and "statistically", because everyone will hear ISO and think of 1v1 or dominant 1on1 players or clutch offensive greats. An ISO play is very different from all of that.
• PPP is clearly different in differing eras (people will bring up pace, physicality, rate of fouls, hand checking, etc.). Don't bring statistics into the game if you're not going to back it up all the way and account for ppp inflation/deflation.
• You're immediately putting Harden's name in a bucket to compare with Jordan, Kareem, Hakeem, Shaq, etc. Hold on there doughy buddy - no one is ready for that with Harden.
• Harden has no rings. It's like the Hitler of arguments. Rings will always be brought up regardless if it's reasonable to in sports discussions. And if you don't have them yet, your argument means nothing to the masses.

Every now and then, DM will say some tactless thing to make his or his players' successes look worse.

 

I swear there was this guy from Nigeria, played for the Rockets and delivered back to back titles whose teammates once said, he had a better chance of scoring with two or three guys hanging on him than passing to an open guy. Allegedly, this guy was even better in the postseason.

 

I agree, it's a very bold statement and needs to be qualified as a quantified measure for this year...and I'm a strong believer that you must separate wing ISO from post ISO discussions.

btw: on the Panel, Morey does slip in a statement referring to data behind the claim. He didn't say "statistically speaking" as he often does, but it was an Analytics panel and the question was in context of why GSW and HOU have the best ORtg's ever, with noticeably different systems of passing/cutting vs little passing/taking first action. So it was implied that ISO of Paul and JH was referring to their PPP contribution to ORtg, in contrast to GSWs more passing and cutting style that has same ORtg.

Morey also flat-out says that what makes MDA allow the ISO so much this year is JH and Paul have first established a killer PNR with Capela (starting last year) that more and more defenses have decided their best chance to stop the PNR's super high PPP is to switch it ... and now they find themselves in mismatches...and that ain't working either.

Thus, we could further discuss that the increase success of our ISO will improve the PNR by making teams stop switching it,

Regarding your quote I copied above, just to add to the conversation, not really to argue: Don't forget illegal defense. Anything like hand-checking is offset by ISOs were made extra easy in the era of no zoning by allowing simple clear outs.

Also, pace has nothing to do with ISO. Futher, all great ISO players got the foul calls. So, I don't think it's fair (or accurate) to say Harden gets more fouls on ISO than MJ, Lebron, Kobe and AI, etc.

I agree it was a bold statement, but in the context of the Panel question, I thought what he said was fine.

 

Yep, even though if you follow this through to its logical conclusion, the greatest BB player in modern times is....

Robert Horry.