Harden on Giannis: “I wish I could just run and just dunk. That takes no skill at all.”

He scored at almost below average league efficiency in the playoffs while in the regular season he's one of the most efficient players in the league. That huge drop off in efficiency along with some really head scratching games is what creates the narrative.

 

Yes, because the team relies on you to be great to win. We don't have two titles if Hakeem was just good instead of great. You are arguably the league MVP every season, so be great in the playoffs too.

As far as the excuses for playing elite defensive teams....so what. Be great against them too. Didn't Dream face elite defenses when he kicked butt on the way to two titles? Elevate your game. Instead, his game falters. Sorry but it is what it is.

 

All I can do is shrug. I suppose if his efficiency was better then there would be guaranteed wins yes? nahhh. It would then just turn into the bad defense story, or travesty in dribbling too long, or bad rebounding nights. GOATS stay under the microscope. Im still waiting for the day that he has help from everybody during critical games .. that would be nice.

 

I'm actually a little worried about this.

Trash talking in the media is not really James' game. This reminds me of Capella calling out the Golden State Warriors before last years WCF. It's not that I don't think James can back it up, I know he can, but the psychology of this is nuanced and we all know that basketball greatness is more mental than physical anyway. James is a perfect example of this.

Normally he would just let the haters hate while he continues to dominate on the court. Now that he's brought the attention to himself I'm a little worried it's going to over salt his shake and bake.

 

hakeem is an extreme example. on some lists in the top 5 of all time. largely because he was amazing in the playoffs, even compared to how other greats step up/don't step up in the playoffs. i agree harden is not hakeem in the playoffs. again, i never said he was great in the playoffs. just that he has put up perfectly good numbers and had perfectly good success the last few years. without literally maybe the most talented team ever in his way with his 2nd best player injured after taking the series lead, he almost certainly has a title. sometimes the chips don't fall the right way.

as far as playing elite defenses during our title runs. not really. the average D we faced was ranked, coincidentally, 10th. and that's with the fact that we were a 6th seed playing the teams with the 4 best records one of those years, which should have skewed the rankings to facing better defenses. the list for the 2 years:

12th
16th
7th
1st (knicks)
8th
19th
5th
13th

amazingly, in 1995 we played the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th best offenses. all on the road. trying out small ball (horry at the 4 was small ball for 1995). and we won.

 

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2020/3...legacy-houston-rockets-giannis-espn-interview

Antetokounmpo has zero postseason accomplishments worth speaking of, a monumental collapse that is rarely portrayed as a monumental collapse, and holes in his game which are harder to gloss over in the playoffs. But we collectively assume he will eventually get over the hump because his runway to do so is longer. There’s more time for present-day flaws to improve, and even though championships aren’t promised to any individual player, Antetokounmpo is as strong a bet as any to someday win one.

Harden’s current season has been arguably his most impressive yet. He leads the league in Win Shares for the fourth season in a row, sits at the top in VORP for the third time in his career. His True Shooting is currently the highest it’s ever been, and no player in NBA history has ever hit that mark with a usage rate as high as it is. Harden also leads the league in Offensive Real Plus-Minus and RPM Wins. He impacts his team’s bottom line as much, or more, than anybody else, while the Rockets are better on defense when he plays for the very first time. (Look how far ahead of everyone else Harden is in RAPTOR wins above replacement, and Total RAPTOR. He’s annihilating the league.)

In February, Houston’s offensive rating with Harden on the court was a whopping 120.7 points per 100 possessions, and it plummeted 20.4 points per 100 possessions when he sat. The 1.13 points per possession he generates in isolation (at the league’s highest volume) are about as good as Milwaukee’s offense on the whole. While nearly half of Antetokounmpo’s baskets are assisted, Harden is only at 14 percent. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but his dribbles and seconds per touch are twice as high as the reigning MVP, and Harden has played over 400 more minutes, averaging more per game than everybody except Damian Lillard, whose body recently broke down.

 

i have grown to HATE giannis

 

Thanks D-Rock! Great video. Loved it except for the guy on the right saying a Rockets/Buck Final would never happen. But liked hearing that such a final would be great.

The littler guy on the left? Gold. Loved his comments.

 

Media bias.

 

giannis has skill (not as much as harden) but his very intentional and pointed shots at harden pre and post all-star game were dumb

him backtracking and pretending to be the victim after harden clapped back was even dumber

hope we play them in the finals and expose him

 

Epic. However, everyone on social media is going to blow this up with "free throws" and plug their ears when they learn that Giannis's free throws to usage ratio is usually the same or sometimes higher than Harden's, and his free throws per drive is significantly higher.

NBA gonna NBA

 

700 likes to 400 dislikes. The battle is on. People want to listen to ESPN when it suits them and bash when it doesn't. Why can't we all just agree that ESPN is Sports TMZ.

But setting that aside, Giannis has such apologist grassroots support on social media (for whatever reason?) that he would make Bernie Sanders blush.

 

Love the response. Can't sit there while this fake nice guy **** talks him on national television.

 

media stays trying to milk this thing. I guess since nothing else is going on in the league.....

 

"Almost below average" is a very fchowd-esque way to say that Harden is above average. Anyway, why don't you think Giannis gets the same label when his scoring efficiency dropped off even worse than Hardens? Harden went from 61.6 to 56.7 (-4.9%) while Giannis went from 64.6 to 57.0 (-7.6%). Both remained above league average in the playoffs, which was 55.1%.

 

G-anus referred to kemba walker as "the stepback king" in his back-&-forth w/ barkley during the allstar draft. now he says it was all just a lost in translation language barrier thing he's not about that, he don't go at nobody like that

and the media whores just close their eyes & slurp up this choir boy bullshhit

smh

 

“Come try it and the s**t won’t work," Harden said. “I’m a competitor. I’m a beast. Whatever teams’ schemes are, we switch everything, and they’ve got to find a way to attack us. It’s not going to be perfect. Some guys are going to score on me. That’s a part of the game, but more times than not, we’re going to get a stop and they’ll shy away from it.”

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/james-harden-gets-nsfw-while-talking-about-his-defense-news.105504.html

James Harden has a message for anyone who wants to target him in the Houston Rockets' defensive system: go right ahead.

https://syndication.bleacherreport....in-rockets-defense-the-s-t-wont-work.amp.html

 

Because Gainnis has had one playoff run as a top player. If he continues with that same trend, he will be also labeled a playoff choker by the media.

Also as you can see, Giannis is still for that small sample is more efficient. When Harden loses the scoring advantage that he has over Giannis in their playoff efficiency, then we have to look at the defensive end and even though Harden is no longer "below average" he's still not a DPOY caliber player.