Is quantity or quality more important? James leads the league in scoring, but is that really a meaningless stat if you take the most shots to get it? He is #1 in 3PT attempts but only 101st in % made. He is also #1 in FG attempts, but ranked #170 in FG percentage. Our team is #1 in 3 PT attempts, yet ranked 20th in % made. We are also 20th in FG%, and 21st in FT%. Toronto leads the league in both wins and FG%, so they could make the case that quality is the most important stat in winning. James is 2nd in steals, which is awesome, but also leads the league in turnovers, and has 20 more turnovers than the 2nd ranked player. Can he throw a mean pass though? Yes he can! Just ask Clint. But, James needs to clean up the careless and sloppy passes. The league leader in assists is Kyle Lowry. To compare his assist to turnover ranking with James, he has 10.3 assists and 2.3 turnovers a game. James has 8.7 assists and 5.8 turnovers a game. How about these stats? Hartenstein is shooting 100% from behind the arc, followed by Vince Edwards at 50% Zhou Qi has 100% FG percentage MCW and Gerald,Green are tied at 3PT% Carmelo Anthony has a higher 3 PT% than EG I believe if we can just stay healthy, those will improve, but to contend with the best do we need better quality shots, another quality shooter, both, or neither? You be the judge. I just want to keep this winning streak going and climb back up to the top where we were last year, but win it all this time. Also, keep smiling MCW, you have the cutest dimples. Go Rockets!
Essentially, what you are describing is Russell Westbrook syndrome. Those look like Westbrook stats - super high volume on everything. And that's the way James has had to play recently with our depleted bench and missing CP3. The team will only win if James plays like his usual efficient self, which he does when CP3 is on the floor. EDIT: No comment on MCWs dimples
James Harden is 1st in scoring and 7th in points per shot. PPS is probably the most important scoring statistic, and Harden is the most efficient scorer in the league based on that.
Harden is averaging 31 ppg on 21 shots which is excellent...his eFG% is 55%, his TS is at 61%...Harden is 1 of the most efficient scorers in the NBA, and he always has been...looking at his field goal percentage is disingenuous when over half of his attempts are unassisted, self-created threes (Harden is assisted on only 11% of his threes, the fact that he still manages to shoot 37% from deep is actually pretty amazing)...Harden shoots 53% from 2 point range Harden definitely needs to cut down on his turnovers, but the man has to create everything for the team and for himself...Harden has to be the #1 playmaker and #1 scorer...no system relies more on the primary ballhandler than D’antoni’s, and with CP3 missing a couple of games, his burden has easily been the heaviest in the league a guy like Lowry is a natural PG, Harden isn’t...Harden is an incredible scorer who is also a very talented passer/creative playmaker...his usage rate is a career high 37% this season while Lowry’s is only 20%...still, the turnover numbers definitely need to come down the Rockets get a ton of good shots, they were just tossing up bricks until recently...we could use some pure shooters, but guys just weren’t hitting shots to start the year...the law of averages is starting to kick in for guys like EG tho
is steph curry efficient? he comes back and the worriers lose after they managed to win a couple without him....
James Harden basically has had to play 40-45 minutes, score 45-50 points and have 12-15 assists a night for the Rockets to win without Paul. Yeah his turnovers are too high, I wonder why. Probably because he has to do everything. The turnovers will go down with a healthy Chris Paul. If you want all those numbers to improve, then improve the quality depth.
Just mentioning his name makes me frown. I can't even stand looking at the guy, so chose not to even watch the game we played them. His mouthpiece chewing and ego smirks with a towel on his head on the bench make my skin crawl.
We definitely lack in quality depth. Hopefully that will change with Nene back, and others on the way. Maybe another quality bench player is needed as well.
sheesh, when will you join us in the advanced stats era and stop using FG%/3FG% separately. btw: He's 63rd, tied with Lebron and Kemba Walker. Guys like those three use the 3 to open up their drives. You can't look at just one number between FG%, 3FG% and FT%, you have to combine them together to truly measure the premier attackers in the league vs the premier shooters. Harden TS% is 61.3% -- 23rd for players who shoot 3s, 14th for starters, and Harden TS% is 5th in the league for players with +4 Ast / Gm. (Curry, Durant, Giannis, DJ Augustin, Harden), and he has 2.5 more APG than anyone else in Top 5. Lebron TS% is 60.9% Kemba TS% is 58.2% Westbrook TS% is 52.2% But what's truly amazing between Harden and Curry...Harden doesn't need the team to run plays for him to get off his 3s and drives and free throws. So, from a team ORtg standpoint, it can really makes a difference.
-cont. As much as we've sucked on offense, the offense is now ranked 6th in the league. 4 of the teams ahead of us are currently seeded #1, #1, #2 or named the Warriors. That is directly related to Harden doing what he does and leading the league in points created (by a big margin), in an efficient way.
Any assessment of Harden's scoring has to take into consideration all those free throws he gets. Simply looking at shots taken and made doesn't give you the whole picture because he's giving you 8-10 ppg on top of that by getting to the line so much.
Here's the part about Harden's stat line that i've always found questionable - his free throws adding to his point total - but not his shot attempts.... I assume the additional possessions being used to contribute to his point total have to be factored into some advanced analytics (efficiency?)... but to say he's averaging 31 pts on 21 shots is rather disingenuous when 8 of those points come from the line (8.1/9.8)... now if that free throw is a +1 on a made shot - fair enough... but if its a 2 or 3 shot foul - then he's getting the benefit of the points without getting a shot attempt added to his total (but it still uses up a possession though)... Particularly at the end of the game when the other team is fouling asap... Harden racks up points at the free throw line - without adding to his shot attempt total... I'm sure someone on here, more versed than I on analytics, can offer some insight as to where and how this is factored in... at the end of the day... I gotta believe its about 'the number of possessions you used to get the points you got'.... shots, fouls, turnovers...
I don’t know when you wrote down your stats OP, but Hartenstein is 2 out of 5 from beyond the arc (40%). 3’s > 2’s reigns supreme for the most parts nowadays. DeRozan has been one of the better 2-point shooters over the past few years while exhibiting little to no 3-pt range. Now he joins a Spurs/ Pops team that doesn’t care much for the 3-pt shot. Most teams are going to throttle the Spurs if they hit about 18 three’s while the Spurs don’t shoot 3’s. Grant it the loss of Murray at point guard has hurt the Spurs......the Spurs may need to recognize they need to change their philosophy in order to compete with the run-n-gunning or space-n-pace styles. Rockets shot a lot of 3’s early and missed a lot of 3’s early in the season which ended up long rebounds which were run down our throats against an unset defense (Melo’s fault) for the most part. Now the Rockets are beginning to make their shots. Numbers should start to resort to the norms (similar to last year) and the wins will follow.
My biggest point was that most in points is a silly stat. If you take the most shots you have the best chance on scoring the most points. Some of my other stats were meaningless as well, just as many non-advanced stats thrown out are......LOL. Some of my points are legitimate areas we can improve though, to make our run back to the top.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but could we not just look at his individual offensive rating for that? B-ball ref has it at 114 this year. honestly not sure why this matters tho when u can go down this line of thinking for every big-time scorer, especially when there’s no argument for Harden not being 1 of the most efficient scorers in the game I mean, we can look at another highly efficient scorer in KD who’s averaging 30 points on 20.5 shots with 7.5 of those points coming from the line...or a much less efficient player like Russ who averaged 31.6 ppg on 24 shots with 8.8 of those points coming from the line during his MVP year most of the efficient high level scorers get to the line a lot, and while Harden’s basic field goal percentage isn’t amazing, he still remains a highly efficient scorer due to getting to the line and focuses on layups and threes while being an elite finisher and slightly above average 3 point shooter in terms of percentage
I'm glad this thread was created, I agree with the statements on James. It's also about the timing of missing and turnovers, look how many games those bad shots and turnovers costed us just this year .
You're right that volume without efficiency is not helpful. It's kind of weird that you then proceeded to imply James' efficiency is awful. He's one of the most efficient stars in the league and has been for nearly a decade. His shooting has been as good as ever. Certainly we'd all like to see the turnovers reduced but their main impact has just been to drop him from GOAT-type efficiency numbers to regular star-type efficiency numbers.
Honestly 2-3 quality bench pieces are needed to be close to last year. The Rockets need a quality back up point guard, a quality swing player and guy like Markieff Morris that can play the 4/5.
