[Lowe Post] Howard Beck "leaning hard" Giannis, Lowe at a standstill

Is there a reason you don't show the first 22 games separately, is it because you are trying to hide the Melo effect.

• Please be transparent and show GmSc for first 10-games, then from 10-game to 22-games.
• Harden ORtg with Melo = 104.9 (first 10 games)
• Harden ORtg after Melo = 115.1 (from Game 10 to Game 22)
• Harden ORtg after 12/11 = 116.0 (from start of 30pt explosion)

Also, for huge USG guys, the Team ORtg really is the best measurement​

• Rockets are #1 by a huge margin since Melo was benched on 11/8 -- 115.4 to 114.0 for 2nd place GSW.
• Rockets were 27th in the league for ORtg at 104.3 for first 10 games of the season
  
  
• So, both Harden's Ind ORtg and the Team ORtg really only points to first 10 games.

 

Lulz

This needs to stop

Giannis is good, but he aint great..

Dude has a terrible shot, he isnt a good playmaker, he will never be clutch, his best quality is his body strenght and lenght. This will probably be his best year because he has the best team around him and that is why they have this current record.

Harden is avg 36, carried the team 30+ games, improved his defense (haters biggest complaint) evolved in his step back, rebounds and assists every year around 8

This shouldnt even be close

 

Hate to nitpick but if you think his assist per game average is around 8. His numbers are down this year, not by much but it's down to 7.5.

Every assist on average matters now.

A stat that would suggest he makes his mates better. It won't help him for sure.

Other than Westbrook they are probably going to give it to the Player with the best Team record mostly.

 

"MVP does not equal this."
"MVP does not equal this."
"MVP does not equal this."
"Every year is different."
"MVP does not equal historic feats."
...
"Giannis is having an historic season." (this is an absurd statement given that it's referencing one stat: no one's done 27/12/5 - whoopdeedoo)

Would love for them to say what MVP is. Closest attempt at defining it included consistency across length of season, defense, and history / not history.

Beck insinuates that people create new categories that define MVP (hm...), but says so seemingly in favor of simply "best player with best record" aka Giannis. Beck is at least consistent. Voted Harden 2017, saw the new categories being created to vote in Russ, and now votes Giannis for the same reason. I disagree with him that historic feats should not hold weight. To me, it's THE X-factor that should decide a close race.

 

“Equal credit/blame”, “equal scrutiny” — I never once suggested or implied this. Of course there is more credit than blame. He is a top 2 candidate for MVP, after all.

And Beck obviously didn’t mean that Harden is solely responsible for the poor start, but rather that he shares some responsibility for it. If you want to characterize that as tautological, fine.

His shortcomings this year are the same shortcomings he had last year and the year before. Poor foot speed and unable to contain the dribble. That Harden generally avoids having to defend attacking perimeter players, and generally avoids running around chasing after players on defense (contrary to what most defensive guards are asked to do), to me, indicates that it is by design.

If you want to present your case that the Rockets defense is not designed to hide this weakness or to conserve his energy, go ahead. I’d be interested to see what you come up with.

 

I think Beck's argument that Harden allegedly didn't show up is lame as hell. Durvasa's posts showed that the stats were indeed slightly down overall from his averages from the last two full seasons. They do not show that he "didn't show up" though. At most you can say that he was a bit less effective, but so what? You can cherry pick 10 games from any player and then say that their stats were not amazing. That's such a lame argument because Harden clearly was still playing at a tremendously high level.

 

Ok so here we go.

During the first 11 games Harden only played 8 missing 3 to injury. So his 11th game was our 14th game against gsw.

That's your first 11-14 games criteria of you thinking his efficiency and play was down.

In those 11 games he avg the following.
27.3pts, 5.4rbd, 7.3ast, 2.3stl

He was shooting 35.2% from 3, 50% from 2, 79.6 ft%, a 51.4 efg% to go along with a 57.9 ts%

He only had one "bad efficiency night" in those games during a win against denver where he shot 2-10 from 3.

You remove the singular "cold night" (RANDOMNESS) and his entire efficiency is in par with his %s from the previous years.

Your seriously trying to argue slight/minor efficiency dips inside of a very small sample size as a cause for why it's obvious Harden struggled?

Bruh.... come tf on.

As for this whole cliche "build a defense to hide Harden" nonsense.

Firstly, we dont "scheme" to hide him. We "scheme" to his strengths which is in the post on switches.

We didn't devise this scheme specifically to protect Harden. We devised it because it's the absolute best defense to defend the absolute best team ever built. Harden found HIS place in this defense which is an actual strength.

Just another dumb narrative from the media people buy into...

You do realize hes a "forward" on our defense right?

He may clearly be a "guard" on offense, but for defense we treat him as a "forward".

 

Harden should shave his beard - to make himself more presentable as face of the league and get into the GOAT discussion. I think the media and the fans hate his beard. MJ did not get the GOAT status when he got hair. Kobe wasn't respected when he got hair. Clean look is ultra important

 

Delete double post.

 

I’m not trying to hide anything. The Melo split didn’t occur to me.

Your numbers look off to me. How are you calculating it?

With Melo: 33.7 USG, 108 ORtg, 19.7 GmSc (3-4 record)
Post Melo until 12/11: 39.0 USG, 116 ORtg, 22.8 GmSc (7-8 record)
After: 42.4 USG, 119 ORtg, 28.7 GmSc (35-14 record)

 

OK.

All of these numbers, and you don’t once mention turnovers. Offensive efficiency, as captured by ORtg, includes turnovers.

As I’ve said, Harden’s first 22 games (spanning the 11-14 start) was the lowest rated 22 game stretch (by the boxscore) of his last 3 seasons. You want to attribute that to ramdomness. That’s a pretty big ****ing coincidence, if it’s really just randomness. But if that’s what you want to believe, fine.

 

Firstly, I was confused on the first 11-14 games where as you meant record.

Secondly, since when did boxscore become anything of substance. I also seen you using PER recently.

Thirdly, you cant be so dense to ignore @heypartner which clearly shows the melo effect and it's obvious effect on his Ortg during half this so called "worst 22 game stretch". No, it was a very bad 10 game stretch.

Fourthly, Harden has always been a high turnover guy. It's always been that way and we all learned a long time ago the difference between live ball turnovers and the majority of Hardens turnovers which are deadball turnovers mostly from driving and losing the ball out of bounds.

Lastly, efficiency can be measured in a myriad of ways. I'm glad to use all the tools. Ortg includes turnovers, and the vast majority of others dont.

Edit: I'm going to bed...

 

My view is just look at all the games. There’s no need to pay special extra attention to the beginning of the season, but I don’t think you can ignore it either. It matters that the Bucks have been a top team throughout, and the Rockets have not been. It’s almost like some people want to give Harden extra credit for the turnaround so that the bad start actually ends up helping his case. I think perhaps that is what Beck was pushing back against. That bad start shouldn’t help Harden’s case, it should actually hurt his case somewhat. Harden has been so insanely good since mid December he is still a deserving candidate, but you still have to account for those first two months somehow.

 

Harden’s case is built primarily on gaudy counting stats from the boxscore. Don’t pretend otherwise now.

Efficiency on offense must include turnovers to cover the full picture. And I don’t believe in this theory that has caught on here that turnovers don’t really matter. That’s just a counting error. A player might be so good at other stuff that you can accept higher turnovers, but that doesn’t mean the turnovers don’t still hurt you. Even if it’s dead ball, that’s still a 0-point possession.

 

So, his shortcoming of losing his man on the baseline is no longer an issue, right?

Now what is the shortcomings of Paul, Ennis, Green and Gordon in switching defenses? We play 3-guards a lot, afterall.

Well, you didn't present a case at all. You just restated a big, out-dated generalization...that proves nothing about whether Harden is to blame for our defensive shortcomings.

(If he does his job well, he does it well <-- Tautology)​

Despite your outdated explanation: I'll following through with some explanation.

By answering my 2nd question above, that you avoided, you'd note that in a switching defense, you wouldn't want any guards in the post who can't guard the post (or big SFs like Kawhi when Harden contained him on a game-winning ISO). That is called positioning your strengths properly. You call Harden in the post a shortcoming; most call it a strength.

• Next I can explain how our Tag switching works, which is used to protect Paul, not Harden.
• We might also want to discuss Trapping the Box being a big component of our defense, and how Harden excels in it.
• We also all notice Capela is pulled out in ISO coverage, while Harden rarely ever is. That indicates Harden isn't a biggest enough exploit on the perimeter, versus teams wanting Capela away from the rim. Harden's job in that scenario is to freaking rebound, and he's statisticallly our best rebounder next to Faried and Capela.
• Finally, our Defense (using Catch switching) is primarily designed to stop the Golden State Warriors. You can't hide someone against them. And we don't chase them, because it doesn't work. Not because we are trying to rest Harden.
• I can explain our Catch principles and when we switch and not, if interested. Suffice it to say, if Harden had a shortcoming in this sophisticated defense, it would be exploited by GSW. I haven't seen it in our last 10 Harden games against them (7 playoffs and 3 this year).

 

So, you agree that Harden's 22-game numbers that you showed are not useful. The only part of the season that was low was the 10-games to start. Beck not only said Harden was responsible, but that it was for the 11-14 start.

His ORtg from Game 11-22 should make one stop pointing at Harden and go look at Paul, Gordon, Ennis, etc for blame. And Harden should be largely blameless....and in no way considered Responsible For.

Are you still going to defend that statement of his?

Spoiler: ORtg Calculations

You must be using BBRef.

fwiw: BBref should no longer be used for ORtg, as it's an estimate of possessions.
NBA.com is no longer an estimate of possessions. They actually count them, now.

Regardless, Harden's Game 11 to Game 22 numbers are MVP consideration numbers at that Usage on both sites.

 

Why are you saying this again, when I just showed you that ORtg is only a 10-game span? Both Individual and Team.
And his Game 11-22 Score is well within spans of equal length in past years.

At this point you are ignoring facts.​

You've lost this argument about stats proving Beck correct. They all point to looking at other players to blame...and most certainly not saying Harden was responsible.

 

It blows my mind that one could even compare the seasons that James and Giannis are having.
—— Giannis Is having a great year in a weaker conference with a second All-Star playing with him
—— James is have one of the best seasons OF ALL TIME with a pretty good record in a tough conference without another All-Star

 

I needed this laugh, thank u

Giannis better than Harden...can’t even take a statement like that seriously

 

Too boring with steady formula. No narrative creation by the media, no controversy. It would almost be a "best scorer" title, where you can't give it to a guy who scored less.