Because harden is so ball dominant I wish he had like a jj Reddick, Kevin Martin, Ray allen, klay thompson type player, that works hard off the ball on the court with him. Guys like that just create space and encourage player movement.
I agree it's mostly about defense. He's terrible on defense and his offense is still good but significantly worse than last year is how I would put it. The ORtg I think is down because of turnovers. Dwight's ORtg is up because his turnovers are down and his ts% is up. I wouldn't characterize his turnovers as a little up, I'd say they're up a lot. His tov% is at 16 from a previous career high of 15 and his tov per 100 is 6 vs 5.4 last year. He has 123 "bad pass" turnovers so far this year compared to 176 all of last year and 66 "lost balls" compared to 97 last year. Also his 3pt attemps are significantly up, he's taking 10.5 per 100 vs. a career high of 9.3 last year. And his FT per 100 may be similar but his free throw rate is the lowest since his second year. What is weird about his ts% is how he's managing to keep it up. He's actually shooting better from 2, making up for shooting worse in the paint and from 3. 2014-15 Shot Chart http://vorped.com/1-nba/2015-2016/player/1112/james-harden/shotchart/ 2015-16 Shot Chart http://vorped.com/1-nba/2015-2016/player/1112/james-harden/shotchart/ He's also only taking 23% of his shots between 0-3 feet, easily a career low. His career average is 29% and he was at 31% last year. Another weird random stat- only 8 dunks so far. His career season low was 25 as a rookie.
That is DMo too, that is why I like him so much he fits. We do need a PG/SG combo that does this too or a SF. DD
Good post. Harden may have been the one to request to Morey to get another PG to share the ball handling like Lawson, but it's obvious that Harden needs to be the PG for him and the team maximize his offensive production. What we actually need is an efficient scorer at the SG. Thornton was a nice cheap addition but we need a legit starter.
What Harden actually means is, he wanted a scoring PG like Westbrook who can handle the ball and create for himself occasionally. Too bad only one Westbrook in the league.
Lou Williams, Darren Collison, Eric Bledsoe, Brandon Knight, Aaron Brooks, Patty Mills, OJ Mayo, Jrue Holiday, Kyle Lowry. The list goes on
yeah right. if WB was starting next to harden, he would be pouting and probably request to be traded immediately
So, just for fun, I went and did this for a few more games. it doesn't take very long - I know it's way to advanced for you - but nba.com has all this stuff. Feb 4 vs. Phx 2-7 0 Fast break points off of 7 Harden misses Feb 2 vs. Mia 3-8 2 fast break points off of 5 harden misses (a Dragic Layup early in the game) Jan 30 vs. Was 6-9 Arguably 1 off of 3 Harden misses - A semi-transition shot by nene where Dwight was lagging on D resulted in a reach by Harden, and 1 FT (not sure if this technically counts as a fast break point or not) Jan 29 vs. OKC 2-7 0 off of 5 Harden misses Jan 27 v. SAS 1-3 0 off of 2 Harden Misses This theory of yours is not looking very promising, thus far we've looked at the last 45 Harden FGA's from 3 point land and they've yielded maybe 2, arguably 3 fast break points - that doesn't seem like a tremendous deviation or that his 3 point shooting predeliciton is putting the Rockets in transition jeopardy, which is somewhat surprising given that they are bad on defense overall. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
And to recap: for you, "significantly worse' means a variation of a few percentage points in most key metrics.....like 2.7% lower 3 point shooting, 1.5% lower TS%, 0.1 fewer points/36 minutes. Random question -what was your SAT verbal score?
The question we should ask is: why doesn't Harden play off the ball? You don't need a good PG for that. He goes off screens, catch the ball. Post up, or try to position himself near the FT line more often to create havoc. He doesn't have to start his offensive movement from the 3pt line every time with the ball.
No, I said he was significantly worse in some areas, slightly worse in others. Significantly worse would be his ORtg, turnovers, and plus/minus metrics. Defense as well
ORtg is a team stat. Plus minus is also a team stat, and considers defense as well Defense is defense. Turnovers is an offensive individual stat, so that counts in your query. So 5.4 vs. 6.0 /100 - I guess .6 is signficant? it is like 10%? So that's one thing that is at least non-trivially worse? His offesne is still better than pretty much anybody in the NBA not named Curry - it's hard to call that a signficant drop off, but whatever.
why would you be shocked? are we talking about the same Harden who needs the ball in his hands and loves to dribble. Add someone like WB next to him who needs the ball just as much as JH does, that'll fit right in with the way he plays now.
Harden ranks 13th in touches per game 87th in dribbles per touch A lot of players must love to dribble.
Absolute Garbage Harden has been more than willing to share the ball and has frequently stepped aside, particularly at the beginning of games, to allow other initiators to set the offense. Its always a trainwreck. He dominates the ball out of necessity, not selfishness.
ORTG and plus minus aren't team stats and he's down significantly there His TOV% is up to 16 from 14.9. I'd say that's significant, but whatev He's also not getting to the rim as much, 23% of his shots there vs. 31% last year.
Great point man. Westbrook and Harden were atrocious together in OKC, weren't they? Westbrook was demanding trades left and right, huh?
