Haralabos Voulgaris on Harden's Defense

I think Sampson put it best (without the humorless, snide remarks Voulgaris pukes out). James is a fourth quarter defender. Well, sometimes he only plays defense the last play of the game when the score is tied, like the Denver OT game against Foye.

He may consistently play adequate defense as he matures, but that's a lot to expect for a guy with his responsibilities on offense.

 

then he'll never win an MVP

 

Whether Harden can win the MVP depends more on the team than himself. If the Rockets manage to get Melo next year, Harden has less burden on offense and becomes more of a distributor/defender, then the Rockets win the title... He'll instantly become a top MVP candidate.

Derrick FREAKING Rose won an MVP while being the only weak defensive link on a team filled with some of the best defensive talents in the league. MVP is an award that has never been simply being the best player in the NBA.

 

So according to Kwame, this guy has lost a ton of money in Vegas this year because his methods suck. Are you trying to say that Harden is actually an elite defender because you don't think this guy's opinion is worth a damn?

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=8849756&postcount=22

 

I remember when MJ was criticized for not playing defense. He came back next year and proved them all wrong in the grandest manners.

 

Interested to see if he pulls a T-Mac and starts D-ing up on people in the playoffs. Preventing open corner threes would be a start.

 

Are you really trying to suggest that Derrick Rose is as bad of a defender as harden is? Harden is my favorite player in the league but I call a spade a spade, and Harden(due to mostly lack of effort) is a terrible(not bad, terrible) defender

 

Well Harden's D is definitely bad, is it one of the worst in the league? Not necessarily, because unlike bad defenders like Calderon Harden's problem is mainly a lack of effort (or as that dude said conditioning) not a lack of talent. So in key games or in certain situations he can do a Tmac/Melo and suddenly become a good to great defender out of nowhere. Obv it's not the best thing ever since you want your franchise guy to be a leader in all aspects, however let's also remember Harden's only in his early twenties and probably just wants to get paid, put up stats and bang women right now. Once he matures maybe he'll develop a thirst for winning, or maybe Dwight can influence him in that direction.

Also let's not forget the silver lining: as bad as Harden's D is this season, it's still an improvement last season since he showed flashes of good D this year while he crapped on D all year long last year.

 

I'm trying to suggest Derrick Rose in his MVP season wasn't better than Harden the past two years overall. Harden's offense is better than Rose even in that MVP year.

 

I always said the Rose MVP was bull***t and based solely on hype. The Bulls are 3rd in conference without Rose, Deng, etc. and have been consistently one of the best teams in the East in the past years, there win/loss records were basically a wash with or without Rose. Rose doesn't have as much of an impact as people say, the Bulls are an extremely well-coached and cohesive unit.

 

And to people like Kwame saying I'm defensive:

If you made a poll about the worst defensive guards in the NBA, I'm dead-sure Harden and Lillard will be top 5. This has also been discussed in every Harden thread and there were a ton of threads about Harden's defense.

If a random poster made a new thread before the Portland game, saying the exact same things as Voulgaris, the thread would get a bad rating and majority of replies would basically be "yea no sh** sherlock", "IBTL", "does this really need a thread?", etc.

Now that Voulgaris makes some random tweets, which contain no analysis or stats, just what the eye tells everyone, it's suddenly super thread worthy and everyone has to pay respect to the guy?

Just seems stupid to me, him being a respected gambler doesn't mean every random bits should be made into a thread, especially when they have no analytical value and have been stated here tons of times.

 

I think the point is that haralabob is not just spouting off random tweets without good reason. He may not have posted his analysis or stats, but be assured that he has them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he pays a whole team of stat geeks to run numbers for his betting purposes. It's likely from these numbers that he came to his conclusion on Harden's defense. This is very different from, say, Skip Bayless or even Bill Simmons spouting off a random tweet.

 

Haralbob does have a team of programmers to run numbers and chart games, but I do believe his tweets mostly deal with simply watching Rockets.

I think Harden's d is pretty bad, but it was worse earlier in the year as many have said on the forum. I feel like most people saw how bad it was early in the year and even though it may have improved a little bit, he will not get the benefit of the doubt. I don't really care about public perception of him is though. Annoying to see some (like espn) actually list TEN candidates for MVP and his name not be one of them. I feel like Harden's offensive year and clutch play this season has just been that good.

and at least Haralabob has often complimented Harden on his offensive game on twitter too as well as had him 4th or 5th in mvp when asked. educated and informed basketball opinion at least. Feel like so many nba analysts these days aren't educated and informed and it's a real shame

 

I don't agree with everything Haralabos says, but he's clearly one of the sharper minds out there and though Harden being bad on D isn't exactly news, I'm still not sure folks realize just how bad he is/how little he tries.

This is just the final edit (the first one was more than twice as long, but ain't nobody got time for that) of clips of Harden not trying/sucking on D that I collected over the course of this season and I likely missed a whole bunch of instances since I didn't specifically focus on Harden's D:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wVYJULACcao" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Aside from maybe Kevin Love, none of the other MVP/All-NBA candidates is as bad/tries as little as Harden on defense and though he obviously is special on offense, the fact that he isn't getting more consideration for MVP from ESPN/other media outlets is totally justified IMO.

Defense kind matters and Harden just might be the worst defender in the NBA. He's up there, anyway.

 

That is beyond comical.

Harden should be banned from trying that behind the back steal.

Has it ever worked?

 

Great stuff. The fact that this video is almost 9 minutes and you said you cut it short is alarming to say the least. He gets a pass from a lot of posters here because he's so good offensively and they have their whipping boy in J Lin but I think differently. He is our best player and thus should be held to a higher standard because where we go this team goes. And I'm passionate about winning a championship. So it really pisses me off that he is so apathetic on defense and how so many posters here give him a pass like rewarding a child a medal for participation. Disgusting.

 

Offensive MVP but plays like a high school defender. Probably why he got snubbed from the MVP talks. I've seen him play great D for OKC before, I just wish he would bring that intensity on offense to the opposite end of the floor. If he can get over this hump, he will be in the talks for MVP.

 

Just curious, what do ppl think if Curry's d?

 

I agree, defense matters a lot. And I am in no way trying to say that Harden is a good defender. But look at some of the other guys who were mentioned in the 4-6 range of MVP voting: Steph Curry, Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Love are all minus-defenders as well.