Screaming A Smith And Max Kellerman Debate If Harden Is The Greatest Scorer In This Era

Harden's rep around the league fanbase is returning to 15-16' levels of toxicity.

 

ESPN worry less about James' scoring and more about your ratings.

 

Before I watch, I’m guessing Max takes a negative route about Harden, and mentions playoffs 5 times.

 

I can't recall any other truly great athlete in the history of sports being treated like **** as much as Harden. The media has put on him all those "flopper", "no-defense" labels years ago and keeps regurgitating the same things regardless if it's the actual reality. It's a shame an All-Time great is being treated this way. He did nothing to deserve this.

 

Truly sad

 

He did actually. He shiiiitt on the likes of Lebron, curry and everyone else when it comes to stats. Also Durant aka wannabe greatest offensive player in the world isnt anything near Harden. And...the media hated him for that.

 

“The greatest scorer of his generation“ ...

He is in a system perfectly tailored to maximize his individual points and efficiency over the course of a regular season. Yes, he has some particular elite scoring skills, but he relies largely on a small set of specific moves designed to exploit unprepared or undisciplined NBA defenses. If he is unsuccessful with those moves, he has no counter to go to. In particular, if the 3-ball isn’t falling and the defense can take away the paint, see what happens. It gets ugly fast.

His “greatness” as a scorer can only be truly tested by what he does against a prepared defensive team. The sort he keeps running into in the second and third rounds of the playoffs. Greatness is not defined by what he does against the Atlanta Hawks.

 

Durant wasn't even the greatest scorer on his own team. I swear man...

 

Why do so many people disagree with this assessment? He wants the stats, if he didn't he would take more of a backseat and be fresh for the playoffs like every other championship pursuing superstar. These gawdy numbers in November and December don't mean anything and he will deservedly so get bashed to hell if he fails to get to at least the Finals this season.

 

I guess he hasn’t develop a floater to counter the 3ball. The guy leads the league in drives and points off drives

 

Lol, wow. I usually enjoy the show but they are dropping the ball here.

MJ had a Triangle offense designed to help him succeed and he won 10 scoring titles. Was he not "thirsty" to score and win? That's a terrible argument and label. All great coaching staffs build systems to help thier players succeed, just like D'Antoni is doing.

Mentioning the roles in OKC when KD and Russell were earlier estalished top draft picks and Harden was new is also poor. As they developed, Harden is the better offensive player than Russell in a different environment. is "there a reason for that" like Max is justifying for OKC? After all Russell had a larger role too in OKC. or was it due to KD and Russ already being there with defined roles before Harden joined later?

KD is an all time scorer and more efficient with his lower volume not taking anything away from that, but we've never seen a volume scorer as efficient as James Harden in NBA history. Harden has also lead the league in assists, something KD has never done, and Harden's team's offensive ratings in Houston compared to KD in OKC are arguably higher (Steph and GSW were doing it before KD). So a case can be made he's a better overall offensive player for a team.

It's funny how bad circular logic is with sports media, before KD won his game and occaionally personality wasn't good enough in thier eyes, when he joined a superteam and won now his game is about winning and "He's playing the right way". What was actually the major change? His team around him. Having four other all stars and a finals MVP in Iguodala sure does help the narrative.

If he didn't join a stacked team to win would he still be "playing the right way?".

Once a team wins, media personalities start rationalizing and justifying the same player.

 

The triangle was not designed to make MJ's scoring more prolific. Just the opposite, actually. He highest scoring seasons came before the Bulls adopted the triangle, which Phil Jackson implemented specifically to promote a more team-oriented offensive style.

 

At the very end Kell The Man is saying when he thinks of all time scorers like mike, KD,
kobe, and kareem it’s because they scored differently than anyone else in the league.... the question is can Kell The Man tell us who scores like harden in the league today?

I’ll wait.......

 

Never said that it was designed to only make him a more prolific scorer while sacrificing team success, both played a part in the offense that was built around him to help the team. Those two aren't mutually exclusive.

Jordan was a prolific scorer and had an obsession to win, some like the First Take guys and the media at the time would say his obsession was "thirsty" to win every scoring title which I think is a poor label. Jordan also had more talent around him in the Jackson era to help reduce the need for that level of scoring and teammates who could score at a higher level than his previous supporting casts as well. If he didn't have that level of talent he would have upped his scoring to win.

Don't want to get bogged down in semantics, but the idea was that it was built to help him succeed and he won many scoring titles in that offense, so good coaches and players do the same and take advantage.

Jordan scoring at high volume and creating for others was the best way for those bulls team to succeed offensively, the Rockets have Harden as the most efficient player to create offense and score to help the team succeed. Both are team players who create for thier team including high assist rates.

D'Antoni created a system that has helped the Rockets team success in winning percentage, team Ortg as well as helped Harden win scoring titles.

 

why is this even a conversation or debate? He is the greatest scorer we have ever seen besides MJ!!!

No, I never saw Wilt.

No debate.
MJ and then Harden.

Peak Harden is better than MJ as a scorer

 

These two clowns could be debating cheese t***, idgaf

 

pics of cheese t*** pls. for research

 

KD goes to the Warriors to become a great player but did absolutely jack **** when he was at OKC. He actually choked real badly in a few games in the finals against the Warriors..... and that OKC team was better than Harden has ever played with (I know Harden was at OKC, but he was only like 23 at the time.... so it doesn't really count). KD knows he cannot carry a team to a ring so he went to an all-star team.

Harden hasn't had the best of teams at the Rockets, but he somehow got them to the conference finals a few times..... despite matching up against a very strong Warriors team virtually every playoffs. I'm sure if Harden went to the Warriors, he would comfortably have 3 or 4 rings.

Harden makes average teams great.... while KD plays good in great sides.

 

I normally ignore these threads but I’ve had a couple beers tonight and LOL these guys are idiots. I’m not even going to argue KD vs. Harden - KD is a great scorer too...

But I died laughing at them trying to downplay what Harden is doing by saying Kobe scored 35 in an era no one else was scoring like that. How are these jackasses even on TV and a company as big as ESPN even allows them to spew pure garbage like this? Last year here were the top 5 scorers in PPG:

1) Harden - 36.1
2-5) PG, Giannis, Embiid and Curry - ~28

This season:
1) Harden - 39.5
2-3) Giannis and Luka - ~30
4-5) Beal and Young - ~28

Now let’s take a look at when Kobe scored 35...
1) Kobe - 35
2) AI - 33
3) LBJ - 31
4) Arenas - 29
5) Wade - 28

What a joke...