Do what I do when the herd or Stephen A comes on....change the channel...best way to punish media guys for their idiocy is not give them any attention.
With respect you will find it a 'Lin FAN' singular, making that argument, which I, another Lin fan, completely disagree with, as you will find if you read my post on the previous page.
The topic is whether Harden is worth the max, and based on current performance he clearly is not -- or at least, not yet. That is exactly what I'm saying. Let our PG be the PG and our SG the SG. At the moment, it's the other way around, and is probably the reason that Harden, an inferior playmaker to Lin, is forcing shots and consequently averaging only .383 in the new offense.
You have just been schooled on why you should be careful about what you ask for, because you might get it. You demanded that I prove that iso-Beard-ball started in game 3, and I did. A 43% to 27% reduction in assisted field goals is a dramatic change, an unmistakable indication of greater ball hogging in iso-Beard-ball. Unlike Kobe, however, Harden cannot hog the ball and simultaneously maintain a reasonable shooting average. In the first two games, when 43% of his made field goals were assisted, his average was an amazing .636. In the 13 games since, .383. So you got what you asked for, and did you ever hate it. Rather than arguing on the merits, you tossed some insults and flounced out of the room. Good riddance.
That is exactly what I'm saying. Let our PG be the PG and our SG the SG. At the moment, it's the other way around, and is probably the reason that Harden, an inferior playmaker to Lin, is forcing shots and consequently averaging only .383 in the new offense.[/QUOTE] What makes Lin a better playmaker than Harden? Harden is the best playmaker on this team and he was on OKC as well.
How are you still patting yourself on the back after I pointed out why the 43% vs 27% means absolutely nothing. You took the averages of the first 2 games (43%), and then took the averages of the next 13 games. (27%) If you still don't understand why that means absolutely nothing, you are hopeless. Judging from your posts, you probably are.
I wasn't cherry picking. We've had two major offenses this season, and I was comparing Harden's performance in each. In the first two games, 43% of his field goals were assisted, and his shooting average was an amazing .636. In the 13 games since then, his assisted percentage dropped to 27%. He has clearly been hogging the ball and forcing up some bad shots. So no one should be surprised that his shooting average in those games is now an ugly .383. Really, OremLK, I've been extremely mild in my criticism of Harden. But we can't close our eyes and refuse to see the hard data.
I think we need another go to guy for Harden to really thrive. The coaching isn't the greatest either. Harden would be a great second option for scoring but let's face it, I don't think anybody trusts him with the ball in his hands for the final game winning shot.
Newsflash: you don't need to be a PG to be a playmaker. (LBJ, Wade, Durant, Ginobili, T-Mac in his day) What makes Jeremy Lin a better playmaker than Harden? He's not a great passer and makes way too many mistakes. He can't shoot so the defenses just back off him. He picks up his dribble way too often and then gets stuck either in the air or in the lane. He's an okay PG, but given the choice of Harden vs. Lin w/ respect to playmaking duties, it's Harden all day. Not even close.
The thing is...the people that are cherry-picking his bad games are not counting that. They are just throwing out his two best games. They aren't taking away the Jazz game...or this recent OKC game...They are still counting the first Blazers game when he rolled his ankle and the game after that where he played on said ankle.
Just because you claim it's meaningless doesn't make it so. My intent was to demonstrate that we've had two different offenses this season, and I did that. A 43% to 27% reduction in Harden's assisted field goals is about as huge a difference as you could want; our current offense is really very different from what we were running in the first two games. And Harden's .383 average in the current system shows that it's bad for him. I give you hard data, you give me insults. I will let the audience decide who has been more reasonable.
Harden is a better playmaker than Lin. But Lin is a better PG. I think that is what the Lin fans are trying to say. You are right, even a pure scorer like Kobe or Melo are great playmakers. They make plays...almost all all-stars are great playmakers.
I believe Jeremy Iso ball started after game 1. 60% of his shots were assisted compared to 39.8 % of his shots in the next 14 games. Whether you see it or not, 60% to 39.8% is a huge reduction in assisted field goal averages. Our current offense is very different to the offense we ran in the first game. Now, if you still don't get the point of what I just did, then I'm done.
Lol why does every harden thread have to bring up the Lin trolls? Seriously, Lin is nowhere near this topic. I think this clown is just spouting non-sense, sure Harden is clearly a tier below KD/LBJ/DH/Kobe/TD/etc. But those guys are pretty much HOF worthy players, they're worth much more than the max. If you look at max guys, you have Bosh, Brook Lopez, Russell WB, (old man) Dwade, Kevin Love, LMA, Amare, Melo, D-Will and Gay, and apart from Bosh and Melo at his absolute best I don't really know anyone you could is outright a better player than him. What we have now in Harden is an extremely skilled, play-making sg who's not afraid of contact. At only 23 years old and with no injury history, I can't think of a reason why he won't elevate his game. He's worth the max at his current level compared to other max guys, and he'll be very near LBJ/KD tier when he reaches his peak IMHO.
I am big Lin fan and I think Harden is worth a max contract due to his age and his potential. Maybe you should start addressing the person who made the post instead of generalizing an entire group of people.
Okay so just out of curiosity I ran the numbers (according to NBA.com) with 1) Data from ALL games 2) tossing out the highest and lowest performing data points 3) tossing out the 2 highest and 2 lowest performing data points. 4) Tossing out the first 2 games and 2 lowest performing games. 5) Tossing out the 2 best and worst games The highest data point was 80%/60% on FG's/3ptrs and lowest was 0%/0%. Second high/low was 71.4%/50% and 9.1%/14.3%. These would represent the possible outliers to the "norm of performance" as compared to the rest of the data. (a.k.a...a "significant difference from the norm". 1) Averages for all the data from all the games: 41.1% on all FGM-A; 44.7% on 2pt Shots M/A; 34.9% on 3pts M/A 2) Averages w/o the highest and lowest data points: 40.5% FGM-A; 45.4% 2PTM; 35.6% 3PTM (roughly the same averages) 3) Averages w/o the 2 highest and lowest data points: 40.9% FGM-A; 46.4% 2PTM; 36.3% 3PTM 4) Averages w/o first two games and w/o worst two games (UTH playing only 17 mins & OKC last game): 41.1% FGM-A; 46.8% 2PTM; 31.2 3PTM 5) Average w/o the 2 best and worst games: 40.9% FGA-M; 46.4% 2PTM; 31% 3PTM Here it is stacked up to make it easier to read: 1) 41.1 / 44.7 / 34.9 2) 40.5 / 45.4 / 35.6 3) 40.9 / 46.4 / 36.3 4) 41.1 / 46.8 / 31.2 5) 40.9 / 46.4 / 31.0 Seems like the more you try to isolate by tossing out the outliers the overall performance stays the same but his FG% inside the arc increases while his 3PT shooting % decreases. Not sure what this means exactly, but I was personally just curious. Anyway....don't think it's responsible to toss out some games and not others to evaluate the meaning behind the data. If you are going to remove data, probably should try to remove the true outliers that are "out of the norm" to make your evaluation.
cowherd is a idiot.. by his own statement only like 3 guys in ALL the NBA is worth the max.. Kobe, KD and LeBron.. it's the guys like 14th game as a #1 option and he is given NO TIME to grow into it and have bad games.. because Kobe and LeBRon in their first year as THE MAN never had 3-16 shooting nights.. Hey Cowherd.. if Harden isn't a #1 max guy then why did OKC double team him ALL GAME.. it's called respect. you don't double team role players, you double team guys your scared of and know can go off if you don't..
is james harden a max player? yes. is he a real franchise player? no. if the nba is set up that allows you two max guys (with the miami model 3 if stars are willing to take a pay cut) and there are 30 teams in the nba, and only one lebron, kobe, durant (real franchise players) then players who are not real franchise players (harden, hibbert, joe johnson) but somewhat close in talent and production, will get max contracts. but no, harden is not a real bona fide franchise player. right now....
I agree, I think this is what a lot of casual NBA fans may not understand about the whole "max player" designation. And it's also a sort of confusion that sports pundits like Cowherd profit from. "Max player" does not mean superstar. It means that the player's services in the free agency market cost the maximum allowed under the new CBA, which ain't all that much to begin with compared to the old CBA. There's a very low threshold for that. Good to great players are generally max players. It's not some sort of sacred title reserved for literally the 2-3 best basketball players on the planet. That's just silliness. You see this all the time on the internet and on sports radio. I'm just amazed that one bad game against OKC was all it took to embolden Antonio Davis of all freaking people into trying to create sports drama by revisiting the long-dead "Is James Harden a Max Player?" question. Welcome to three weeks ago, Davis, you moron.
It's obvious what you are desperately <i>trying</i> to do. But again you fail. You think your one-game sample can discredit my two games. You are wrong. You see, Harden's assisted FG percentage was <b>exactly the same</b> in each of the two first two games of the season: it was 6 of 14 in game 1 and precisely the same in game 2. That's a trend, and a much stronger argument than you think it is. So I am justified in splitting the season into two parts: the first two games, where his AFG% was 43; and the rest, where his AFG% was 27. In the latter part, he has been shooting .383, which quite frankly sucks. As for Harden's ball hogging, there can be no doubt. He's worse than even Kobe in this respect: his assisted FG% is 30.1 for the season; Kobe's is 31.9. The new offense is clearly not doing Harden any good. I think it's time we changed it.
