FREE TO BE HIMSELF, JAMES HARDEN LOOKS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE AN NBA MVP

Kevin Ding tho??????????????????????????????????????

 

Seriously, DD? Did you even watch the Clipper game?? Harden's defense was outstanding with the exception of a couple of meaningless plays.

 

Kevin Ding does have a MVP vote. So, score 1 for Harden!

 

We should move harden to the bench and just have 3 sixth men of the year. Teams would have trouble matching up with us

 

BUT WESTBROOK AVERAGES 2 MORE REBOUNDS THAN HAREN AND HAS A D LEAGUE-ROSTER. -Westbrook fans

 

With all the Pro Rockets/Harden articles coming out lately there must have been some serious slurpage during the all star break.

I do enjoy the good reads tho.

 

I think Westbrook still has a chance and for whatever reason people on TV would rather his story than Harden's. But this nonsense about defense though ... Westbrook is a lot more aggressive but he gets scored on just as much if not more. He "makes up" for it with huge plays to erase those moments out of people's memory though. So it's good to see some numbers to finally show that they're not that far apart if at all, defensively.

 

We would dominate 2nd quarter

Hardens defensive reputation has become mythological.

He still has some bad games of course but I dont think any good defensive game can shake everyones confirmation bias when it comes to him

 

It's absolute BS, they're changing they way vote to just give the MVP to the player they like more, remember last season, Harden put up insane stats only comparable to Lebron, Jordan, Havlicek and The big O...and he didn't even make the all-nba 3rd team!!!

Lost MVP to Steph Curry in 2015 (because he had a better team record/flashier style)

Now they're going to give it westbrook despite his insane usage, lower winshare %, lower TS%, 2 more rebounds (due to bigs boxing out for him), and sympathy that KD left. They ****ing suck!

People keep saying this BS about the Rockets having a better team...well they weren't saying that at the start of the season! Oh, because we're the 3rd seed in the west and poor Westbrook is only 7th despite having a trip dub average it must be because WB has a worse team. No!

It's because Harden is making his teammates better, a true MVP, getting awesome production from his teammates, in a similar way LeBron made Mo Williams an all-star. WB is just hogging the ball and taking all the shots, it's not like OKC doesn't have comparable pieces.

I've seen shows that are now swinging their votes to WB due to his recent great games (recency bias!)...if Harden doesn't win MVP the media conspiracy is real.

The fact that noone talks about how close the 2015 MVP race was between Curry and Harden means if WB wins this year, barely anyone (except rox fans) will remember Harden should have won, and Harden's greatness this season will be a afterthought in Bball history

...I'm steaming, but god I hope they vote correctly and aren't the bunch of weiners I've pegged them for.

 

"Russell Westbrook is still a more active defender, but it might surprise you to know this: Players are shooting 49.8 percent against Westbrook this season (4.9 percent higher than their normal shooting percentages) compared to 46.9 percent against Harden (only 2.2 percent better than their averages)."

Rocket River

 

If Harden took as many shots as Westbrook did, he'd average 35 easily but the team wouldn't be performing as well nor as happy.

Westbrook fans always say he has no help and his supporting cast sucks. Well, who would want to play with a ballhog like Westbrook who chucks up more shots than the rest of the time combined? I know KD wouldn't neither did Reggie Jackson, that's why they both left on bad terms with Westbrook. 7 of Westbrook's averaged rebounds are uncontested defensive rebounds which means he's not letting his bigs grab them yet his defenders always fail to mention that.

It's sad but most media voters don't even watch the games or look at the advanced stats before they vote on all-nba or MVP, they just follow the narrative. If they did, they'd realize Westbrook is an inefficient chucker who's also a ballhogging statpadder. The new narrative is literally: triple-double record doesn't matter when it worked against Harden when Curry won over him. Pretty dumb.