Not really the same thing. Harden wasn't guarding Oladipo, that's not really debatable. Yes, he may have gotten switched over to him once but that hardly merits posting a video of Oladipo's highlights in a thread about Harden's defense. Do you actually expect anyone to believe that you posted that video because it contained one switch over to Oladipo and a backdoor cut by Robinson? Either you thought that Harden was guarding Oladipo or you were purposely trying to be misleading, I'm not sure which but it really doesn't matter. Turnovers correlating to winning is a rather broad statement and open to lots of interpretation (unlike who guarded Oladipo). Does anyone "like" turnovers? Of course not. Can you still win with a player that is a high turnover guy? Yes you can, all you have to do is to look at the last couple of playoffs: 2016 final 4 teams: GS (Curry #7, Green #13), OKC (Westbrook #2, Durant #6), Cleveland (Lebron #9), Toronto (Lowry #14). So, 4 of the top 9 turnover guys in the league made the conference finals. 2015 final 4 teams: GS (Curry #9), Houston (Harden #3), Cleveland(Lebron #4), Atl(Teague #15) So, 3 of the top 9 and 2 of the top 4 made the conference finals. As I said, nobody is advocating to have lots of turnovers but having a high turnover guy certainly hasn't prevented teams from winning. Maybe I've uncovered the secret to winning an NBA title, you need the guy with the 9th most turnovers in the league on your team. For two consecutive years the team that has that guy with the 9th highest turnovers has won the title.
For me, it's all about team turnovers. If Harden has 8, but as a team we have 10-15 or so with double the amount of assists, I am a happy guy.
This is the logical way of looking at it. Except you forgot the part where we are forever doomed until we trade Capela for Rubio
Just to be accurate, Harden had 6 turnovers vs OKC. Only two of those turnovers were live ball turnovers. Of those turnovers, OKC scored 1 basket (2pts) off of Harden's turnovers.
Yes, there were two turnovers, plus at least one switch and the alley oop by Robinson plus another where Harden didn't get back on D. But posting a video without comment is misleading now. Maybe for people who don't watch the video. Either way doesn't matter like you said. Westbrook's gonna get his points, maybe we should consider how the guy who averages 16 ppg got 29 points. It really isn't. More turnovers, particularly live ball ones that lead directly to fast breaks, are pretty bad for winning. It's been established and used in a wide range of advanced statistics. No one claimed otherwise.
That's true. Assist ratio probably offsets most of that though I'm still concerned about live ball turnovers. 2014-15 (MVP caliber year, WCF appearance)- 34.6 ast%, 14.9 tov % (and not nearly as many live ball) 2015-16 (no all nba appearance, 1st round drubbing)- 35.4 ast%, 15.9 tov % (plus increase in live ball turnover issues) 2016-17 (we'll see)- 59.2 ast%, 19.6 tov %
Harden's defense has been about average to me but our team defense has been steadily improving. For the season we are ranked 21 in defensive rating Over the last 10 we are ranked 17 Over the last 5 we are ranked 11 I know small sample size but at least this is a good sign.
There were two live turnovers in that video that led to 5 points. The second may have been Nene's fault but it was a pass from harden that he couldn't handle
I think his defense has been better and the teammate does bounce back after the coach yells at them, like yesterday.
http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2016/sort/DRPM/position/1 Actually the link you gave also shows Curry being #5 among PGs. His DRPM was 0.86, not -1.85. How did you read it that got 52nd?
James Harden is the least of the Rockets problems. James Harden isn't going to make the NBA All Defensive First Team anytime soon, but his defense overall is average... especially for a perimeter star. Very few perimeter stars defend, James is no worse than Westbrook defensively. Harden doesn't rotate well and Westbrook gambles almost every possession.
I have no idea. That was the number I saw before and I tripled checked because -1.85 seemed way worse than I expected. I have no idea what I saw before. Weird.
I think Harden is zoning around the elbow where his strength and length as a guard are positive defensively. He can guard in the paint most guys but horrible on the perimeter, just not quick enough, it's not about laziness. The team as a whole is doing better on helping, and Ariza as usual is not getting enough credit as the perimeter floor general.
It's early in the season, so you'll still see big swings. Golden state just held Boston to under 90, so that's probably why curry improved No stat is perfect, you'll see weird things, but it's good to see some objective data confirming that Harden is better than last year defensively confirming the "eye test"
