I would trade for Klay Thompson straight up. He's a helluva shooter as well as a player that plays defense.
Those were all facts. Which do you feel are incorrect? Do you not agree that Wade is a better midrange shooter? Do you not agree that Harden is a much better 3 point shooter? Do you not agree that Harden is more efficient that Wade ever was? Do you not agree that Wade has had 6 seasons with equal or higher useage than Harden has ever had? Do you not agree that Wade has had 6 seasons with an assist/to ratio that is lower than what Harden had this season? That's everything that was in my post. If you feel that any of those are incorrect then please contact the NBA offices and let them know that their statistics are incorrect. Exactly how is quoting facts delusional? I didn't even state any opinion. You can't argue with any of those points so I agree that you shouldn't say anything. You'll just embarrass yourself.
Both of you need to go and watch the 2006 NBA Finals. Wade was the undisputed leader of that team. He literally won that championship for them. All his other teammates, including Shaq, were role players against Dallas. He did whatever it took to get the job done and they won the title as a result of his performance. That is undeniable.
He was fantastic, no doubt. Unstoppable ISO player, drew tons of fouls, high usage, lots of turnovers, AST/TO ratio around 1.5...hey that sounds familiar doesn't it. You seem to be misunderstanding. I think Wade is an all-time great. That was one of the greatest Finals performances ever.I'm just making the point that many of things that people are killing Harden for are also traits of Wade's. That's why it's so foolish to say that you have to play like SA or GS or that you can't run ISO or that your primary ball handler has to have and ast/to ratio above 2. It's foolish for posters to say Harden can't be a #1 guy on a championship team because of those things when Wade has already shown that it's possible. I'll tell you how much I respect Wade's game, I think a prime D-Wade is the 2nd best shooting guard to ever play. Yes, I think that he was better than Kobe. Kobe just had a better supporting cast for more years.
Do you not agree James set the NBA record for most turnovers in a single NBA season? Do you not agree James set the NBA record for most turnovers in a single NBA playoff game? Do you not agree James is shooting a lowly 41.3% while wearing a Rockets jersey in the playoffs? Do you not agree James is the 15th slowest player in the NBA according to average speed - and the ONLY guard on the list to that point? You can't argue with any of those points so I agree you shouldn't say anything. You'll just embarrass yourself.
First of all, to all the Wade haters, this thread is about his LEADERSHIP! It has nothing to do with who he has played with, or his stats. Wade is a clear leader, and even though he wasn't the #1 player on court player for the Big 3 Heat, he was their leader more so than Lebron was. And the argument that he can only win titles with a loaded team doesn't hold weight when every championship team has been loaded. MJ's bulls (especially the 2nd 3peat w/ Pippen Rodman, Harper, Kukoc) was incredibly loaded. Laker's '00 3peat (remember the likes of a 3rd option like old man Glen rice + Horry). Every Celtics title in history had a big 3 at a bare minimum. Bill Russell had a big 5 FFS. Where there were champions who weren't particularly "loaded" those teams didn't have one dominant superstar. It was just great team ball (eg. Spurs, Mavs and 04 Pistons). I will say though there is one Player who didn't have a loaded superstar team who was actually a Superstar himself. HAKEEM!
42, 36, 43, 36 How he responded to being down 0-2 in the Finals is legendary. Harden hasn't done that... YET. He will
The 2005-2006 Heat were not loaded. Not unless you mean drunk. Jason Williams/Haslem/Antoine Walker/Shaq Bunch of old dudes and one juggernaut in Wade. Mourning and Payton were old, James Posey and Shandon Anderson were ex-Rockets back then that weren't worth keeping. Wade carried an old team that lacked talent. Granted his body took a beating because of this and he's no longer the player he was, but he was Michael Jordan good during that Finals.
You're only looking at offense. Wade is also a great defensive player and just passed MJ for most playoff blocks for a guard. You will never be able to say either of those things for Harden. Not to mention the Grand Canyon sized gap in leadership skills.
Who just repped me? I think I know, but in response to your question in the rep, I think you got pretty good value at +220.
For example, will Harden EVER have the awareness to make this play? Sure, he might get a block every once in a while on his man, but in a late game off-ball situation like this, I doubt Harden even turns around to realize what's happening before Kemba lays it in. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5xYiDM3tDZI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yeah, there really is no comparison when it comes to prime D-Wade vs a prime Harden. Like you said, that performance was legendary. Antoine "I shoot so many 3s because there are no 4s" Walker was the Heat's second leading scorer in the 2006 Finals. That's the kind of "help" Wade was getting. Lol, that was me. My fault for forgetting to sign the rep.
Time is ticking for James Harden. I love the guy but to say Dwade has always had a better supporting cast is insane especially this year. Wade just knows how to make players around him better even at this age. He may not be the best at it anymore but he definitely tries on both ends of the floor. He knew how to use a deteriorated shaq. Like Isiah has said, Wade learned from guys like Mourning, Shaq, Riley.... Harden kicked the guy with multiple championship experience off our team in Mchale. This is why I thought it was important to have Rudy T still in this organization. He should have a front office job with us and should be paid to continue the championship culture that was instilled even befor Les set foot on the Summit. As much as Harden needs to work on his game on both ends of the court, he definitely needs to work on his leadership skills and ability to make players around him better. If Harden is not scoring what is he doing that is helping the team win games? That is why when we plugged Ron Artest next to Battier and Yao that year we became a complete team. Egos need to be checked at the door or left at the strip club.
Seems that you missed the whole point of my post. Do I think that you were delusional for posting those facts? Nope, in fact I applaud you for posting facts. I'll provide a counter argument to show that your facts don't neccesarily mean what you are implying but I respect the fact that you provided something concrete rather than the incorrect speculation that so often gets quoted on this board. That was the whole point of my post. I posted nothing but facts and was told that I was delusional for doing so. I originally posted those facts intending to get a response. That's the way you debate something. Counter arguments are the whole purpose. Saying that someone is a dick, douche or delusional because they post facts is ridiculous. Now as far as responding to your facts: Yes Harden set a record for turnovers. It was a whole half a turnover per game more than his MVP runner up season last year. Would it be better if we had less turnovers? Yes. Is that additional 1 turnover every two games the reason for our problems? No. As for FG%, I'd ask why you are using FG% as a meaningful stat when today's NBA is so focused on 3 point shots and free throws. Do you prefer a player that shoots 48% on midrange or 33% on 3pointers? The midrange guy will have a higher FG% and the 3 point shooter will score more points on the same number of shots. TS% is a much better indicator. In last season's playoffs Harden's TS% was an elite 62%, 2nd highest in the league behind Chris Paul. This year it was only 55%. That's not elite but hardly terrible. By comparision, in getting to the finals last season Lebron posted a TS% of .487. As for the average speed, I could care less. That's more a factor of style of play and role. As long as a player is producing that's what matters. If you look, you'll see that Kevin Durant and Lebron James are also very low on the list. Draymond Green and Anthony Davis are also way down the list. That's due to style of play. A player that runs a lot of ISO isn't going to be running around like players who's strength is running off of screens. Since you posted that stat, you obviously feel that it has some importance. What do you believe that average speed indicates? It's not fitness or effort. Russell Westbrook is a freakish athelete and he plays incredibly hard yet he's #9 on his own team in average speed. Likewise, Durant is next to last on that same team. Were you equating average speed to defensive skill or effort? It's not that either. Just look at Chicago. Jimmy Butler is 7th on his own team in average speed yet he's a great defender who puts in max effort on the defensive end. Mike Dunleavy Jr. is #2 on the Bulls in average speed and nobody has ever considered him a great defender or athletic. The reason that Dunleavy ranks so much higher than Butler is because of Dunleavy's style of play. He's in constant motion running off of screens on offense. Average speed is an interesting stat but alone it doesn't really tell you much. So I've successfully responded to your points and provided a counter argument and I didn't call you a douche or dick and I didn't say that you were delutional because you dared to post facts. See the difference?
When the average margin of victory in the NBA is 3.1, yes, an increase in half a turnover a game from one player is a significant problem. The problem with most of your analysis is that you easily shrug off a .5 difference in average of turnovers per game as a insignificant difference without any corresponding evidence to suggest it is a insignificant difference. Just to further demolish your point is that Westbrook average three more assists than Harden. If your counter to that is that Westbrook has one of the best scorers of all time as a teammate, then I can just state that Westrbrook still had a higher assist/to ratio than Harden last season without Durant the entire season.
I have to disagee with some of your points. Wade's supporting cast this season is much better than Harden's. In my opinion, 2016 Howard, Ariza, Brewer, D-Mo, Terry, Beasley and Beverley is nowhere near 2016 Whiteside, Dragic, Deng, Joe Johnson, Winslow. You don't think that Harden makes the players around him better? Sure he does. Those guys get open shots because opponents are selling out to stop Harden. All you have to do is compare those players stats when they are on the floor with Harden to their stats with Harden on the bench. It's pretty dramatic. Harden is the primary reason that we're #3 in the league in open 3 point attempts. Despite all of our problems this year, we're still 6th most efficient shooting team in the entire league. With Harden on the bench we're as bad as any team in the league offensively. Harden is the guy that makes our offense go. When he goes to the bench we are worse in most every category. We even turn the ball over more (per 100 possessions) when Harden is off the floor than when he's on the floor. As for the question of "If Harden isn't scoring then what is he doing to help the team?", that's an easy one. First of all, Harden is scoring most every night. It might not be a great game based off of Harden's standards but he's going to score since he's usually going to get the the FT regardless of how he's shooting. He's also #6 in the league in assists and he's #6 in the league in points generated from assists. He's also our third leading rebounder (6.1), trailing only Howard (11.8) and Capela (6.4). He's the #1 rebounder for SGs in the entire league. Harden is also #16 in the league in steals. It's really no different that if you asked what Curry or Durant doing to help the team if they aren't scoring. None of those 3 guys in only a scorer.
The average margin of victory in the NBA isn't relative to the Rockets. In the games that we won then obviously a half a turnover didn't cost us. In our losses, we lost by an average margin of 9.9 so again a half a turnover is insignificant when you're losing by double figures. Like I said in my prior post, he should reduce the turnovers but that's not one of the main reasons that we had such a down year. If we'd lost a ton of one point games then possibly, but that wasn't the case. We went from a 56 win team to a 41 win team. That's wasn't primarily due to an additional .05 TO/game by Harden. How does the fact that Westbrook averages more assists than Harden "demolish" my point? My only reference to Westbrook was his average speed. I never even mentioned his passing. How about Westbrook has more assists because he's a great assist guy? He averaged double digit assists. Westbrook is a better assist guy than Harden, does that mean that Harden is terrible? I'm not following your logic. You're quoting a statement where I say that an extra half of an assist is insignificant. I'm not seeing how the fact that Westbrook is better at assists is relevant. What does one have to do with the other. Was the Westbrook reference in relation so something that you didn't quote? I don't believe that I've ever claimed that Harden was the best assist man in the league.
