Efficiency doesn't win games though by itself. Making defensive plays wins games. Rallying your troops wins games. Galvanizing the team, wins games. Setting a positive example, wins games. Harden is a stat stuffer and feasts on terrible teams during the regular season. In Playoff competition where defenses are better, he really does not have the overwhelming efficiency anymore, and he still doesn't have the defense or the intangibles.
Efficiency by itself does win games though. Even if we accepted the ridiculous and absurd notion that Harden contributed absolutely nothing outside of offensive efficiency, we still won a ton of games, based on his contributions. In Harden's career 77 playoff games, his TS is 59%, so yes, in the playoffs he does have the overwhelming efficiency. Try again.
I've already posted that in my opinion prime D-Wade was the 2nd best SG in history. I've already acknowledged how great he was. I mentioned those other offensive things because those are all traits that Harden and Wade have in common. We've had multiple posters claim that we can't win a title running lots of iso or with one player having a usage like Harden's or because Harden's AST/TO ratio is below 2. Those are all offensive things and those are the things that I responded to. The point of my post wasn't to compare Harden and Wade in his prime but rather to show that it's silly to say that we can't win because of something that Wade has already won titles while doing. For example,if somebody made the ridiculous statement that Dwight Howard couldn't lead a team to a title because he was under 7' then I'd site Olajuwon as proof to disprove it. That wouldn't mean I think that Howard is as good as Olajuwon. In fact, it wouldn't even mean that I'd offered an opinion on whether or not Howard could lead a team to a title. Way too many people who are making broad claims about what you "have" to do to win a title or what you "can't" do if you are going to win a title. Declaring things in absolutes like that are ridiculous. As far as leadership that's an opinion. After their first finals, both Lebron and Nowitzki were deemed poor leaders. They later win and then they are great leaders. That's just how it works. I pretty much stay away from the leader argument because it's impossible to know unless you are in the locker room. As a fan I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes or on the court to a great extent. Is Steph Curry a great leader? I don't know. My impression from the 10,000 ft. level of a fan is that Draymond Green is the real leader of that team. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, there's really no way for me to know. Shaq thinks he was leader of that 2006 championship team (https://fansided.com/2014/05/26/shaq-rips-dwyane-wade/). Wade may feel that he was the leader. So if they can't agree how are casual fans suppose to know? Durant is on record as saying that Kevin Ollie, who was a role player, was the leader of that team in 2010 and taught them how to win (http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/20...lie-is-responsible-for-thunders-winning-ways/). How's a fan suppose to know if a role player like that is a leader in the locker room.
Murphy and his fanboys - who pollute this site in the off season - would do well to heed the words of Andrew Lang: "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than illumination."
