James harden = 12 minutes of bad defense on video for an entire season. Wade = 12 in 3 Finals games

Lots of opinions and assumptions about what people think they are seeing and what they think is happening. One person says it and it's easy to pick it up and embellish it a little and repeat it.

Let's look at some facts:

1. In the Portland series 3 of the Portland starters (Mathews, Batum and Lopez) were below their season avg in both FG% and pts/game. The two players who played better in the playoffs were a PF (Aldridge) and a PG (Lillard). Those are the two guys that killed us offensively and Harden wasn't responsible for either of them.

2. Our opponents have an eFG% of 48.7% when Harden is on the floor and their eFG% is 49.4% when Harden is not on the floor. So we are actually giving up a higher eFG% when Harden is out of the game.

3. As a SG Harden's opponent has a 47.8% eFG%.

For an apples-to-apples comparision here's the opponents FG% for other SG across the league:

Joe Johnson - opponent eFG% 50.9%

Avery Bradley - opponent eFG% 50%

Jimmy Butler - opponent eFG% 45.8%

Monta Ellis - opponent eFG% 48%

Klay Thompson - opponent eFG% 46.5%

Lance Stephenson - opponent eFG% 55.7%

Tony Allen - opponent eFG% 49.9%

Dwayne Wade - opponent eFG% 55.3%

Kevin Martin - opponent eFG% 49.5%

Eric Gordon - opponent eFG% 50.9%

JR Smith - opponent eFG% 48.8%

Thabo Sefolosha - opponent eFG% 50.3%

Aaron Afflalo - opponent eFG% 56.9%

Eric Bledsoe - opponent eFG% 72.7%

Wesley Matthews - opponent eFG% 48.2%

Danny Green - opponent eFG% 46.3%

DeMar DeRozan - opponent eFG% 48.1%

Bradley Beal - opponents eFG% 49.4%

So of all those players only Butler, Thompson and Green allow a lower eFG% by opposing players. Not bad for a guy that doesn't even try and is out of shape.

You want to argue that it's just luck and a coincidence? Players just happen to have off nights for 82 games even though Harden is leaving them wide open? Every 2 guard in the league sucks defensively too? Defenders are too tired from trying to guard Harden so their offense suffers? Pick your excuse...it doesn't matter. I don't care if Harden is using a Jedi mind trick...the fact is we aren't getting torched at the SG position on a nightly basis (or on every possession as some would have you believe).

The FACT is that we have a huge advantage at the SG and C position on a nightly basis ,we're losing the battle at PF and PG and SF is pretty much a draw.

 

So your assuming all bad defensive plays are in those two videos? How did you come up with that assumption?

 

No one was nearly as good as Harden offensively either so what's your point...??? And or you actually using the (+/-) stat for guys who are not the anchor of the offense and or the team doesn't depend on offensively...??? Lol.. Nice.

 

Thanks for the info...

 

Did Mchale tell Harden to stand around when the ball was not in his hands? Did Mchale tell Harden to slacked off his opponent on defenses time and again? Don't put the coach under the bus every single time when the player(s) actually didn't perform at a reasonable level.

Guess what? TMac got us to the playoff every single year when he's health, and see how clutchfans think about him now? In my opinions, TMac was way better than Harden on both defense and offense when health. (Sorry Tinman)

 

Use one player to excuse Harden, right...let's just ignore all the other elite 2s that do play defense.

Wade is going down with age and injuries. Harden?

 

Care to show Harden's eFG%?

 

Raw on/off stats are fairly worthless when used without context. Harden spent a lot of minutes with Dwight and Beverley, the team's two best defenders. This is why teams look to adjusted plus/minus stats and other sources of info rather than raw ones.

The opposing SG FG% is even more worthless given the amount of cross-matching, switching, rotating, etc. there is going on in the game. A SG isn't always defending the opposing SG. And a defender is suppose to defend the opposing team as a part of a team, not just one opposing player. Bargnani, for example, is an excellent defender vs. 1-on-1 post-ups but is still overall a ****ty defender because his lack of awareness in the team scheme. Harden's awareness is generally poor.

Harden being bad on D is hardly the case of one person's opinion spreading to others. It's something that many people see independently when watching Rockets games-- Zach Lowe, Kelvin Sampson, (according to cyberx) Kevin Love, and more.

He is an excellent offensive player-- likely so good that the team will stick with him this summer and hope that his defense improves rather than trading him-- but this is what makes his ****ty defense an even bigger deal. If he was just some ordinary offensive player, you can actually sit his ass down for poor defense, and find some adequate sub for him. But because he is valuable offensively, the team almost has to play him big minutes no matter his defensive efforts. So, we get even more minutes of ****ty D.

 

OK OK Harden is better than wade. No. 1 SG.
SMH red neck fans

 

Which game were the rockets on defense for the entire first quarter???

 

Dont change the subject. The stage is different. Regular season vs finals? One word: effort. Harden choked in his finals appearance too. N tbh, the youtube video can be longeeeerrrrrr for harden atrocious D if the creator wanted too

 

And how often was "Tracy" healthy...? Lol... Next you'll tell me you rather have K-Mart... Harden has got us to the playoffs every year he's been here and he didn't have as good of a coaching staff as "Tracy" so what's your point other than the fact that you loved "Tracy" and hate Harden...???

 

I love Morey's response to the Harden video. "If we took the worst 12 minutes of your life there would should be plenty scenes of including toilets"

 

sorry, I cannot edit....

 

very silly thread, harden can only dream of accomplishing even a 1/10 of what wade has done in his career

 

so you mean a 24 y/o, 5th season in the league, should put on effort like he is 32 y/o, 11th season?
HOF is just as annoying.

 

Too early to compare. One is in the Finals battling it out for his 4th ring. The other...well...

Silly OP.

 

yo wade at least shows up in the playoffs. wade is also dealing with a bunch of injuries. his knees are terrible. he has been missing a ton of layups he would normally make. health is a huge issue for him.

but let's say wade is playing poor defense and he is healthy. that should not excuse harden for playing bad defense. in fact who gives a rats how badly other players are playing. harden should be trying more than he is currently now on defense.

 

+1

on point

 

Look kid. I had high hope for Harden to play as a superstar as we all projected him to be here.

Just stop making excuses by dragging other players in. Look into his play where it lacks most. The only time I saw him being explosive was when he executed his Euro-steps, otherwise, he was like how Deke was playing his final year as a Rocket (only speed wise).