Yeah. Better than prime Lebron. His greatness is just so consistent. And one of the best things about him is that he loves to get his teammates going more than he loves to get going. He’d rather have 20 assists than 50 points. I’ll admit that I’m not very old and I never watched Jordan or Magic or Bird or Hakeem. But I’ve seen Lebron and Kobe in their primes and the way Harden is playing right now I would take him over those two any day. He should have a title right now, and it should have been earned against the most talented team of all time. This dude is for real and he’s going to win us(yeah, us, he’s 100% loyal to Houston) a title soon.
He is at MJ, Kobe level this season so far. He needs to finish it with a historic post season run that culminates in a championship and repeat a couple of more times after that to have the same legacy as those guys though. That was the deal with Hakeem. He was consistently really good for a long time but he only had a couple seasons where he played out of his mind and just couldn’t be stopped no matter what. Double team, triple team, illegal D, opponents tried it all but he still brought home the rings. If he had done it two more times you would hear him mentioned a lot more too. Now you just hear his name when talking about greatest centers ever.
Unfortunately Offensive prowess comes and goes and when his shot is off he has to do other things. 0-27 or whatever shooting nights should never happen again.
Harden has never played for a coach that is good at making adjustments, mchale and mike are not good when their gameplan is not working Harden would have a ring by now with a coach like erik spoelstra or pop
I’m pretty sure Harden didn’t shoot 0-27 all by himself. I know for sure Ariza was 0 for a double digit amount. And Harden had 35 in that game, playing without his second best player, against 4 all stars with the refs against him and lost by single digits...
I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. Hakeem was phenomenal for far far more than 2 seasons. Hes arguably the greatest defensive player in the history of basketball. Certainly since Bill Russell. He’s a far superior player to Kobe. I love Harden and this may be the single greatest individual basketball season in Rockets history, but he’s got a long way to go before he even cracks the top 15 of all time. Hakeem is solidly in the top 5 or 6.
The only problem is his playoff production take a significant drop (due to carrying bums consistently for 82 games), which shifts narratives. Hopefully he can get some help in the playoffs. It’s not fair he has to put up 57 and 61 points to give his team a chance to win.
For me, he's better than Kobe (and Lebron is/was better than Kobe too), don't get me wrong, Kobe was great, but i think his defense was overrated, at least for the majority of his career, on the other hand James is still talked like a matador kind of defender when he's really looking as good if not better than Kobe out there. James is also a better playmaker/passer than Kobe. And you also know that Kobe got a lot of push by the media because he played for the Lakers, swap Harden with him and yeah... James also never played with prime Shaq, Gasol, Odom...but with past prime Dwight, past prime Paul, Gordon... Oh yeah, James also never got a ring gifted by the refs, in fact they robbed one from him.
One time LeBron scores the final 25 points (and 29 of 30), forcing OT, winning it in OT, against a formidable Pistons opponent in the second round of the playoffs. Offensively this is definitely the best regular season I’ve seen since MJ though. Time to stamp a post-season.
http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401032767 2-13 0-27 was the overall shooting by the team. Consecutive missed ones.
I’m not saying he wasn’t phenomenal for only 2 seasons. He was phenomenal his entire Rockets career. But he took it to yet another level for 2 seasons. I disagree about Kobe though. That guy was intense and could score at will. He was clutch in the big moments. Incredible player for over a decade. He had help but it was his team. Shaq didn’t like that and you saw whose team it really was at that point. Anyway, I would put him right behind MJ on the Goat list. Overall though, as great as Harden has been the past few seasons and this one in particular, he still doesn’t have the titles and historic playoff performances to enter the MJ, Kobe, and Olajuwon territory. He definitely has the talent to do it. It’s up to Tilman and Morey to make sure he has the pieces around him to maximize his prime though. Like you mentioned, even the greatest players need help.
And clearly got fouled on 4 three point attempts that weren't called. And so the 12 point swing would have won the game. Oh my. Grrr.
Harden consistently has me watching games like I’m in awe. Fools have the audacity to call his game boring. Harden is must-see every night because any night you could be witnessing a 50, 60, or possibly 70 point performance. His game leaves me speechless.
