What happened to the stats? I already know _holics opinion, Im looking for obscure stats in this thread.
I really really really really want Harden to lead the League in scoring. It'll be a travesty if he goes his entire career without ever winning a scoring title.
He's the greatest player in NBA history if he ever wins us a Championship especially after Durant's b**** move.
Interesting post that i read.................... Both James Harden and Russell Westbrook are averaging roughly 5-6 turnovers per game, but their Turnover% is lower than (Turnover % is a stat which records the % of your possessions that end in turnovers): - 11 Steve Nash Seasons (including his 2 MVP years) - 7 Magic Johnson Seasons - 2 Charles Barkley Seasons - Draymond Green Last Season - 5 Jason Kidd Seasons - 13 John Stockton Seasons AND James Harden and Russell Westbrook have a lower Turnover% this season than John Stockton in his whole career
I'd say tonight is up there in regards to his best games of all time. The efficiency along with his defense have been incredible tonight. Obviously he will need to wrap it up tonight with a good ending but he's looking like he is capable of being the number one option on a championship team.
Harden played GREAT D tonight. Then again I'm in the minority that thinks James is a pretty good defensive player to begin with. He defended Gasol very well and held his ground. Gasol just hit fadeaways all night long, nothing you can do about that. Harden had timely blocks and steals as well. Great game indeed
He plays defense when he wants to. But he's far from being a pretty good defender. Reason being: 1. He is very inconsistent defensively 2. He reaches entirely too much instead of moving his feet. 3. He's constantly getting beat off of back door plays because of watching the ball instead of keeping his man in arms reach. 4. He gets blown by easily. 5. And finally, he gives up on plays in transition. But hey he does sooo much for us offensively he gets a pass in my book.
Harden's defense: -A decent post defender due to strength and low center of gravity. -inconsistent help defender -poor on ball perimeter defender that has difficulty keeping man in front of him -unfocused off ball defender that has been well chronicled, and does not box out man consistently to prevent offensive rebs All that being said, he is a decent to good crunch time defender which makes me think that all his problems are not critical and infact forgivable given his load on offense.
The thing about harden is he can play very good defense whe he wants too but its impossible to play both sides with his offensive burden, it's just not possible. Not even K. Leonard would keep up his stellar D if he had Hardens role and usage. But with that said games like tonight show people what he's made of. He was locked in because he knew how important this game was for us. I think in the playoffs with days off in between games and the ability to lock into a gamelan against the same team for a seven game series will Allow harden to play with this effort every game in the post season.
Eh ... Look at how its defined (I assume you're going by TOV% at basketball-reference.com): http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html Turnover Percentage (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); the formula is 100 * TOV / (FGA + 0.44 * FTA + TOV). Turnover percentage is an estimate of turnovers per 100 plays. It's not even accounting for assists. Of course players that are predominantly passers like Stockton/Nash/Kidd/Magic will have higher TOV% compared to high volume scorers like Harden and Westbrook. Hollinger had a stat, Turnover Ratio, that added Assists to the denominator term. I think that would make for a better comparison.
Does it really make a difference? They all have high usage rates and harden and even Westbrook are above 10 assist a game. Harden is damn near at 12 and I'm pretty sure that's the highest assist per game avaerge since rondo over 4-5 years ago? I mean not so much what Russ is doing because frankly I don't care imo you can't win with him. But harden to me atleast sees the floor and playmakes like a true all time pg he just happens to be able to score as well as the alltime great scorers.... shoot after saying all that harden is an alltime great player when u really think about it. But really I'm curious about what your saying? I don't understand how it's going to change the TOV% which frankly I don't know much about anyways. I do know mash lead the league in TOs a lot if not all of those years he was doing his thing under MDA in Phoenix. Imo 5-6 TOs are a lot and seem to much but I also guess that it's really not hurting the team as much as all of us think because the rockets as of right now have the 3rd best offensive rating of alltime behind toronto and GS this year and we score 115ppg. Now what Russ is doing is a joke his team isn't anywhere near being a alltime offense in fact there pretty avg to bad.
