Jason Terry says Kawhi Leonard and Klay Thompson are B-side players compared to James Harden.

He's not wrong...

 

Not necessarily better but the their respective teams allow them to be better. Harden is probably a better 1 on 1 player than any of those guys but the Rockets let him down with poor coaching along with sustaining a feuding unhealthy team environment. Harden got his money and seems happy as the Rockets just acquired better team players. Let's see what happens.

 

JTerry should feel lucky to be on someone's side, on a team, just retire, man.

 

James Harden is one of the kings, one of the lions of this league. Entire cores of teams could be traded for Harden. Organizations can be lifted into the playoffs with little help besides James Harden. Entire defensive strategies are discussed for days in the regular season and weeks before the playoffs to figure out how to stop the monster from eating you up.

That's our guy, our superstar. The guy who took his extension early instead of waiting for money. The guy who did not - like that b**** Durant - have his eyes on ring chasing with another team. The guy who swallowed his pride and publicly said he sucked at defense and needs to improve. The guy who spent the summer after a crappy season working himself into supreme shape despite having just led the NBA in minutes, shots and points. The guy who escaped the Kardashian curse. Yeah he parties hard sometimes and has played shitty defense in the past. It's fine. Still worth every penny of his contract and more.

Look at all these superstars in the league they can't wait to jump ship and sail to a title. Aldridge. Durant. Even Lebron when he went to Miami. As a Rockets fan we should appreciate what this guy does for us and how much he carries us. How good it feels when he makes defenders look like children. Makes coaches throw tantrums. Makes broadcast teams sh*t themselves.

This one goes out to all the beta's in the league. Let's play ball.

 

klay thompson has NEVER been better than harden in his career, stats back that up

 

KLAY IS THAT, he is flat out streaky

 

But have the Rox finally put together a supporting cast and coaching staff to cater to Harden? Or will this be another wasted prime year?

 

Kawhi is an elite player. Definitely not B league.

 

doesnt matter we are comparing player a to player b. player a james harden has always been better than player b klay thompson... i know some of posters like klay over harden for other reasons( which i wont talk about) but he aint better than harden.. DEAL WITH IT...

 

Yeah whatever you say. All NBA klay is streaky ok

 

all-nba with a per of 18 , you have go back to 1982 to find such a feat where a player could post a PER under19 and made an all-nba team.. #letthenbaplayersdecideawards

 

we will find out if kawhi is elite this year or not. can he carry a team

 

Player salary at some point loses meaning to these superstars, the difference of 50M is negligible compared to Nike giving KD incentives to move to GSW so they can start cutting in on Under Armour's home turf. KD was the unanimous 1st or 2nd pick he doesn't owe OKC anything as any other team would have picked KD as well. In fact OKC owes him for giving them so much team success, Rockets have spent like 20 years before reaching the WCF OKC has been to an NBA finals already thanks to him.

Maybe KD got fed up with WB's antics, dude talks a great game but hasn't expanded his skillset one iota since coming into the league. Maybe this was also why he didn't even consider the Rockets even though Harden was his BFF, Harden was coming off a horrible year due to slacking in the offseason, the Rox were a mess and about to lose Howard, and the team didn't even have a head coach. With Spurs already having blown their load on LMA I guess GSW was the only "good" team that made sense if he wanted to start winning and collecting rings.

 

once again whatever you say HOF. good job

 

Westbrook, John Wall and Lillard are all players you can build around. Klay is not. Klay is a secondary type piece. I'm not sure what people see in him, but he's interchangeable with players like Beal who shoot well and do everything else decently.

You can build a team around Leonard because he's solid going both directions. So you could decide to build an offensive team around him or a defensive cast. Klay, first thing you have to do is get a playmaker to play next to him. Westbrook, John Wall and Lillard would all do the trick, so why not draft them ahead of "2nd class Klay".

If you traded the best player from any team in the NBA for Klay, would that team that gets Klay improve enough to make the playoffs? I can't think of a single team that improves that much when their best player is replaced by Klay. That's why he's a secondary piece. If you honestly disagree, you'll have to give me an example.

Harden would probably make every team in the league better minus maybe Cleveland with LeBron. You could trade Curry for Harden and I think the Warriors would be a better team. Harden is an absolute beast.

 

Just saw this crap trending on Facebook. I appreciate what Terry is trying to do, but can we stop feeding these GSW divas attention? Any publicity is good publicity to them.

The public and Klay Thompson's mind have cemented him as one of the greats of all time. Until the Warriors start losing again, words aren't going to change that.

NBA fans really struggle with individual player value versus team performance. It's a complex brew, not a plug-n-play arcade game.

 

I agree he's a secondary piece, but as a secondary piece he's much better than guys like Beal, Wall and esp. Lillard. If we're talking about TEAMS then there's more than just one type of guy you need, who cares if Westbrick is someone you can "build around", he's an inferior option and will always lose to better players like Lebron, KD, Harden etc. 100% of the time. If you're paying 120M to Westbrick and Houston is paying 120M to Harden and Cleveland is paying 120M to Lebron and GSW is paying 120M to Curry, then sorry to say but your team will never win a ring all else being equal. That's why the Rockets kept on recyling guys until they hit the jackpot on Harden, if you don't have the top tier talent getting an inferior primary option puts you behind the other teams from the get go.

As a supporting cast though, Klay is really good and if you already have a primary offensive force on the team (whether that be a SF like KD or C like Cousins or PG/SG like Harden) then he'll help you win a lot of games due to him being a lights out shooter and also above average defensive player. In fact, if your first option turns out to be slightly inferior (say you have Paul George) then maybe Klay can be the difference maker because Cleveland has the very unreliable and streaky JR Smith as Lebron's wing man.

I don't even know why you think Klay is so "replaceable" FYI Bradley Beal is 38% from the 3. Klay Thompson is 42% from the 3, in addition to being a much better defender than (Beal can't guard SGs effectively, Klay can guard players 1-3). It's really rare to find a dead eye shooter who is also well rounded, you'll have guys like Korver who are great shooter but suck at creating, well rounded guys like Courtney Lee who are average at everything or streaky athletic guys like 3Za and Iggy. You can try listing them yourself but A-level supporting players like Klay Thompson are very rare, just his shooting alone puts him in elite company already not taking his defense and versatility into account (and Klay isn't just a shooter, just like Ray Allen he can create his own shot but his shooting overshadows his other skills).

If you want an example, then how about Dwight Howard when paired with Harden vs when paired with Ryan Anderson. In a vacuum, if you say Dwight and Ryan Anderson cost the same (they're making the same salary btw) then I'm pretty majority of neutral fans will pick Dwight to pair with Harden no question just because Dwight as the better player between the two. But even ignoring last year's horrible performance, Ryan Anderson has clicked with Harden way more than with Dwight, and it's because as a supporting player Anderson is better than Dwight, RA is willing to do PNR, his playstyle leave the paint open and he's actually a lights out shooter whereas Dwight is the exact opposite. Same thing is true here, if you ask me who to pair with Harden I'd choose Klay Thompson than guys like Bradley Beal or Westbrick just because when Harden does his drive and kick I want Klay shooting that 3 instead of Westbrick.

This isn't NBA fantasy where individual stats matter or NBA2K where starpower matters, its all about putting together a winning team and for that to happen you need the right kind of players, even when you look at GSW the main reason KD fits like a glove on that team is because Draymond Green and Klay are really good supporting players who can make a lot of impact even when they're not scoring. GSW has 5 scorers all capable of hitting 15+ pts a game and yet they can all share the ball, on the other OKC was just the KD and WB show but the two of them couldn't get enough touches. That shows the value of having franchise-level supporting casts.

 

You wrote all that just to say that I'm right? You could have summarized your feelings on this matter and saved yourself a lot of time.

We all know he's a great role player, no one is saying he's really bad at doing what he's there to do. He's just tier 2 to Harden's tier 1 and mark my words, he'll never carry a team as the number 1 option. He's just not that type of player. Anyway, I hope your Warriors have a blessed season. Come visit us whenever things are going great in Norcal and tell us about how great the fourth best player on your team is. We'd love to hear about it on our Houston Rockets fan forum.

 

I don't think it's a simple as A & B players. From the description he gave Ariza is a B player. Thompson is an All-Star and BORDERLINE superstar. Harden is a full blown Superstar!

 

Thompson is not a borderline superstar. Being an All Star is meaningless, it's a fan popularity contest, and we discuss that every year ad nauseum.

Superstars are people who have the skills and the mentality. Is Thompson going to become an alpha? He is already excellent at everything he can ever do. He is an elite Ariza, but an elite Ariza is not James Harden.