[Media Conspiracy] "Harden has more help"...since WHEN?

he's an mvp candidate but that doesn't mean he deserves it more than Harden. westbrook isn't going to win mvp. The only thing westbrook has going for him is the actual triple double status. harden trails that status just barely. everything else he has over WB especially the most important thing and that's their respective team success.

Put guys like Gordon and Anderson with westbrook and they'll miss games just like how they did in NO because they'll hate playing with him

 

A perfect example of Westbrook's teammates not being empowered is in that game a few weeks ago against the Blazers. Westbrook took 39 shots in a game that didn't even go into overtime. The next closest guy in shot attempts was Oladipo with just 9. Westbrook took 30 more shots than Oladipo did. Steven Adams took 1 shot in 29 minutes. Westbrook took 39 shots in 36 minutes, the rest of his 11 teammates who played in that game combined to take 46 shots.

Who would want to play with a guy like Westbrook? It's not even in Harden's DNA to jack up shots to that degree.

 

Decades of precedent has shown that just making the playoffs is not good enough for a player to win the MVP. Westbrook should get the award just because his statline has a name and Harden's doesn't?

 

The most disgusting part of that tweet is the number of likes and retweets. Sports fans are dumb.....they are just really, really dumb.

 

Not just stacked western conference... a stacked division where all 5 teams made playoffs.... makes no damn sense

 

Every time I read something like what you responded to, I'm like, "Yes, because of Harden. He makes players better just like Magic Johnson did."

 

Since Cameron Payne was hurt, Abrines was primarily used as a backup pg, and McDermott hasn't really found a spot in the rotation yet. That's why his minutes fluctuate so much. He played a lot of minutes initially b/c Oladipo was out (29 mpg), but when Oladipo returned, McDermott's minutes plummeted (13.6 mpg).

 

HEY LOOK GUYS, GAMES HARDEN IS 2 UNCONTESTED REBOUNDS FROM AVERAGING A TRIPLE DOUBLE!

 

I would add that the irrational Westbrook knob slobbing & Harden minimizing is a direct effect of the frequently distracted sports medias' focus on numbers and highlights. And that isn't just confined to Harden vs. Westbrook.

Sports media has latched onto the narrative that the Rockets went and got perfect complimentary players for James after the success the Rockets have shown this season. Ego wins the 3 point contest, alley oops to big men w/ cool hair get played on Sportscenter, etc. and you have out of town fans with a tenuous grasp of why James is the motor, steering wheel, and dashboard of this team. The #1 thing I hear opposing commentators say when someone else hits a 3 is "This is what they do, folks!" While that in itself is true, none of this works at all w/o Harden. All of us know that, but it's more difficult to convince people in the media who like a good horse race.

If I were to argue for James to one of these talking heads who are serious about some copout co-MVP nonsense, I would use the metric of team wins & points responsible to break whatever flimsy tie they've built up in their heads. This idea that Harden has more help is easily disproven IMO and I'm more confident in the medias' preference of shiny things. I think most will come to their senses though. They better...

 

The problem with "points responsible" is that it gives too much credit to Harden for assisted 3 pointers. I have no problem with "points responsible" for layups and dunks b/c those are generally easy scores. But a perfect pass to an open 3 point shooter still has, at best, around a 60% chance of missing. In other words, the hardest part of the play is the shooter putting the ball in the basket. So to give Harden credit for those 3 points seems like a flaw in a concept.

 

rawwwkkkk... media conspiracy... rawrkkk.... media conspiracy....rawrrkkk....


damn this site can beat a dead horse....


... and cares entirely too much about what outsiders think and say... smh....

 

Since December when we were projected to win 60+ games. All those same hypocritical idiots thought Houston wasn't even going to make the playoffs this year because of our off-season additions jumped off that boat so they didn't look bad. So basically anyone I see on media now that use the teammates arguments, I just see them as a r****d.

Actually, calling them r****ds would offend even r****ds.

 

I would absolutely agree that Harden has more help, and I don't know what preseason expectations have to do with it.

Harden has some very capable players around him, not all stars, but good players nonetheless. Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, Lou Williams, Patrick Beverly, et. al. These are top tier role players. If you're talking about who had more help, Westbrook or Harden, I'd have to agree, Harden had more help.

Does that mean Westbrook is more deserving of MVP? No, not in and of itself. Westbrook gets more steals, points, and rebounds, has less help, but is 7th in the West. Harden shoots less, a better percentage on all shots, gets more blocks, and his team is 3rd in the league. I think Harden is winning by a hair. I don't know how anyone could say Harden is clearly MVP or Westbrook is clearly MVP, hell even Kawhi has a legitimate case, especially if they get the number 1 seed.

I don't care if he wins or loses. If he loses, at least he's likely to use it to fuel him like Hakeem did against David Robinson...speaking of, I got to meet him yesterday (and by meet I mean walked past him and gave him the "I know who you are" nod). He was being honored on the Texas Senate floor. I desperately wanted to throw a jab at him and mention the word "bamboozled," but I figured I'd stay classy.

 

Wes is an amazing player and what he did this season is a feat

But ...

1. Harden is not that far away from averaging an triple double
2. Rockets are a much better team because of Harden

Those two should close the arguments who the MVP is in most other years, but somehow they kept finding

1. Harden's numbers are inflated because of the Rockets system and the teammates
---- This is completely BS. Worse than 1st grader my daddy is better than yours. Most of these clowns admit that MVP is not measuring one's true dominance but his importance and production to his team's success, and yet kept bringing this non sensical BS. This is simply irrelevant. You take Devin Booker out of the Suns, they are lucky to win 5 games, so should Devin Booker be the MVP?

2. No one has done it since 61-62 after Oscar did it.
--- This looks legit on the face, but come to think of it, far better numbers were put up during these years, just not all strung together. Wes is unique player in that he has such an amazing athletic ability to enable him to grab more rebounds than all other little guys we have seen and still able to do other things. However, if we want to reward him for being one of a kind, why do we just stop there? Individual wins and losses are all that matter in this league and his team is in the lower bracket. He isn't as dominating as the likes of LeBron, Kobe, MJ who probably could take his OKC to a much better record. So are we just going to reward him for something that has not been achieved for a long time but means little given they are not exceeding any expectation? This doesn't hold up either.

 

Interesting point, but if layups and dunks are generally easy scores why does Harden have more total assists then Westbrook when Russell has more solid options down low than Harden? Adams, Kanter, and now Gibson are 6,9,18 in FG%, respectively. That's also in a season where Westbrooks overall shooting percentage has gone down while his three point percentage has actually increased. Both of them dominate the ball, but James has more assists, better shooting percentage, and a better winning percentage when these same experts predicted we'd do worse than the Thunder. Looks clear to me.

As to the argument that James is just feeding off of his three point shooters well, Gordons % is the same, while his scoring has gone up w/ less minutes, and Rynos % has gone up. Those are the new guys. James has made them better. Is it all MDA? Well, if that's the case we need to go to Canada and confiscate Nashs' trophies.

Anyway, my point was much of the media won't get too into the weeds with statistics as much as they will use certain statistics to make incomplete points. Just give them the right tools to work with and hopefully they'll come to the right conclusion.

 

Y'all keep saying this while having no idea if that will be the case. Harden is not Hakeem. He didn't win it in 14-15. Where was all this fuel for the 15-16 season? He deserves the MVP, and he should get it. Who wants to be the runner up for an award as prestigious as the MVP twice? Would u?

 

3 main counterpoints:
A. If those guys weren't enough help before the season; perhaps it's James that is making them look as good as they are.
B. Since certain media were so wrong, preseason, their opinions are questionable, at best.
C. You're saying that the only criteria for MVP should be personal stats. That's not how the MVP works.