HA! I meant Splitter. Great example though. 5 years ago you'd have an Oberto, now you get a Splitter. The position has improved in the lower tier.
Shooting guard by a mile. mid 2000s Kobe Bryant. Allen Iverson. Tracy McGrady. Dwyane Wade. Ray Allen. Michael Redd. Jason Richardson. Joe Johnson. Manu Ginobili. Richard Hamilton. Reggie Miller The center position was already extraordinarily weak in the 2000s, outside Shaq, Yao, Wallace, and DH. The position has less elite players, but more depth than most decades (except the 80s, 90s): Howard Noah Cousins M. Gasol Jefferson Horford Pekovic Chandler Lopez Gortat Hibbert Jordan Vucevic Varejao
I guess what I'm trying to say is that your point guard does not have to be your best player, but no team is going anywhere without a solid point guard who can manage the offense. Plenty of teams can win a championship without a decent center. Bulls really never needed a center and the Miami Heat started Bosh at center and had him outside gunning three pointers.
I would consider Harden more of a combo guard than a shooting guard. Typically, shooting guards run around screens to get open for an outside shot or slash to the basket. Harden typically takes the ball up the court and goes into an iso offense. He rarely moves on offense without the ball. Seems like the positions in todays game have morphed into the following three positions now...the point/combo guard, the wing defender/shooters, and the post/stretch big.
Not sure if serious. Yao played vs Shaq (who was still putting up 27 ppg in 2002-2003), Jermaine O'Neil, KG, Brad Miller, prime Tyson Chandler, David Robinson, etc
It's not a low quality pool - it' s a pool without a lot of depth, which means having a superstar there is the right approach, rather than the wrong one.
If its SG and C, than the Clippers should sleep well knowing that they probably have the best starter/backup platoon at those positions in the NBA with Redick/Crawford at shooting guard and Jordan/Hawes at center. Not bad considering that the Clippers best two players are at point guard and power forward ...
Again, having top players at certain positions is much less meaningful than having top players in the league. Do you think either of our two stars is top 5? Top 10? Anyway, it is moot to talk about "approach." I don't think Morey strategically picked certain positions as his targets to install his cornerstones based on the strength of those positions. They just happened to be available. The fact that after last season he outright said that we needed a third star to contend tells me a lot about how he feels about the quality of our two stars.
The Clippers had the best roster from top to bottom last year and maybe this year as well. They also have one of the best coaches and got rid of their cancer of an owner. So going forward, barring injuries, they have no excuse for not being able to get past the second round. Rivers didn't really get the team much further than Del Negro in the playoffs.
So basically you're saying a lack of depth in a position has a contagious effect, so profound that even degrades the quality of the elite players therein - Harden is merely the best of a laconic, moribund bunch who would be average in other era's. More or less, he's Jim McIlvane or Kelvin Cato or Erick Dampier or Kevin Martin, and acclaimed, in the biased eye of the beholder, to be elite only due to a dearth of options. This is obviously stupid. Look no further than his Airness himself - who was the best shooting guard in the mid to late 90's (remember, by this point, Clyde Drexler was playing SF and not as well as he had played SG in the mid to late 80's)? Mitch Richmond? Reggie Miller? Cedric Ceballos? Pace/era adjusted - thsoe guys would be borderline all-stars at best if they replicated their 1990's stats today. Harden's last 2 seasons are both substantially better than anything those guys ever put out. According to your theory, we should discount Michael Jordan due to a very weak pool around him at the position, he's got very high "fool's gold" potential. According to reality, this is obviously dumb. Please take this as a lesson as to why you should not borrow argument metaphors or tactics from DaDakota. Having a rare commodity is a plus, not a minus. Oh, and as to your quesiton whether or not Harden and Howard are top 10 players, I'd say definitely yes for Harden. Considering that Harden has finished 8th and 5th in the last 2 years worth of MVP voting, I'd say that I am not alone in that assessment. HOward is trickier - but if you think the Rockets are overvaluing one of the few elite 2-way centers of the past 10 years, I guess you must read a lot of Ramona Shelburne and Ric Bucher.
