Again how is Harden fairly easily better than Curry? I'm still waiting for a good argument here. Curry had a better offensive season last year if you look at on/off court numbers and Golden State's utter reliance on Curry. Defensively, he was less of a liability than Harden.
No one looks at on/off to see if someone had a good season. In real terms, Harden led Houston's offense to a much better performance despite having weaker offensive talent around him than Curry did. Defensively if you consider being hidden every moment of every game less of a liability, well more power to you. Ultimately it probably came down to Harden just being flat out better in the clutch on both sides of the ball.
There's always one stat, somewhere, that ppl can use to base a whole baseless argument upon How about this one: the only guards who have produced 23ppg while shooting 60% TS% are Michael Jordan and James Harden...and Harden's done it twice in a row. Probably would have been 3 yrs in a row being as sixth man for OKC he only scored 21ppg 3 yrs ago
Davis is still really raw defensively, about where Ibaka was at the same point, a shot blocker that over commits too often and struggles on man defense. Hard at that age to guard fully developed bodies of the big man variety (hence why Splitter just pushed him back with Shaq like ease)
Here is the pre-all star break rotation that James Harden had to work with in the 2012/2013 season. Omer Asik – 2nd round draft pic, free agent acquisition, 2 year vet but had never been a starter or averaged more than 15 minutes a game. Even today we all still recognize what a liability he is on offense. Chandler Parsons – 2nd round draft pick, 1 year vet from an abbreviated season. He had more starts from his abbreviated rookie season then all the other rotation players combined. Jeremy Lin – Undrafted, free agent acquisition, 25 total starts as a pro. He was so bad the 1st couple of months of the season that almost every pure Rockets fan was calling to send him to the D-League. Carlos Delphino – Late 1st round draft pick (28th), 7 year vet, free agent acquisition, was playing in Europe because no other team wanted him. Tony Douglas – Late 1st round draft pick (29th), 3 year vet, acquired via trade as a throw in to the Marcus Camby S&T deal that Houston made for the sole purpose of gaining a 2nd round pick. Widely recognized as a scrub prior to Houston acquiring him and still recognized as a scrub. Greg Smith – Undrafted, free agent acquisition from the D-League, was signed during the last month of the previous season or he would have been a rookie. Patrick Patterson – Mid 1st round pick (14th), 2 year vet, good outside shot but exceptionally bad in every other area of the game. Watching him try to rebound or play defense was beyond painful. He started 38 games prior to being shipped out of Houston at the trade deadline for sucking. Marcus Morris – Mid 1st round pick (14th), 1 year vet that couldn’t get out of the D-League the previous season. He was actually fairly serviceable but widely inconsistent. He was so good that the Rockets traded away Morris for a 2nd round draft pick. Post All-Star Break Subtract: Douglas, Morris, Patterson and add the following: Patrick Beverly – 2nd round pick, rookie. Acquired as a free agent in the middle of the season. He was playing in Europe because no other NBA team wanted him. Donatas Motiejunas & Terrence Jones – mid 1st round picks (20th & 18th), rookies, took turns in the rotation after the all star break. They both spent most of their time as rookies in the D-League. Both Aaron Brooks and Francisco Garcia were picked up post all-star break and although both were major contributors in the play-offs, neither really cracked the rotation during the regular season. That supporting cast was so feared that most posters on this board and most people from ESPN and other news sources were picking Houston to finish dead last in the West prior to the James Harden trade. It was a team made up of rookies or free agents that no other NBA team wanted. The remaining players were so highly regarded that Asik and Lin were the only players on the team making more than the league minimum or rookie wage scale minimum. Houston was in the play-off hunt the entire season and even though everyone kept insisting that they would fall out of the play-offs at some point, the team only had the one 7 game losing streak in the middle of the season. Thankfully James carried the team during the 1st couple of months of the season until other players started finding their way as starters, most notably Jeremy Lin who was 10 times better after the 1st couple of months of the season. By Comparison in the 2013/2014 season: The Pelicans rotation for Anthony Davis would have been picked by almost all NBA GM’s not named Daryl Morey. Remember, no GM was beating down the door for the Rockets rotation players. Also remember that prior to Jrue Holiday getting hurt, the Pelicans were 15 and 19 and definitely not challenging for a play-off spot. Jrue Holiday – mid 1st round pick (17th) acquired via trade, 4 year vet, all-star, he played in 34 games or 42% of the season and the Pelicans were not play-off contenders when he went down with injury. Eric Gordon – high 1st round pick (7th), acquired via trade, 5 year vet, never averaged less than 16.1 ppg and had averaged over 20 ppg twice. Highly thought of enough to get a max contract. Al-Farouq Aminu – high 1st round pick (8th), acquired via trade, 2 year vet. Many of the posters on this board were mad at Daryl Morey for not signing him this off season and praising Cuban for signing him (I’m not one of those). Tyreke Evens – high 1st round draft pick (4th), acquired via trade, former rookie of the year, never averaged less than 15.2 ppg and had been a 20 ppg scorer. Ryan Anderson – late 1 round pick (21st), yes he only played 22 games but the Pelicans were a sub .500 team when he got hurt and the team was not exactly looking like a play-off team. Jason Smith – mid 1st rounder (20th), he was another player that was in and out of the line-up for the 1st 39 games of the season but the team was 15 and 23 when he went down for good and not a play-off contender. Anthony Morrow – undrafted, free agent acquisition, 5 year vet, fairly well thought off due to his skill at shooting the 3pt shot. There is really no comparison with the talent that was on the floor with Davis vs the talent that was on the floor with Harden. Even with Holiday, Anderson & Smith that team was not play-off worthy. With out Holiday, Smith & Anderson they still had former ROY Tyreke Evans, Eric Gordon and Anthony Morrow. Going into the 2012/2013 season, the Rockets would take those three over Lin, Parsons & Asik 100% of the time. Everyone would have been excited to replace Beverly’s 41 games with Holidays 34 games, all day and every day. Don’t try to feed me or anyone else the BS that somehow Harden had more talent on his team to work with in 2012/2013 than Anthony had in 2013/2014 because its just not true. The Pelicans had more veterans and players that were regarded be the rest of the league as not just better, but also far and away superior to what the Rockets were throwing out on the floor. The thing that jumps out, is that no matter who you moved in an out or the rotation around Harden (2Pat, Mook & Douglas or DMo, TJones & Beverly) the Rockets continued to play at a play-off level. The Pelicans were not playing at a play-off level last season regardless of who you surrounded Anthony with. By the way, this is not a knock on Anthony Davis, he is already all-star level and is going to be really special. There is no need to spread half truths about James Harden to try and prove your point though.
That 2012-2013 Rockets team with Davis instead of Harden is also a playoff team, imo. (Also, the dynamic of Morey acquiring different players according to what he has changes if Harden is not there; i.e., getting another guard/scorer). And possibly vice versa adding Harden to the Pels. Heck, adding Asik to the Pels has a lot of people talking playoffs for them this year. But, yes, Harden has shown he can lead teams to the playoffs, but still I'd say, in this case, at least, Davis on that same Rockets team would make the playoffs. The West is crowded.
No it isn't. Power Forwards usually don't lead teams like that to the playoffs. LMA and Kevin Love are prime examples of that... They're not at a position where they can make their teammates around them better. Which is why Harden is a better and more valuable player.
Oh well, that's it than. Who's going to tell Duncan that he needs to return all those MVPs and FMVPs, which were apparently all undeserved, and throw his overinflated ego back into the thick soup of lottery misery, from which he'd never ascend, if he wouldn't be riding the coattails of vastly superior guards?
So what? He was a pf who not only got his team into the playoffs, but was universally recognized as the best player in the league. A PF. My point is that talent is talent, regardless of position, to allude that one will be significantly less valuable because he's a PF is nonsense. And Love not getting into playoffs doesn't have anything to do with this. If the Wolves would be in the east, they'd be somewhere between 3-5 in the standings and regularly making the post season. Would that magically validate him in your eyes? Meanwhile your eastern all-star MVP guard couldn't muster enough strength to take his team to a lowly eight seed in a historically weak conference. Unless you're LeBron, no single player is good enough to take a true bottom-dweller and take it to the playoffs.
Then why didn't they get in last season with a former ROY, several top 10 draft picks, an all-star from the previous season, another max player, multiple 20 ppg scorers and a bunch of players that had experience starting in the league? He couldn't get in the play-offs or even finish with a .500 record but your going to try and convince me he would have done it with a team full of cast offs that no other team wanted, non-starters, non all-stars and no proven offensive scorers? Really?
I think you're devaluing the chemistry present on that 2012-2013 Rockets team. Sure a big part of it was Harden. And while I'm not trying to convince you of anything (you've already got your mind made up on this matter), it's still my opinion that the chemistry among the remaining Rockets players, sans Harden, would still make them a playoff team if Davis was added. It's become something of a summer trend for people to just trash all Rockets players from the recent past and present, and I'm not buying into that. (BTW, I'm not saying that Davis is the best player on Team USA.)
Durant made the playoffs in his 3rd year. So did LeBron. Even with the best players, teams still need to grow.
Yes they do. Wait, you don't look at how a team performed when the player was playing vs when he was sitting to see how valuable he is? What? Did you watch Golden State this year? Mark Jackson's offense was horrific. Their whole offense was saved by Steph Curry. Defensively, Curry played within the scheme which is what you want instead of Harden's random wandering and day dreaming. Harden is superior on ball but is just horrific off ball. Wait, you're calling on/off court stats which show how reliant Golden State was on Curry baseless? But you're saying that 23 PPG on 60% TS is somehow more indicative of how valuable the player was? Also Kevin Martin 2010-11 was at 60% TS and 23.5 PPG. Are you gonna tell me he's better than Kobe now?
Pelicans not making the playoffs last season is a dumb reason for trying to make AD look bad. Almost all his starting team mates missed significant time lol. EJ, Jrue, Anderson, 'reke. I'm surprised they didn't lose more games.
Ok sorry, I'll reword it, No one that understands how the stat works uses on/off to value a player. Let me give you an example, in 2010/11 and 2011/12, Noah's on/off was negative, defensively it was heavily negative, in previous seasons and seasons since, he was positive, why was this? If you still can't figure it out, when a player comes off the court, they're not replaced by nobody.
Because he was playing with Carlos Boozer and had Asik/Gibson backing him up. Sure, like all stats it requires context. But the Bulls were pretty elite either way. That's why stats like adjusted plus minus are used. To isolate the effect of one player on the team. Curry was second in the NBA in offensive adjusted plus minus. But your argument about the Warriors makes no sense. You argue that the Warriors have superior offensive talent compared to the Rockets. Why do they completely fall apart without Steph Curry then?
Adjusted plus minus doesn't tell you the quality of player either. Adjusted plus minus is answering the question of "how well does a player fit" not "how good is a player"
It helps tell you how valuable a player was to a team. Sure, it's not perfect but it helps in building the picture. I actually think Curry and Harden are on the same tier. I think Curry was better last year. But at some point it's personal preference since I despise watching Harden's game and I love Steph Curry.
