Harden says he plays too much to maintain defensive focus

you don't think banging with 270lbs wasn't a toll? it wasn't the nba it is today where players are crying over a broken nail, actually those hurt. but the defender could place his forearm on your back, 2 hands even. hakeem would get the block, catch it, then run back full speed. I bet hakeem had more distance traveled on one dreamshake popcorn spin than 48 minutes of harden on defense.

 

LOL I was like "Daaaaang brother! Harsh!"

It's all good. But many had hopes that Harden's minute burden would lessen this year with the added help.

 

What a stupid thing to say by Harden.

Yes, we all get that he plays the most minutes but maybe if he actually gave a **** on defense he wouldn't have to log that many minutes. The reason he's on the court so much is that we're always trying to catch up because of the crap D we play and he's our best bet to come out with a win.

 

I addressed that in the portion of the post you deleted :grin:

Other than that, considering the TT, it's ironic that the league leader in minutes is known for playing well on BOTH ends.

 

When the other team gets on a run and it's obvious our team is in trouble, he doesn't even bear down and try to guard somebody. He just quits.

If he played for a team-oriented championship level team with high standards and a high class program like San Antonio or Golden State, Harden would be a bench player.

 

When Kobe was 26 and the exact same age as Harden he was putting in 40.7 MPG, made the NBA All-Defensive Team, and didn't have Shaq that year either.

Quit being a little b**** Harden and man up.

 

What about the defensive player of the year title?

 

Too many minutes? Lol you ain't talkin bout 6th man of the year man.

Ok.

Well he said it. I quite agree, harden needs to play less.

 

The entire offense was built around hakeem, he had to create for others as well.

Hakeem also guarded guards.

He was that good and he cared about defense that much.

Hakeem means best

 

This isn't a joke, Mchale ran him into the ground and Bickerstaff in continuing that. Him and Ariza. Everyone says he doesn't trust his teammates well it starts with the coaching staff.

 

Not every body is built the same and the league has changed since then.

 

he does more for his team than most, if not all superstars, but he needs to play some defense. nothing special, no lockdown d, but follow your man around. contest shots.

 

I love Kobe. Wish Dwight would have said he learned something from him.

 

Everyone loves Kobe now that he's retiring, lol.

 

I really start to dislike this Har_en guy. He came out like a hot pile of crap right outta gate, did we play him 40 mins during summer too? Pathetic effin excuses

 

Yeah, I hear you. We like to think people work harder when they're paid more. But the truth is, Harden gets paid this kind of money because of his talent, and because he makes enough of that talent to score pretty consistently at the NBA level, even when teams are keying on him. As a matter of excellence, he should produce more effort on the defensive end. But he doesn't have to, to make his money.

Also, human nature is more powerful than money. Past a certain point, throwing more money at a person doesn't hugely affect some aspects of his performance. When you're on call to be the man for nearly every offensive possession, the inclination to rest, or even micro-sleep, for a second or a half-second on defense is pretty strong.

 

The pie still 100%, Harden's taking his pie. I never would think that, because integration is something McHale or no one on this staff can do.

 

I think his point is in concordance with your own assessment; PER devalues defense, so a player who was more dominant defensively would have a lower value than a player who was equally dominant offensively. Similarly, raw BPM undervalues defense, which is why other plus minus measures weight defense to account for how rare it is for people to be dominant plus defenders like Hakeem or Draymond Green (last year). So, for Harden to have a PER equal to Hakeem doesn't mean that he's as valuable as Hakeem; it just means that his defensive weaknesses are hidden in that metric due to his efficient scoring.

tl;dr - Hakeem had a much better season and PER doesn't value his two way contributions appropriately. Also see: Tim Duncan.

 

No it does a great job of measuring offense, however, and it looks like Hakeem at his best is about on par with what we consider an awful season for Hardrn.

The point isn't really that Harden is better than Hakeem - it's that comparing them is stupid given that the game had changed in 20 years, which is what someone tried to do.