Why is Westbrook so widely accepted to be better than Harden? Harden gets so much disrespect, it's unreal. RWB carries an OKC team by himself to... a #9 seed finish. NBA media credits him for a heroic, spectacular year that puts him in the MVP discussion. Harden does same thing, but actually makes the playoffs - called lazy, selfish, empty stats, fraud. What a joke. KD was right when he said only the player's in the NBA respect James Harden. People love teamwork, but only the NBA players understand that Harden had to carry a ****ty team on his back and had such a high usage rate because no one else on the court could score the ****ing basketball. Kawhi is harder to judge, IMO. He is a really good player, one of my favorites. But I think the Spurs are perfect for him. He's not really a prolific scorer, so I don't think he would be able to carry a less talented team. But on the Spurs he doesn't have to score a whole lot, so his play-making and defense shine makes a HUGE positive impact. On the Spurs Kawhi has one of the best impacts on the game in the NBA, but he wouldn't be nearly as good as RW or Harden on a lesser team.
not really sure what you're trying to say here in reality there's nothing wrong with having cp3 as a top 5 player imo with his proven leadership, being the best pg in the league for years, and ability to make guys around him better. The longevity and all out consistency gives him the edge for me.
Chris Paul is just one of those guys that I just haven't seen that much of, but I assume he's one of the best since everyone tells me he is. But he hasn't won a damn thing, and his stats don't really jump out that much, so I don't really know how to judge him. People say "his stats aren't what you should be looking at, it's the fact that he makes all his teammates that much better!" but in reality he has never made a WCF, and Harden has with a much lesser supporting cast, IMO. Redick, generic 3 and D SF, Blake Griffin, and Deandre is every bit as good, if not better, than the supporting cast Harden has been given.
can he make last year's bunch significantly better than harden? Pbev Brewer/KJ Ariza DMo/TJones D12 coached by JBB
Seriously though, I don't really count D12 as a star. He is lazy, selfish, and doesn't do anything to really maximize Harden's game. IMO, if I'm Harden I would take a solid OKC supporting cast over D12 and the rest of the trash 'role players' that aided Harden this year.
I would agree its not really a given that westbrook is over harden but this example isn't really much of a help. OKC may have been a 9th seed 2 years ago but they were 8 games over .500 in a extremely tough year for the west. 45-37 is not much to be criticized for. While the west experienced a down year this past season when 3 .500 teams were able to make the playoffs which hasn't been true for quite some time now. There's a big difference in your claim there between the two. The constant knock of kawhi is this claim that nobody really knows the true answer to and that he has "carry" a team. Year after year he has gotten better and better answering a ton of critiques the outsiders have been saying. Enough to be considered one of the best in the league. Now its come down to if he would be as effective on another team. Until that happens in reality, Kawhi is basically judged by preference on what you want from your top player.
I don't know if I'm totally off on this and just completely underrating D12, but when I watch a guy like Steven Adams I feel he has just as much of a positive impact as D12 with way less baggage and neediness. D12 has a terrific beast game every now and then, no doubt. But a lot of games it just seemed he was out of it and being moody, while getting worked by way less talented guys. Weirdly, whether fair/biased or not, this year made me gain a little bit of respect for James Harden while losing almost all respect for Dwight.
True, but it's not like this can be used as a positive for Kawhi at this point either. The reason I don't see him carrying a team is I just don't see him as a prototypical high volume scorer. But does it really matter how good he would be on a bad team? History shows one man shows don't win much.
I've never used this route to just simply judge who's better especially when they're two totally different players and each respective team would operate differently.
didn't you say this? "and ability to make guys around him better" or it doesn't apply to last year's rockets?
Fair, D12 was huge that game and that entire playoff run as well. But in an overall, net impact scheme of things, I'd think DJ has just as much of a positive impact as Dwight. CP3 also had Blake Griffin, Reddick, and Barnes. Griffin >>>>>>>> J-Smoove Reddick >>>>>>>> Terry Barnes < Ariza Dwight = DJ
yeah if you look at guys cp3 has played with in his career making guys around him better speaks for itself. and that includes guys like blake, dj, rivers if you want to relate to more recent players.
you don't think last year's clippers will end up with similar w-l record if they had harden instead of CP3?
too many questions on how the team would operate to answer that for me. Would DJ and Blake be as effective and engaged as they are now with cp3? Would reddick still get the ball in his spots with movement and still be effective with less than 10 shots? how would crawford be used to be effective bc he has the green light and needs the ball in his hands as well who gets shots up too? Austin rivers a starting pg in the league? Turnover effect on the team? There's just way too many cause and effect for each respective player to make it seem like such a simple answer that seems to be made so easily by some around here.
