Truly amazing. Major props to Harden for having an amazing season. And while he is not a great defender, the narrative that he doesn't play any defense on a nightly basis is patently false. He definitely still has lapses, but for NBAtv to suggest he is doing this because he rests by not playing defense is a joke.
Harden needs to carry a team in the playoffs, and reduce his turnovers before he's better offensively than Olajuwon. He's not a good 3PT shooter either, although he shoots plenty of them.
Actually, Harden is shooting 36% this season on 9 attempts per game (the highest number of attempts in his career). His career average is 37%. Considering how the league average currently is 36%, one could say that Harden at the very least is shooting a respectable percentage if you consider the insane amount of attempts he takes.
Career 37% on that much shot attempts is not a good 3PT shooter? Do you also consider Lillard, CP3 or Paul George as not good 3PT shooters too? Because they all have similar career averages. Harden is a streaky shooter, and so is Ariza, but on average they are pretty good shooters. Also, Harden takes a ton of really difficult, off-the-dribble, pull-up or step-back, contested shots. Not the same as easy catch-and-shoot 3s. In fact, Harden is averaging 42.3% on catch-and-shoot 3s this year. http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/201935/shots-dash/ This is why Beverley is not a 'better' shooter than James is. Beverley can't create shots for himself, he needs to be fed upon (no disrepect.) Just looking at percentages doesn't tell you anything about the degree of difficulty of shot attempts. It's like saying Kobe was a mediocre shooter because he only averaged career 45 FG%, when in reality he took the most difficult shots in the world (and made bunch of them.)
Nah man. It's ok to admit when Hakeem isn't the best at something. Harden IS the superior offensive talent. If you were to just look at the percentage then yeah Harden is pretty average from down town, but it's pretty obvious he is a far better shooter than his percentage leads you to believe. Were he to have a steady diet of spot up 3s like the rest of our team just feasts on then his percentage would be better, but the way we use him he has to take high degree of difficulty shots.
LOL the hate is strong here What does Olajuwon do better offensively than Harden? commits less turnovers? not shoot 3s? Has olajuwon ever produced in a game thru scoring or assists 93 points?
One evidence of this is Harden's last year in OKC where he was more of a role player, and he shot 39% behind the three point line. And Harden is averaging 42.3% on catch-and-shoot 3s this year. To repeat, Lillard, CP3 and Paul George are all career 37% 3 point shooters, and nobody would say they are just 'average' shooters, considering the level of difficulty of their shots.
Once again, so many prisoners of the moment in here. I absolutely love Harden but until he puts his team on his back in the postseason, and thoroughly dominates HOF competition on his way to multiple rings, you can't say he's a better offensive talent. Can he be? Most certainly. But let's wait and see. Why can't we just enjoy what we're witnessing (in the regular season) and see how MDA's system (under Harden) plays out when the stakes are raised to championship levels? Enough with Dream comparisons. It's a much different league with different defensive rules.
Seriously? I get that Harden had an impressive stat line, but in terms of the big picture, the fact that we needed it was disappointing. The Knicks were missing Carmelo Anthony, Porzingis, Courtney Lee, and O'Quinn, and with 4 minutes left in the game, we were only up by 3 points. To answer your question, Olajuwon was a better isolation player who could consistently create better looks for himself. In late game situations, we wanted Olajuwon to go 1-on-1 with his defender. With Harden, we complain about his "hero-ball". It's not a knock on Harden. The center position simply has natural advantages over the guard position, and Olajuwon was an athletic freak. Harden isn't.
Why do we need to tear down something to compare it to something else, we are ****ING lucky that we get to root for both. DD
And we were missing two starters. smh And Melo did start, sat 2nd half because of a boo-boo on his knee
Good points on Harden's 3PT degree of difficulty. I wasn't calling him bad, just more average than good. There's no denying the high turnovers... and the under-performing in the postseason. I'd also say good defenders lock him up moreso than they did Dream. They're both unguardable, though. His book isn't written yet... there's time to improve. His game last night will be talked about for years. What an awesome accomplishment!!
He also takes much tougher 3s (off the dribble that he creates) rather than spot ups So it's not bad but a bit below his usual
No disrespect to Hakeem, but he was much better in the playoffs than in the regular season (actually to his credit.) If we were to only make regular season comparisons, Hakeem was not the most efficient scorer out there. His FG%, eFG%, and TS% were not really the greatest, tbh. If you look at the stats (traditional and advanced), Harden is the better offensive player in the regular season and there's no way to deny that. But Hakeem was a monster during the playoffs, so of course Hakeem is a better player at this point. No need to argue about it.
Look at olajuwons playoff stats compared to harden then get back to us Olajuwon was also the greatest defender of all time (at worst top 3) so he wasn't resting for his offense Hopefully harden can get there
LOL. What a disingenuous argument. Our backup SG (Gordon) is better than our starting SG (Beverley), and our backup C is comparable to our starting C. You can't seriously be comparing Beverley/Capela to Carmelo/Porzingis/Lee...
Actually his EFG was as good as someone like David Robinson but his TS was a bit lower because he didn't get to the line as much. However not needing to get to the line actually became a huge strength in the playoffs where a guy like Robinson couldn't draw cheap fouls against good defenders but Hakeem's post moves were still unstoppable
