James Harden is gonna get screwed over again in MVP Voting

Capela and Beverley missed plenty of games this season. Nene often couldn't play because of his age. What's your point? OKC has just strengthened their roster at the trade deadline and still lost three games in a row to a sub .500 teams. Cry me a river.

 

Capela missed like 15 games, Gordon 6, Bev 15, Ariza is shooting under 35% from 3, etc. Yet we are SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Thunder. Why? Because Harden is carrying us.

 

And none of those change the fact that Roberson is a scrub.

Shane Battier averaged about one made 3-pointer per game and ~7 ppg for us. Are you going to claim he wasn't a 3/D player?

A 3/D player is based on skillset, not production.

And at that point in his career, he was already a seasoned veteran. Is it possible that in the 6 years he was with Boston, he actually improved?

 

None of what you're saying change the fact that statistically Roberson is having a superior season offensively to Bowen's.

Actually, Battier made 1.6 ~ 1.9 3-pointers a game for us on average. That's a meaningful difference.

If a skill set doesn't translate to production, then it's meaningless.

And no, Tony Allen's TS% was actually higher when he was playing for the Celtics.

 

Gordon, Anderson, Beverley, Capela, Harrell, and Nene have all exceeded expectations. Ariza is pretty much where we thought he'd be. In other words, none of our rotational players have underperformed. Now look at OKC. Steven Adams just signed a $100mm/4 year contract. And he's averaging 12 points and 8 rebounds per game. Oladipo and Gordon are giving comparable production, but Gordon just signed a contract for $13mm/year while Oladipo just signed a contract for $21mm/year.

Is anyone on OKC exceeding expectations?

 

Following the pre-season, Marc Stein predictions:
OKC: 7th overall, 4th in the West
HOU: 14th overall, 9th in the West (lottery team)

Following the pre-season, the 538 simulations:
OKC: 5th overall, 3rd in the West
HOU: 13th overall, 8th in the West

With the exception of Zach Lowe, I can't find a single media person who said anything nice about the Rockets, with many putting us out of the playoffs entirely. Lowe at least thought we'd be a playoff team, but he did has a tier below the Clippers and below the Blazers.

These same media people are now saying Harden has more help than Westbrook? The same people who made fun of D'Antoni? Who trashed the signing of Ryan Anderson? Who laughed at Harden's "defense?"

 

Is it possible that the team that has players not living up to expectations could be negatively impacted by their MVP and the ones exceeding expectations could be positively impacted by their MVP?

 

I'm in no mood to repeat my previous rebuttals. Feel free to read my earlier posts.

 

Not when expectations are dependent on health like Gordon/Anderson.

 

Got it. The universe conspired against Westbrook, none of the issues on his team are his fault, and the universe favors Harden, none of the success of his team is to his credit.

Harden is playing under a coach that was routinely mocked by the media and considered a has been and playing with teammates who were supposed to be terrible defensively, hurt all the time, etc. He is leading a team that is crushing people on offense and is somehow in the top 15 in defense when everyone thought they could be near the bottom. A team that NOBODY predicted to be near the top of the West, and he has them #3 in the entire NBA.

But that's not him defying expectations.

 

Why can't the Rockets' success be attributed to both Harden and the caliber of his supporting cast? Why does it have to be one or the other?

 

Can we close thread? James locked it up already.

 

MVP type performance against SPurs and Kawhi

Just get the W here and it's locked

 

The main thing to this argument is Houston has players that fit better together and know their role playing with Harden then OKC does. For that, Harden should win MVP by making his stats work with the team.

 

Um, none of the guys on our team have really exceeded expectations, except Harden.

Gordon before this game was within 0.02% on both fg and 3p% from last year, Anderson's fg% is down, 3p% is up (almost all his 3's are assisted btw) and points way down, Beverley is a little down (missed more games than last season too), our team is full pick and roll now so the centers getting more easy points isn't unexpected at all, that's how "rolling" works.

D'antoni makes a difference, but it's not in a "he makes people awesome" way, he played pace and space when other teams played post and grind, pace and space slaughters post and grind, we were a perpetual example of that as phoenix wiped us off the court over and over and over. But the league doesn't play that anymore, they're almost all using pace and space, or at least the good teams do. He helps in the sense that the last cpl coaches were buffoons.

 

Of course Anderson's fg% is down. He's shooting a lot more 3's....that's going to drag down his fg%. However, if you look at his TS%, you'll see that he's having his best shooting year since he left Orlando. I'd call that "exceeding expectations", especially when you consider how far he's shooting them from (which gives Harden additional space).

The Rockets have played 64 games. Gordon has maintained his usual production but has only missed 6 games. Given his injury history, that's clearly "exceeding expectations".

If you think Beverley is having a down year, you're crazy. He's easily having the best season of his career.

 

Yeah Kawhi's MVP chances just shot up big time with this game and those key plays down the stretch

Big 3 then a block and then clutch free throws

 

There's a reason why even several people here on clutchfans were saying Kawhi absolutely deserves to be in the MVP conversation. Unlike Westbrick, he really has a strong case. Of course we are biased towards Harden, but Kawhi is a monster on both ends of the floor. Can't believe how much he has improved offensively this season.

 

Yeah, he is an amazing 2 way player. And is just so smart out there.

DD

 

It should be Kawhi > Harden >>>> Westbrook at this point