Because his worst performances have come in elimination games or games they should have won. Those will always be exaggerated and they forget all the good games.
Harden is a great player and I actually like his demeanor. At times he throws the ball all over the court. At times he can't hit shots. At times he looks "out of it." At times he looks amazing. He has had some indisputably weird playoff games going back to his OKC years. Those games stand out in people's memories. Fair or not, it is what it is. When you move into superstardom you are under a microscope. I can remember LBJ having some playoff stinkers, but not many. I can't remember any Jordan playoff stinkers, but surely there were some. Maybe not. When it counted most, Jordan usually shined. With Harden, you can't count on it.
Maybe we’re all used to Hakeem who elevated his game to another level in the playoffs. But that’s incredibly rare, even amongst the best of all time. For nearly all superstar players what you get in the playoffs is what you got in the regular season and you’re not seeing anything different from Harden. He’ll give you some regular season stinkers and then blow you away with a 50 point triple double. The postseason is just a smaller sample size. Last years game 6 doesn’t help his narrative but so far his playoffs this year have been fine. He hasn’t had to be great every single game and we’ve still cruised to this point. Sign of a good team and one that can win a championship.
Harden's games are bi polar He can have a 35 point game where everything is working but then have a 16 point game where he sucks. He's just inconsistent. Game 6 was just an anomaly.
He's brought 4 consistent years of improvement. The only "human" year was the offseason he won the players MVP, which the media roasted him for it. Maybe it's the beard or his personality, but these bad Rockets fans still think they're entitled to Harden being even better. They're as bad as the media.
-People won't let up on Lebron for having leg cramps in the NBA Finals against the Mavs -Durant was considered a playoff failure for not being able to get over the hump and win a championship while the big 3 was in OKC -Despite 6 rings, Pippen is still known for whining and sitting out during a crucial stretch in the 4th quarter of a pivotal playoff game -Kobe Bryant is still considered to never have won a championship without a big man to help due to his lack of dominance in the Finals
If you consider losing in the playoffs a success, you clearly weren’t here for our championships in 1994 and 1995.
