Stephen A. Smith: Take James Harden Any Day of the Week Over Giannis

Disney didnt like his opinion - copyrighted

 

I'm as big of a Giannis fan as anyone. I've been hyping him since his pre-draft videos hit youtube. However, until he learns how to shoot, he will always have a ceiling. Eventually his athleticism will decrease and he won't have anything to fall back on.

 

his athleticism isn't decreasing any time soon. As hard as he works, he's eventually going to be comfortable taking more jumpers. He's already an mvp candidate now without this. That's the scary part

 

Idiots! Put curry on current rockets team without Gordon and CP and they don’t win one game let alone make playoffs

 

How the fckkkk is harden a choker when he has to go up against a 4-5 allstar stacked team in the playoffs every dam year.. who the Fck is gonna best the warriors every year with a team that’s sub 500 without harden.. smh.. poor harden. Dude can’t get no love

 

I am so sick of Kellerman saying that Harden is only doing this because of D'Antoni. What a stupid argument. Did he not see when Harden was playing with McHale? And had a legitimate argument that he should have been MVP over Curry that one year?

It seems like the easiest argument in the world to debunk... but Kellerman just keeps on saying it over and over again.

 

Too early to think about declining at the age of 23 or 24. Not even in his prime, might not even be close.

That is the scary part! He plays like a big now, he should continue do that.

 

And our offense isn’t even all that complex.

 

they act like D’antoni is running some system that’s better than every other coach out there

yeah, Harden’s numbers are inflated because of Mike’s very slow paced, ISO heavy system

tell any other player to start living on Harden’s shot profile of mostly self-created, heavily contested shots and we’ll see how well they do...tell them to have to be the entire offense every night and we’ll see how many aren’t crying for another star to help ease the load

dumb casual fans and clueless media: “Curry would average 35 and 10 in Mike’s system”...gtfoh, Curry would break down by mid-January

 

As great as Curry is, I can make the argument that he's a system player. First things first, he is the greatest shooter of all time and it's not close. That said, while his handle on the ball is aesthetically pleasing, he doesn't quite have the devastating dribble moves of a Kyrie or Harden. Additionally, he's a good one on one player, but he's not even close to elite. He's a decent passer but not a great one by any means.

That in mind, he's a great off the ball player, but obviously you need the right system to really take advantage of it. In his MVP years, he had the fortune of having the second best shooter in the league with a massive amount of depth and defensive players, playing for a coach that takes advantage of a highly complex motion offense.

Yes, he deserves the recognition he has received, but the point is, he's not a truly transcendent player. He can't make things happen on his own the way Harden, LeBron, and to an extent Westbrook can. To end this argument let's just ask ourselves, if Curry was on last year's Cavs minus LeBron, would that team get to the finals? If he was on the 2017 Rockets or Thunder minus Harden and Westbrook would those teams be as good as they were? My suspicion is that they wouldn't.

 

we got guys like KD choking away a 3-1 lead against a worse GS squad, and then joining the team he choked against, yet Harden is the only one who continuously gets labeled a choker for not doing something he wasn’t expected to do in the 1st place

also, the refs took away 10 potential points from Harden due to their rigging...we all saw how Harden came out in game 7...he should’ve had at least 40 in game 7, he was ballin...in a game we lost by 9, those points that were just taken away were HUGE

 

No one likes to admit that Kerr helped curry. But it's no coincidence that curry and the dubs took off when kerr arrived

 

I mean, I'd like to believe this, but in hindsight taking Green and Thompson to the championship followed by winning 72 games is pretty incredible. It's hard to argue that team would have been able to do it with Lebron even.

Everyone has a system that suits them best, Curry and Harden included. I think they're historic players, it's just Harden is better right now.

 

No one likes to admit that Kerr helped curry. But it's no coincidence that curry and the dubs took off when kerr arrived

 

As great as Curry is, I can make the argue that he's a system player. First things first, he is the greatest shooter of all time and it's not close. That said, while his handle on the ball is aesthetically pleasing, he doesn't quite have the devastating dribble moves of a Kyrie or Harden. Additionally, he's a good one on one player, but he's not even close to elite. He's a decent passer but not a great one by any means.

That in mind, he's a great off the ball player, but obviously you need the right system to really take advantage of it. In his MVP years, he had the fortune of having the second best shooter in the league with a massive amount of depth and defensive players, playing for a coach that takes advantage of a highly complex motion offense.

Yes, he deserves the recognition he has received, but the point is, he's not a truly transcendent player. He can't make things happen on his own the way Harden, LeBron, and to an extent Westbrook can. To end this argument let's just ask ourselves, if Curry was on last year's Cavs minus LeBron, would that team get to the finals? If he was on the 2017 Rockets or Thunder minus Harden and Westbrook would those teams be as good as they were? My suspicion is that they wouldn't.

Agreed that everyone has a system to suit them and I stated that he deserves all the recognition he received, but to your point, if LeBron replaced Curry on the 73 win team, whether they would win 73 is irrelevant. They'd still be a great team that would more than likely win back to back championships. Also, what do you mean he took Thompson and Green to the championship as if these are marginal players?

They are both All NBA level players whom anyone who knows anything about basketball would take over anyone on the Rockets' outside of Harden. Again, Harden has a system that suits him, but the point is he's more transcendent than Curry. It's easier to imagine Harden being just as successful in multiple situations than Curry is. On the flip side, would that Cavs team have gotten to the Finals if Curry replaced LeBron? I don't think so, and were talking about the eastern conference....

LOL again, imagine Thompson having been Ariza's replacement...Rockets would average 140 ppg haha and be way better on defense than even last year

 

Curry minus Klay and Durant and he still loses in Golden State

Rocket River

 

Curry would be putting up empty stats. Hell, he might not even do that because he's not much of a one on one player. Who is going to get him open looks? Replace Harden with Curry minus CP3 and EG and the only way Curry averages 25 or more is by means of insane level inefficiency...

 

Certainly they're excellent role players, but I think Curry has a lot more to do with their careers, than they have to do with his. Green and Thompson are not the players I thought they were. I thought each of those guys would go on to become legit superstars. Today I can't call any of them superstars. So in my view, Curry took a team without any other superstars to the title, which is phenomenal even if they are both top 3 at their position. It's a huge feat. I don't think it's replicable, and it's impressive to me especially because I think Kerr is an overrated coach.

 

And the difference is pretty clear. Curry was never a perennial all-star and MVP candidate until Kerr came along.

Harden improved from McHale to MDA definitely, but it was from being a top 5 player to a top 3 player...but the problem is the narrative...it's because MDAs system made the most of Nash and Lin's skills that people just assume it's doing the same thing with Harden when Harden was an MVP candidate under McHale too.

I'm not insulting Curry or saying that he could have NEVER won an MVP under another coach, that's silly. He played well under Jackson...and Max is right, he'd(Harden) play well under MDA too...if they Swapped teams I think he'd win rings and MVP as a Warrior too. I think Curry would win an MVP as a Rocket but find the same obstacles that Harden has when trying to win a ring...like a team with 4 all-stars...

They have to stop insulting players to prop up others. That's where these silly arguments come from.

Instead of just saying that Harden and Giannis both benefit from not having incompetent coaches we get stuff like Harden needs MDA to put up numbers.

 

I don't think very many people thought Klay or Green as superstar material. But like you said, they are both top 3 at their positions and certainly All-Stars. Green is arguably the best defender in the NBA (maybe he's fallen but he certainly was then) and Klay is easily the second best shooter in the league and a top 10 perimeter defender.

Basically, if you are saying Curry is a superstar, then his team Pre-Durant was comprised of one Superstar, two non-first team All NBAers and an obscene amount of depth (Barnes, Iggy, Bogut, Livingston, Ezeli, Speights). While I agree, the run they had was incredible, it wasn't so unique that Curry was the only player that could have took that team so far. Replacing Curry with guys like LeBron, Harden, Durant, Kobe, Olajuwon, Shaq, Orlando T-Mac, etc and that team would be just as good in the modern era. Point is all those guys would win champs with that roster.

Curry doesn't benefit Klay and Green more or less. I believe they all compliment each other equally. Steph wouldn't get nearly as many looks without Klay and vice-versa. Green is their fixer and glue guy, without him, that team doesn't even come close to winning a ship.

Also, how is Kerr overrated? The Warriors, correct me if I'm wrong were perennial first-round contenders before Kerr and with him have gone to the finals every year? If he's overrated are you then conceding that it's more a function of that roster which you are basically inferring is not that great since it only has one superstar???