When Will Harden Get The Respect He Deserves For His Defense?

Probably will take a finals win and MVP.

 

When he gets a ring.

BTW, most of the media I am seeing regarding GM1 vs Lakers do praise his defense.

 

Never. The NBA needs a bad guy and Harden is it.

 

Fun Fact: Harden has a lower defensive rating than Giannis in the playoffs, and more defensive win shares.

 

Been saying this!!!!

Better than Giannis for entire time in bubble.

 

Honestly , he is starting to get it .

even tho sometimes it comes in a backhanded way .

people prolly won’t acknowledge the defense 17/18-20 for a while tho .. except for maybe warriors fans

 

Yeah, I don't think ever. The commentators won't change their mind, and that's where this all starts. Every single time they bring it up they all start laughing. "That's right...you heard me...James Harden with a great defensive play!??!?! Never thought I'd be saying those words!!! Hahahaha!!!" as it's being brought up for like the 10th time. If they don't get it yet, they aren't going to get it.

 

gonna need a ring in order to get some respect.

 

To be fair, it takes more than one regular season / postseason to shed a label that's been following you around for years.

It's not like Harden was bad on defense in his rookie year and then year 2 to now, he was good but still carries the bad rep.

He's definitely turning it completely around though - MDA should be thankful too, because by association to Harden's improved D, an MDA-coached team is now getting a defensive rep too.

 

He’s like Birdman on the Breakfast Club

 

Never. When the narrative is baked in you can't shake it because the media will never let you forget your faults. Media doesn't let players change.

 

They are praising and saying positives about his defense, but its AFTER some kind of diatribe like "you would never guess this but" or followed by "how many times have you ever heard that".

It's kind of disingenuous BUT the media are starting to notice and praise.

 

yeah, you would think after the 100th time you said "you wouldn't believe this", you would start to believe it. i've mentioned this before, but it's the same every time harden gets a steal. oh wow, james harden with a surprise defensive play! almost literally every time. you know who has the most steals in the nba over THE LAST 5 YEARS! james harden. so the person who has done it the most is a complete surprise to you every single time. weird. now we can argue whether steals = great defense, but clearly the announcer thinks so based on their comment that the steal was a good defensive play.

 

but it hasn't been just one year. if harden was so terrible on defense, we wouldn't have been up 3-2 on the warriors. they would have just hunted him and scored on him constantly and won easily. we wouldn't have had the 2nd best defense after the all-star break last year once the team was healthy. not only have his individual numbers looked good, the rockets have consistently played good D when they needed to for several years. if anything the dort block just proves how stupid the media is. now they're finally giving credit because they have an image to cling to and not just pesky years of evidence. harden could still be a terrible defender and have ended up making that block for one play.

what's weirder is how much harden gets the defense criticism when so many other good players suck at D. you think jamaal murray or donovan mitchell are locking people down? damian lillard consistently has bad defensive numbers and a bad defensive team. it feels like everyone knows kyrie sucks at defense but it's not part of his narrative that gets hammered on all the time. melo might be the one guy i can think of where it was brought up somewhat consistently, and that dude earned it over years and years of not seeming to care and not having teams that were that good at it either (although some of his denver teams were actually pretty good at D and mediocre at O despite their reputation for the exact opposite).

 

When he wins big, plays good D consistently and shows strong resolve in critical moments. Sadly, the defense thing is about perception. Just look at how all nba defense teams work

 

Hardens been playing defense likes it's 1999'..... @tinman

Spoiler: You know whats coming...

RIP...

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The rep isn't that he's bad on defense. It's just that he wasn't interested in being locked in for the entirety of the game.

Just as you can find clips in past seasons of Harden ball-watching and not paying attention to his assigned player, you can also find clips from the same season where he played lockdown defense.

It's like LeBron from game 1. You KNOW he's good on offense, but he played disinterested / super passively in the 4th Q, resulting in him getting 0 points.

 

He plays solid solid to good defense in the half court... The reason he still gets clowned is that his transition defense is still laughable... He still casually jogs back in transition... And still does the pathetic swipe from behind if he's the defender on a fast break.... Yes he's 10x better in the half court, but when you've been a joke in previous years, it's hard to shake... People don't value steals and reflections like they did in the 90s..