Former Rockets legend sets record!

Yeah but that's not what this is, and that's not what I'm talking about. It's not about "getting worse" in the playoffs or average playoff performance. I'm talking about these types of games specifically, the games where he looks like he's not even an NBA player. Every single year James Harden has these 2/11 or 4/17 type performances, repeatedly, in series where he gets knocked out of the playoffs. It is a uniquely James Harden thing, no other player does this every year. And while you can mock the "most games shooting 17% on a tuesday while the full moon is out" type stats if you want, the general idea is true. There is no other player that goes out sad like James Harden does, with the frequency that James Harden does it.

 

What do you think of someone like murray? Who was HORRIBLE in 4/5 games yet because he has jokic and they win is considered some playoff god. Dude was literally one of the worst players in the entire playoffs for 80% of the series

 

That the list of "most worst playoff perfromances, cumulative" is going to be a list of HOF and all-time great players, just like how the league leaders in turnovers are all-NBA players almost every single year.

Here, take a look - most playoff-turner-overs:

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=most+turnovers+in+nba+playoffs,+cumulative

Not very interesting.

 

Your cynicism is witty yet using the fact that a stat is cumulative to excuse someone being #1 in that cumulative stat is not entirely airtight, you see, no matter how drenched in disdain.

If you prefer other population statistics on Harden's career, like averages, then enjoy them, but don't interpret them without minimums and standard variations. Deep down you also know it's disingenuous to hide behind statistics when we lived San Antonio game 6, Clippers game 6, Warriors game 6 and 7, Philly fans lived those Boston meltdowns, and now a fourth set of fans is getting to live the Harden experience.

Part of me feels bad for the guy at this point. Just like Chris Paul, he should've had a ring in 2018 and shouldn't have to live with the choker label he has earned. If he can pull it together and win this year, more power to him.

 

It's kind of poetic that Harden and Westbrook are still together. They are some of the NBA poster children for usage so high fans, and analysts, have argued it's over-usage. At best it led to fatigue and burnout as their leading excuses for underperformance. So one way of thinking is to excuse them for their usage. Another is to question whether it was a good idea at all.

The philosophical question is 'what is the value of a strategy where a player can carry you all the way to 80% of the 'ship, and you can't ever get to that 100%'. Harden needs a counterfoil alpha dog, like Chris Paul. RIP 2018. Long live 2018. If Kawhi can get healthy** he can be that and Harden can slide into his aloof beta role without being the focal point of a defense. But apparently MVP** Embiid wasn't enough for that, either.

 

I think first of all that Murray isn't on the same level as Harden, I guess he is now late in Hardens career, but that's not really what this is about, not entirely. This is about what Harden has done throughout his career, including the long stretch where he was an MVP candidate and top 5 player. Murray has never been a #1. Secondly, none of Murrays games have been as bad as Hardens game. 'GameScore' from bball ref isn't a perfect stat but can be used as an approximation to make my point here - Murrays gamescore in the 5 games so far has been 18.3, 9.0, 15.0, 11.1, and 22.0 (his good game). Anything in single digits is pretty bad. For comparison, James Hardens game last night was a 1.9.

And lastly Murray doesn't do this every single year.

 

What's airtight, you see, is that I ran something like this tedious-ass query, and as you'd expect, things look different in context.

Like, here's the list of players with the most 20 missed FGA games in the playoffs.

It's literally - the greatest players of all time. And who is on top of the list? Rick Barry. Arguably the greatest shooter in the pre-Curry era. Also in the top 5, Jerry West - "Mr. Clutch" the logo, Jordan, etc. HOF'rs all, except for CJ.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/pl...layoff-games-missing-more-than-20-field-goals

Bad games rise in proportion with usage. Thanks for the memo!

 

Are you arguing in bad faith or do you legitimately think this is comparable to what's being argued here? You're either being disingenuous or you're really really missing the point. It's not about the cumulative, it's about the frequency of those performances, when they happen, and also how bad they are. There are plenty of guys who have as many (or more) playoff games as Harden but have way less of these performances. James Harden is an outlier in this regard. I didn't even know people argued otherwise.

 

I'm just going to give you the same answer I just posted.


Here's the list of players with the most 20 missed FGA games in the playoffs.

It's literally - the greatest players of all time. And who is on top of the list? Rick Barry. Arguably the greatest shooter in the pre-Curry era. Also in the top 5, Jerry West - "Mr. Clutch" the logo, Jordan, etc. HOF'rs all, except for CJ.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/pl...layoff-games-missing-more-than-20-field-goals

Bad games rise in proportion with usage. Thanks for the memo!

PS - if you think this is a bad comparable, please produce the "LIST OF PLAYERS" whose "RECORD" James Harden broke - and we can see if it's also a list of HOF'rs or not.

It probably is. But, feel free to play with statmuse and prove otherwise.

 

It's poetic that Harden and Westbrook are there, it's a actually way more poetic that the 4 Laker legends (James, O'Neal, Johnson, Kobe) are far & away at the top of the list - which you omitted, probably by accident I'm sure!

 

Again...not the same thing. The guy at the top of your list is Rick Barry, and in those games, his average statline was 17/40 for 41 points. I'm just gonna go and look at Hardens disaster playoff games from last year, he had 4 of them - he went 3/13, 2/14, 4/16, and 3/11. Do you really think you're refuting this point by showing me Rick Barry going 17/40 and scoring 42 points? Do you not see how these are totally different things?

 

When did he play with mvp embiid in the playoffs? Joel was injured/out/horrible the entire playoffs last season. You can blame harden for that i guess if you want. His big chance was 2021 where the nets were prob 99% to win the title (maybe higher) till he and kyrie got injured, but such is life.

 

I'm not comparing individual games, I'm saying cumulative lists of playoff stats - good stats and bad stats - are going to always include the most elite players in the NBA.

Feel free to prove me wrogn by posting the other hodlers of this very important "record" that you just read some dipshit tweeting about 44 minutes of your life ago! Maybe it's John Amaechi and Von Wafer, again just give me the context.

OTherwise, cumulative stats vary with usage - thanks for the info!

 

Amen!

 

Okay, I'll try to put it another way. All good players have bad games, but some good players have more than others. If you look at the all stars, or 1st team all nba, or whatever subsection you want of "really good players", you will see that James Harden has a way higher frequency than his peers of putting up a "really really bad game."

 

Dude's not much for the playoffs. That's going to be known as part of his legacy, no doubt about it.

 

"This is who Harden's always been lolllll"

also

"Just give Jalen time."

 

Harden has always been a guy who shrivels when the team needs him to step up the most.

His best chance to win a ring is on the coat tails of a real alpha. He can put up his good overall stats but when it comes to put up or shut up time he'll have someone else to do the heavy lifting.

 

What's worse is it seems very clear by his body language that he just simply doesn't care either. It's just, "meh, I don't really feel like being out here in this intense game" which is worse than any statistic

 

Here are some numbers to better show and help prove the point I'm trying to make, it's not a statmuse query but it will show what most people are trying to say about Harden. Using GameScore again from bballref because it's a decent approximation of how good a game is and it's easy to look up and sort which means it only takes me like 10 minutes to make this post instead of spending hours doing some kind of stat analysis. I'm going to call a gamescore <10.0 a "bad game", an example to give this context would be 16/9/5 with 5 turnovers on 5/13 shooting gives a gamescore of 9.7. I'll call a gamescore of <5.0 a "really really bad game", an example to give that some context is 8/7/4 with 5 turnovers on 3/13 shooting is a 4.7 gamescore. So hopefully those gamescores make sense. Here is the frequency of those games for all the MVPs over the past decade

Lebron - 14 bad games, 3 really bad games, 287 career playoff games. 4.9% chance of bad game, 1% chance of really bad game
KD - 10 bad games, 2 really bad games, 170 career playoff games. 5.9% chance of bad game, 1.2% chance of really bad game
Curry - 15 bad games, 6 really bad games, 147 career playoff games. 10.2% chance of bad game, 4.1% chance of really bad game
Westbrook - 26 bad games, 7 really bad games, 121 career playoff games. 21.5% chance of bad game, 5.8% chance of really bad game
Harden - 39 bad games, 17 really bad games, 165 career playoff games. 23.6% chance of bad game, 10.3% chance of really bad game
Giannis - 9 bad games, 3 really bad games, 79 career playoff games. 11.4% chance of bad game, 3.8% chance of really bad game
Jokic - 2 bad games, 0 really bad games, 73 career playoff games. 2.7% chance of bad game, 0% chance of really bad game
Embiid - 11 bad games, 2 really bad games, 58 career playoff games. 19% chance of bad game, 3.4% chance of really bad game

This isn't super complex obviously but I hope this proves the point? Harden not only has the most cumulative performances in both categories but also has the highest frequency in both categories. Harden and Westbrook are pretty similar in the amount of "bad" games, but Harden still takes the crown. And those two are twice as bad as the next worst. But you really see where Harden is the sole outlier in the "really bad" games department, over 10% of his games are in the "really bad" category. Only 1% for Lebron, Jokic has literally never done it...Westbrook is the next worst at 5.8%.

Another way to look at this is if you group together "all really bad playoff performances from MVP winners over the last decade" you would have a list of 40 games and Harden would be 17 of them. On a list of 8 players, Harden has almost as many as the rest of them combined. Almost half the games.