Harden's top 3-5 in the league, only clearly behind Lebron and Durant. Considering his uber efficiency, his ability to penetrate and draw fouls, unselfishness, clutch 3s, I don't think the Melo/Kobe crowd is even close. Harden is 3rd best in the league and the best sg by far. He got ourselves a superstar, y'all.
According to Basketball-Reference, James Harden is now the 1st player since 85 (and maybe all time) to have multiple games of 45 or more points on 19 or fewer attempts
Without a doubt He does it all, scores/playmaker/rebounds. I mean seriously, 46 points on 19 attempts, and what 8 rebounds and 6 assist too?
Yes. There is no doubt now. Wade and Kobe have regressed while Harden is soaring to new heights with every game.
Kobe and defense don't mix. Just because he played good defense for one quarter in an ASG and gets gifted all defensive teams doesn't mean he is a good defender. He has been average at best the past few seasons. Wade has been better defensively than Kobe for a while now. I put Harden over both.
And how did wade perform before he had lebron? Are you clowns really trying to say that wade is only good because he has lebron?????
He is also clearly behind Chris Paul. But everyone else? Push.... And in 3 years when LeBron has his multiple titles and has broken down from years of steroids and Paul has slowed down from years of overuse? #2 is possible. (Durant is on a different level.)
SB Nation - Is Harden the best 2? http://www.thedreamshake.com/2013/3/26/4146932/james-harden-houston-rockets-kobe-bryant-dwyane-wade-nba-shooting-guard If Harden stops his annoying ball-watching habit and stops letting average players torch us, then yes I agree. Until then it's pretty close. But if Harden goes off in the playoffs, it'd would be hard to deny this heading into next season.
WHO is pretty close? The only other guy who is close is the aging Bryant, who can't carry a stronger team as well as Harden can carry the least experienced starting 5 in NBA history. Oh, and Kobe's D is worse than Harden's right? Hmm - maybe Wade is in the argument? Hard to see him carrying this team as well as Harden has though.
It appears that the league is overloaded with talented and young pg and sf, sg and pf? Not so many. Wonder why is that.
I think Wade's still better, remember what he did in the 08/09 season when he carried the worst team in the nba to the playoffs? It was in the east though, but still, that team had 0 talent besides Wade. I don't think he has reclined much since then, his stats just don't blow you away since he's on a stacked team. Don't know about Kobe though, can't really say whether he has a positive effect on his team or not. But in terms of individual play, Wade and Kobe are both more creative players and score in more ways. If they played 1 on 1 they would both beat him since Harden doesn't play defense
^Oh yeah. Bc Wade sees so many doubles and doesn't have the luxury to play with superstars like Harden does.
I think next season he will be the best SG in the league hands down. Right now, I think Wade and Kobe are on par with him. On some level, I do think the Lakers would be fighting for homecourt if you replaced Kobe with Harden. He would fit in better with the rest of the Lakers than Kobe does. I don't think we would be doing this well if we replaced Harden with Kobe.
It just goes in cycles. There was a time when the SG and PF were the deepest position not too long ago. 8 years ago we had in PF: I remember in 2005 it was like every team in the west besides us had a really good PF: Amare, Duncan, KG, Brand, Gasol, Boozer, David West, ZBo, Nowitzki and Rashad Lewis on occasion. And that's just the western conference.
