Wade was not a great defender when he needed to put up 30ppg for the Heat. Harden was a better defender with Durant by his side. Right now, I think they're neck and neck. Wade is the better defender when all else is equal, and Harden is the better offensive player.
Even without Wade's superior defense, he looks to be more promising than Harden at the moment. Harden's penetration game has looked bad as of recent, and all he does is take contested 3's. Wade is great at penetrating, and he makes the team's offense ball movement much more fluid. The only thing I really consider Harden has over Wade is his youth. Wade has more experience, strength.
i can never tell with wade whether his drop off in performance is laziness or him actually deteriorating. He was never a very efficient player and his limited shooting range was always his weakness, that being said, the best defender tends to be on that other guy (as does control of the ball) which has meant his efficiency has increased at the cost of volume (almost the mirror circumstance of harden's change in situation)
in regards to the laziness thing, the whole thing with being 10 games clear in your conference generally means you will tend to hold off on effort until the playoffs.
Wade and Kobe are two of the greatest players in NBA history with multiple titles and at least 1 finals MVP. There is no shame in being 3rd in the league behind these two legends. In 3 years years Harden will be clearly better than them. That is when Harden will be at his prime and those two will be either retired or very diminished.
He was a very good defender pre-LeBron. I don't know about "great", i think he was always a bit overrated as a defender because of the flashy way he plays defense and huge defensive numbers. Hidden was the fact that he makes a ton of mistakes alongside his successes. But still, he was a very good player on the defensive end.
Harden is great but to put him up there with Wade/Kobe is ridiculous. Those guys are so versatile and crafty. Harden is still learning how to score in pressure situations. Harden seems to struggle against elite defenders, but wade/kobe can still find a way to score in crunch situations. Harden should get there, but hes not there yet.
This season Harden is indeed top 3. You cant go wrong with either 3 players. Everybody views the game differently, so some will pick Kobe who is still playing at a high level even after 17 years, 5 time champion and etc etc. Wade is still a dominate player who doent have to worry about carrying a team by himself because he has LBj and Bosh. And Harden is his 1st year as the man is doing a outstanding job leading a very young and inexperience team to the playoff's....So to me its up in the air, but all are top 3 hands down.
With Kobes' possible career ending injury I would 100% say and debate that HARDEN IS NOW THE BEST SG IN THE LEUGUE TO DATE.........
Disagree. If you put Wade on this team I think the Rockets do just as well as they did with harden. They would also be a lot more fearsome defensively. And because Wade has a post game & moves off the ball really well there would be a lot less redundancy with Lin. This would allow Lin to dominate the ball more as the PNR ballhandler & be more effective. That is why I said early in the season that Harden should mold his game after Wade to decrease the overlap between him & Lin. I do agree Harden & Wade are both way better than Kobe lol. This isn't even true. Wade has always been one of the better shot blocking guards in the NBA. Wade always played both sides of the ball.
I agree with some of your above take^^^^^...We would still be good with Wade indeed and yes Wade is a lil better defensively. But mainly because he doesnt have to focus on the offensive end as much. I disagree with you on Lin dominating the ball more. Reason being McHale would still put the ball in his best one on one player. Wade and Harden games are very similar. You can best believe he would dominate the ball just like Harden if he were on this Rockets team..
Yeah Wade would dominate the ball a lot, McHale would still use him. Maybe not have him bring the ball up the court as much as Harden has...but Wade has always been a playmaker too when it comes for passing. It just has been underrated and especially so now that Lebron is on the same team as him.
LOL Kobe is straight good cmon man everyone knows that. But james is sick and been killing it for his first full starter season I think he can be the best SG in 1-2 seasons but he is for sure the best SG any team would want right now because of his age & potential. Also on the MVP list for his first starter season which means FEAR THE BEARD.
Wade would dominate the ball but he wouldn't dominate the PNR. Wade posts up & cuts a lot. Also he isn't as good of a PNR ball handler as Harden. Harden is 5th (1ppp) in the NBA, Wade is 23rd (0.89ppp) & Lin (0.87ppp) is 34th. I think McHale would let Lin run the PNR more & have Wade run different offensive sets because of the smaller gap in PPP between Lin & Wade vs Lin & Harden. But that is just a hypothesis. I am happy with Harden, he is younger, has a better bill of health, is already the second best SG in the NBA behind Wade & will be the best SG in the NBA very soon. Plus I find Wade very difficult to root for, but Harden is extremely easy to root for.
