Between Durant giving respect to Harden and openly talking about how he misses Seattle, It is becoming more and more difficult to dislike him.
People seem to forget that Harden plays no defense. Wade can play pretty stiff defense for his position, and remember, he is one of the best shot blockers for being a guard. If we were considering offense alone, Harden wins hands down. But if you look at both sides of the ball, I think Wade marginally beats Harden.
If the idea is to just keep using defense to discount one-way players, then we can say things like George is comparable to Durant. After all, he is the much better defensive player and he averaged 17ppg. But that's ludicrous. Unless you're a center, in the end offense matters so much more. It's hard to obviously quantify offense and defense together, but Win Shares have Harden last year at 12.8 compared to Wade's 9.6. RAPM, which is basically +/- normalized for teammates, had Harden at 5.1 compared to Wade's 4.5. With both stats, Harden was ranked among the very best players on offense. #3 on offensive RAPM behind CP3 and Lebron(ahead of Durant!). And #4 on offensive WS behind Durant, Lebron, and CP3. One can make a case that Harden is already the 4th best player on offense in the NBA. It takes A LOT OF defense to fill that gap.
Wade isn't asked to do as much offensively as Harden is, though. It's hard to compare base stats like those. Harden is great offensively, but if Wade had to, I think he could put up more PPG to make up for the difference in stats. If it were the regular season, give me Harden. He can put up plenty of points to win regular season games and is durable. His defense can be covered up by teammates over the regular season, too. But in the playoffs, I'm taking Wade. His game isn't as FT-dependent as Harden's, which you'll get less calls, and Harden is a big liability on defense in the playoffs. It's pretty close between the two, but I think Wade can elevate his game on the bigger stage, so I give the nod to him.
Or if Wade had to, he'd be worse because he doesn't have Lebron to take the attention off of him? The what-ifs go either way. Wade is going to be 32 and coming off two seasons where he's had injury issues. While Harden is 23, no injury history, and could only improve. You can use any sort of metric you want. Perhaps MVP votes, All-NBA placements, etc. I would be more willing to bet that Harden will rank above Wade rather than below him.
I assume you are comparing only Finals performances? It is foolish to compare a single Harden performance as a 3rd option with 4 Wade performances as a primary and second option. Hell, Harden was defended by LeBron while Wade has faced Stackhouse/ Devin Harris, Marion, Westbrook and Danny Green. Harden is really young and his game is growing. At this point in his career, even Wade's game was built upon a foundation of getting to the line. Over time, his game evolved as the calls have come less often: Spoiler (10.9 FTA in 06 playoffs compared to 8.5, 7.2 and 3.6 in the past three; elevated to 16.2 in the finals vs. 8.2, 8 and 3.1 recently) Harden's first year with us was basically just an amplification of his previous years with OKC. He focused on what he already did well and succeeded in taking us to the playoffs. There is no way in hell he is coming into this season without some new tools to work with. He recognized his limitations in the series against OKC and already has a great foundation of athletic ability, shooting accuracy and BBIQ to take us to the next level. If you are arguing Wade over Harden because of their playoff experience, I may agree with you. But it is ridiculous to confidently say that Harden does not elevate his game on a bigger stage.
Well.. Wade did win it in his 3rd year? Give him credit for that.. If you are talking about prime years, I'd probably say Wade but we still have to see how Harden plays cause his prime years are just coming up.. Currently, Its Harden (younger)
Wade had a higher PER than Harden. Shot a higher FG% while averaging more blocks, steals, and rebounds in 4 less minutes. Looked to me like Wade was picking his spots more thanks to having LeBron, and he was just coasting through the entire year while Harden tried hard (as he should). In a game 7 right now, give me Dwyane Wade.
I'm looking at the overall package with Harden. In the regular season and playoffs with OKC/Rockets. Harden gave no effort on defense in the playoffs. There were multiple plays where he let his man blow by him for an easy dunk. When his game isn't there offensively, he doesn't contribute on defense. Even comparing their PPG in the playoffs these past two years, it's very comparable but Wade is more efficient. You can chalk that up to being the second option to LeBron, but even as the third option last year, Harden wasn't as efficient. Harden is obviously going to improve offensively as he learns to play 1st option, like taking better shots and trusting his teammates instead of iso'ing. Whether he improves defensively is yet to be determined. I think he has to show some defensive effort to start. As of now, Wade is more proven. Statistically, they are not far away from one another. Wade also plays defense. Therefore, Wade is still better in my book.
Are you saying that if LeBron in his third year had Shaq, he wouldn't have won a ring? This is why ring counting is the dumbest argument for greatness. Championship is a team, not individual, achievement.
Fun topic. A lot of Wade v. Harden articles and threads out after those tweets. The only 3 polls I found all chose Harden. (1,337 votes) 49.8 % Wade 50.2 % Harden (72 votes) 78% Harden 22% Wade (187 votes) 2012 82% Harden 18% Wade http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/basketball/589361-harden-wade-who-better-player-currently-2.html http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...wade-which-star-has-the-edge-entering-2013-14 http://shakyankles.com/2012/05/22/show-of-hands-harden-or-wade/
This isn't really true though, if Harden didn't play any D then the Rox would've had a losing record, simple as that. Maybe he isn't a defensive stopper, but Harden plays enough D to not let the team down. And even if he does have horrible D, so what? People make a big fuss about Kobe and Dwade being such good defenders, but at the end of the day who are the SGs they're gonna defend? Most SGs in the NBA are defenders who can score a little like Courtney Lee and Thabo S, you can count the explosive SG scorers on one hand. Wade's a good player, but he's done. He entered the league 3-4 years older than LBJ, and now he's already old and broken down. Maybe he's still a decent defender, but his efficiency has gone way down, if it weren't for his "2nd option" status as LBJ's sidekick he wouldn't have gotten enough shots to raise his scoring average to where it is today. Right now he's a glorified role player, and should definitely not be in the top 10.
Do you even know what efficiency means? Harden's efficiency as 3rd option: 0.660% Dwade's efficiency as 2nd/3rd option: 0.571% Harden's efficiency as 1st option with no other all star on the team: 0.600% Dwade's efficiency as 1st option with Shaq: 0.577% Bonus: Dwade's efficiency as 1st option with no allstar on the team: 0.562%
If Wade was the first option on the Rockets he wouldn't have carried the team to the playoffs in the Western Conference like Harden did. Remember Harden was our only reliable offensive player all year round
Not what Harden thinks (unless of course he's playing along too ha). <iframe src="http://player.theplatform.com/p/zT2_HC/iEazkwCwmKPM/embed/select/QuLIARP3hmNL?params=zone%3Dcsnvideo&autoPlay=false" width="480" height="270" frameborder="0" seamless="seamless" allowfullscreen>Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe>
I always hate the ring comparisons. "Kobe's 5 is better than LBJ's 2" and so forth. I will take Lebron over Kobe any day and give me James over Wade now.
