Well, I think this comparison is finished now. Harden can be easily replaced by Aaron Brooks and the Rockets look like a better team than they are with Harden as a starter. Paul George is clearly a more valuable player to his team.
Huh? How does this have Anything to do with Lin? I'd trade Harden + Lin for PG in a flash. Harden is an amazing player. However, as of today PG is a more complete player. And more importantly, because he's a 2 way player you don't have to customize a roster to fit him. IE, you don't have to put an offensive or defensive specialist beside him to compensate for his weaknesses. Think about it... we have to put a defensive specialist at the 1 because Harden is ball dominant and lacks consistent defensive effort. That really shortens the list of PG's you can play with him and get maximum results. PG, you could put Bev beside him, or Rondo, or Harden, or Lin and still get good results. And since he happens to also be a good passer and can operate inside-out, teams can't just load up on him or the PG. And because of his size, length and defense, PG can play the 2 or the 3, which means you can plug PG into a wide variety of rosters. You can put PG beside a top tier SG, or a top tier 3, or a top tier PG of any build and still get good results in terms of fit. Harden and PG are both still early in their careers so Harden could eventually pass PG in terms of overall skill set, but as of today I'd take PG. In a year or two, we'll see.
Being a more complete player is becoming extremely overrated. PG is a more complete player than Durant...but Durant is on a completely different level than PG. Yao was a more complete player than Dwight...but Dwight was the better player who had better results. PGs defense does not matter if he can't step up toe to toe and negate a guy like Durant's or Lebrons out put...because in the end that's what it is going to come down to. You don't have to be a complete player to be the best. Dirk was never a complete PF with defense and rebounding...and Nash was never a complete PG. What matters most is results. This whole thing that Paul George over Harden as a no brainer is just funny to me. Like Harden is just a trash player when compared to Paul George. That's basically what so many people are saying. Paul George is so ahead of Harden that you wouldn't even think about it. The language wouldn't even matter, they aren't going to call the game any differently because as a defender your job is to defend without touching the offensive player. If Harden is coming into the paint your job is to defend the shot the best you can without touching him. There are hostilities towards every rule I'm sure. What is the purpose of someone putting a opinion piece out there about how the draft lotto has to change...and then someone else putting another opinion piece about how they need to stay the same? They are both opinion pieces...and bleacher report is bleacher report...so yeah. I said bring a legitimate source that said they were considering changing it...because I doubt they are going to make a rule that would favor the defense as much as that one would. There are thousands of opinion pieces every where, some guy right now probably thinks they should make a Euro division and some guy hates the idea...doesn't matter until we start hearing owners and NBA leadership start talking about it. Otherwise it's just mumbo jumbo that fans are talking about. It's always been that way is a legitimate argument since you said it is unfair how it is now. Bull even chimed in and said he likes it this way because it actually protects the offensive player a lot of times. Like you can't be under a offensive player while he's in mid air because you may clip that players legs and cause a nasty fall. And it's not unfair at all because the shot blocking centers role is exactly to stop this kind of thing.
Oh come on..When LeBron was out last year, the Heat beat the Spurs. So according to your logic, is LeBron an invaluable player to the Heat?
Comparing PG and Durant is ridiculous. Durant is arguably the 2nd best player in the NBA. PG isn't on Durant's level, but neither is Harden. And let's not get into Yao vs Dwight comparisons. They were in *completely* different situations. Yao was hampered by injury, on a team hampered by injury. I would put healthy Yao against healthy Dwight as a more fair comparison. Dirk is a legitimate Hall of Famer at his position. So was Nash. You pick 2 of the best to EVER player their positions and use that as a justification? If Harden was a HOF quality SG on the offensive end, then I'd buy your argument, but Harden isn't at that level yet. Neither is PG, but with PG you get a more flexible player that is one of the best defenders at his position in the league in addition to his 20-25 PPG. That's not something you take lightly. Harden is far from trash, but it's far easier to build a contending team with PG on the roster than Harden. -You can't put a passing point guard beside Harden unless Harden changes his game or the point guard becomes an off the ball shooting guard. -Your defense is terrible with Harden unless you put a high level defender beside Harden. -Harden's scoring output relies heavily on the refs' mood that day. Great in the regular season, not so great in the play offs. As a player Harden makes up for those deficiencies by being an Elite scorer. However, if you want to build a contending play off team, it's easier to do with Paul George than James Harden. Even if you believe Harden's offense more than makes up for his defensive weaknesses and ball dominant tendencies, does it make up for enough to offset the more complete game of Paul George in a TEAM context? I'm not sure it does. Speaking as a guy that really likes Harden, given a 1v1 choice building a team, as of Today I'd take PG.
But the thing is people keep bringing up how he's the more complete player and that makes him better. They usually say nothing else and I'm bringing up examples where being a incomplete player can still lead to greatness. Well right now Harden is hampered by injury, so how is that a fair comparison for the first 12-15 games? That's all we are going by, because last season Harden's offensive game compared to PG's wasn't even comparable. Barkley wasn't a complete player. Kobe. Allen Iverson...plenty of players weren't complete players. Being a complete player doesn't mean anything if when you play Lebron he drops 36 points and shoots 700 from the field doing so in a playoff game. I'll take the guy who is considered best at his position, I'll explain why later. This is a misconception to me because Harden played with Westbrook. There is this idea that if the Rockets were to get Rondo that him and Harden would fight for the ball. I say instead what would happen is a guy known for assist padding will be more than happy to pass the ball to a guy who loves to score. Harden isn't as selfish as people make him out to be. Defense is mostly terrible because the coaches. Miami won two championships with Bosh as a post defender...and Chicago has been using Boozer as a defender for how many years not with Thibs. When Harden went out of the Philly game, James Anderson and Tony Wroten go off. So it's like the fault of team defense isn't even all on Harden. So he's not making the team defense worse...and on a separate note just adding Dwight Howard doesn't mean you instantly become a great defensive team. Too much is made into elite defenders, they are nothing without 4 other players on the court defending as a unit. He'd just get less points true but that is the same for a lot of players. It's not like he can't score if he can't get to the line, he's just going to have to hit tougher shots AND he can also get his teammates involved on offense. Here is the thing though. When George goes up against the likes of peers does he win those battles? Because when Harden does, he tends to win those battles. Looking back at his battles against Kobe, Manu years back, Wade just last season. The SGs that were all ahead of him. I remember last season he had Kobe smacking the ball in frustrating, in Miami he had Lebron guarding him at the end of the game because Allen and Wade had enough of him. These are the battles that Harden wins. I'd take the guy that can score when you need him to score, because as they always say a better offense wins everytime in this sport. Every time. When Paul George is shredding and seemingly can't be stopped he can be above any one he likes. I also think this entire discussion what...15 or so games in is silly. One guy has been hurt since the start of the season and we are basically putting PG over Harden for the 13 games he's played. Not even a quarter of the season. He doesn't even have to prove he can drop 24 ppg for the rest of the season, after 13 games we are giving it to him and on the other side Harden's been dealing with bad feet but those 13 games is enough to say that Paul George is CLEARLY better..because he certainly wasn't putting up these numbers last year.
Barkley and Kobe not complete player! Iverson not complete.. but we are taking about PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, man, PRACTICE, we're talking PRACTICE man..... :grin: I had to stop reading further right there.
I haven't watched Paul George as many as most on here. I know he can hit clutch shots. But I still question can you give him the ball in the last position and have him create a shot? A legit question, I honestly don't know? He used to be much more Chandler Parsons like in that he couldn't. Maybe he's gotten more creative as a ballhandler, etc. I know there is much debate about Harden's clutchness... but to me he proved last year that he could be clutch and the only thing showing otherwise this year is the Mavs game (win some, lose some). I know for certain in the last 3 minutes of a game, Harden can be the predominant ballhandler and score and draw fouls. But maybe George can be as well. If he can, I choose him, as he does have Harden beat on defense. If he can't I choose Harden, as I think he remains the better offensive player and playmaker.
George can create his own shot in a different way to Haren. He is a good back to the basket player and take his man down low.
First off- George has steadily creeped his way up to right behind Lebron, Durant level this year with the way he impacts the game in so many different ways. Nobody should take a PG VS. Harden comparison as a knock on Harden. Harden is a special player, but George is becoming something else entirely. I'm not really sure why this is even a debate actually... Harden is a much different player than George and doesn't impact the game even close to what George does on the defensive end. Truth is if your franchise is starting to build a roster around either player, you are doing very well to begin with.
The only reason George has gotten press is because of how easy it is to play in the East. The Pacers are not contenders and George is incredibly overrated. Harden is in a tier above George all together.
If a team that took the Heat (eventual Champions) to 7 games in the ECF without much of a bench and one of their stars Granger missing; now with a much improved bench; a rising star in PG and current tied best record in the league is not a contender, then I do not know what makes a contender. Perhaps only SAS are contenders then....
I know we root for the Rockets on this board, but objectively speaking how anyone can think that as of today that George isn't the better player. Heck just by his size alone and his freakish wing span, he has potentially a higher ceiling. Both guys will arguably take the last shot on each team BUT when you need a guy to make a defensive stop on the last play of the game, George has that won hands down.
I'm not saying I disagree with you, but I too think right now for sure their current record is inflating the perception of how good this team is. They currently are dead last in strength of schedule. If they still are playing this well when the schedule evens out I will feel better about this teams chances to challenge the Heat again.
I agree 100% on the bolded part. This is what the NBA rules should be. The problem is that it's not. The wording totally matters, because that's what's causing the problem. If you would just read the article I posted and you would understand what the issue is. I've tried to re-iterate the problem several times to you, but you're not getting it from my explanation and we're just spending time agreeing on tangents. I don't understand why you're being obtuse about the article. I'm not trying to prove the rules are changing. I posted it to support my claim that there is wide spread discontent about the loophole. It appeared like you were trying to "disagree" that there is discontent with the rule so I asked for citations to back up your claim. Lastly, your comments about Bull and Clyde are about a different issue. I agree with their opinions, but again it's not the topic of my post.
George wasn't close to hardens level last year. He averaged 19ppg in the playoffs for christ's sake. The first 10 or so games this year is the only stretch of his career where he has been comparable to harden.
