with all that said you would be completely delusional if you thought every single GM in this league wouldn't pick Paul George over Harden.
Playoff averages last year: Player A: 26pts/7rbs/5ast/2stl/1blk Player B: 19pts/7rbs/5ast/1stl/1blk Regular season averages last season: Player A: 26pts/5rbs/6ast/2stl/1blk Player B: 17pts/8rbs/4ast/2stl/1blk And this season: Player A: 24pts/5rbs/5ast/2stl/1blk Player B: 24pts/6rbs/3ast/2stl/0blk Sooo how exactly is player A better than player B? Obviously player A is Harden, who is clearly the superior player. Just because one plays for a team that has good defense and the other plays for a team with mediocre defense doesn't mean ****. Switch the players and Indiana's defense is still great, and Houston's defense is still mediocre. The harden hate on this board is ridiculous
I just don't understand all the dissing of Harden on this board. He is not a perfect player, but he is superior in many ways, an All Star, and one of the players that fans pay to see. I think he is a great basketball player, one of the best in the league. And he still has room to improve.
same reason why so many hated tmac... harden is clearly the more talented player but doesnt play at 100% and with heart all the time.. Tmac had the ability to become great.. if he had a mentality like kobe he would be in the top 10 of all time. This is the reason why people are so hard on Harden. There are times where he clearly doesnt show any effort on Defense and just let's his guy blow by him. He hasn't shown he has the same passion and dedication to winning. That's why everyone loves Pat Bev. the guy is not naturally gifted but he gives it his all when he's on the court.
Well half of them are LOF who are preconditioned to hate Harden as he is clearly impeding Lin. The other half are grass is always greener folks who have limited knowledge of the game and probably don't even watch Pacer games, nor do they recognize how Harden being on the court affects the game from a macro standpoint. They don't understand that the opposing team being in foul trouble 5 minutes into the quarter is an unbelievable advantage to the Rockets, which is basically due to the beard. They will point to things like the Heat series, but ignore a "Complete" Pacers team which only won 49 games last year, while an imcomplete Rockets team won 46 in a much much tougher conference. Paul George is a nice player, but he is a Robin, not a batman.
This. If Harden played with even 80% of the effort on the defensive end that he does on the offensive end, I could live with sub-par defense. There's a BIG difference between poor defense due to lack of skills or talent, and lack of defense due to not caring. Skills can be fixed. Talent is what you got. Effort is about SHOWING UP. I just *really* dislike players that do not even TRY. You get paid $13M a year, the LEAST you can do is TRY when you get on the floor. It's my biggest beef against Harden. And yah, being a great Offensive player offsets a lot of his poor defense, but imagine how much Better he would be if he actually TRIED to play defense on a night to night basis? I don't care if he's a Great or even average Defender, as long as he's TRYING.
Not only this, but the argument for Paul George is based on 13 games of play. Well agree to agree then. Well...before the season Harden's name was among breakout player and best SG in the NBA. George was on the latter list but far behind Harden...so by their own words most of them would take Harden over PGs. So I don't know about that. Maybe the NBA GMs put that much into 13 games as some of the posters here though. I doubt it is as clear cut as some would like to think, it also seems like we are judging a injured Harden who was injured since the start of the season against a healthy PG and again...we are only considering 13 games...
I like that you brought up last years playoffs as an example. Player a 6 total games played. Player b 19 total games played. Player A lost against a middle of the road defensive team who lost their second best player. A team that could muster only one more playoff win. Player B played the eventual champs and almost won. A stout Defensive team and was guarded by the best wing defender in the game while having to exert his energy guarding Lebron James. Player A gets moved off of his man if he cant guard him or doesnt like to chase screening SG's. Player B get handed the toughest assignment on the court. And hustles down the court on turnovers while playing transition D. Player A sits on his end. Use sore foot all you want. Harden did this all last year too. Blinders bro...blinders.
Or they will ignore the fact that improving the center and with all world Harden the Rockets won a grand total of three more games. Not exactly making a good point are you.
Yeah, one played in the West and one played in the East...3 more wins for Players b team means beating up on playoff fodder teams like the Knicks and Hawks...Do you think the Rockets would not have beat the Knicks and Hawks in a 7 game series? West vs East once again. Player A was praised by Lebron after his matchup against the Heat in the regular seasno. Player A was checked by Lebron because Wade or Allen could not do so...Player A then guarded Lebron (and sometimes Durant) when the pressure was on Or probably because you don't want your best scorer chasing around players and wasting energy doing so. Pretty common strategy here, Lebron is the same way and Durant... Did what last year? Be a top 5 player in win shares behind Lebron, Durant, and Chris Paul?
Neither was your post. Address the main point. The Rockets won how many more games than the prior year, by improving the center position and adding supa fly James Harden? My apologies for the lack of commas earlier. Seems it flustered you so much that you had no ability to make an intelligent argument. Like....great players dont D up ither sulerstars. LoL.
The Rockets won 34 games in 2011 and 45 in 2012. They also downgraded from Lowry/Dragic to Lin/Douglas (and two months of Lin was abysmal). They also downgraded from Dalembert/Camby to Just Asik, no competent backup. They also downgraded from Scola/Patterson to just Patterson, no competent backup. Not to mention no training camp. What we were able to do last year was flat out amazing. I haven't been flustered by anything you have said, I am still trying to understand what your point is because you are terrible at conveying them.
Downgraded from lowry dragic. Have you looked at some numbers man? Asik a downgraded from injured whole year Camby....really you used someone who basically never even played? Dalembert was an uograde to Asik. You better ger to letting Morey know that. Stat. Scola...ehhh his d left us in big holes at times. That was just some terrible reasoning for the rest. Just horrible.
Yes, player A has a better team around him and a weaker conference to advance in the playoffs. Pacers only won 4 more games than the Rockets last season. Westbrook played the first two games. And OKC was the 3rd best defensive team in the league last year, bro. Who did the Pacers play? The 10th, 16th, and 7th best defensive teams in the playoffs. Series was 2-2 w/o Westbrook. Now this isn't fact based at all, so I won't comment.
PG is a better leader than Harden, that should be the end of it. Harden is a poor mans Tmac, less talent, worse attitude. And tons of ppl on this board hate Tmac for ONE freaking game after eight yrs.
PG's had a better start to the season. Harden has been playing injured this whole season. Give it time for things to average out.
