Admittedly George is a much better defensive player. He always seems to cover the oppositions best wing. That is not apparent in the stats. But on the other side Harden is an opponents nightmare on offense. How do the top offensive talents in the game rank? Durant, LBJ then some order of Paul, Love and Harden? Something like that. Offensive effectiveness is complex. To understand it completely is impossible. Questions like "How much does a player cause the opposing defenses to flex (shade) when the player has the ball" become important. Not a black or white world to say the least. Harden, despite the prevailing opinion, is not anything worse than an above average NBA defender. He suffers from no flaw that is not correctable. Harden has the size, the length, the lateral quickness, the overall speed, the strength and the intelligence to be a very good defensive player in the NBA. Last season Harden had to go 100% on offense every minute he played. Nothing left for defense. But he seems to be working his way out of that mindset at long last. We can hope. Even after moving Lin to the bench the Rockets have too much offensive talent in the starting lineup. How do I know this? The average shots per minute (SPM) in the starting lineup is greater than the available SPM. IMHO the most efficient solution would be to have both Harden and Parsons dedicate more energy to defense. Everything about basketball is a shade of grey. Except perhaps that Durant and LBJ are playing at a level above everybody else. Best to you.
Agreed on all counts.. and nice stats. Not a big Kobe guy, but his biggest critic can't deny his GREAT stamina. He gave energy both sides of the court much of his career. ___ Waited til I logged out. Lol Sorry for any offense
as flamingdts put it... definition of regression to the mean. I actually liked him last season but he has been overrated so much (to the point people put him in the convo with Durant and Lebron).
I honestly don't know what is going on in Indy. I would have put him over Harden this season as well, but as of late he has (and the team has) become who I thought he was at the beginning of the season. But I suppose this is what you get when you have to depend on Lance Stephenson (Ron Artest 2.0) for an 82 game season.
It was a terrible performance all around he was giving up a lot of backdoor cuts to the basket his defense is overrated as well.
His offense has regressed to the mean, but his defense is also not at the level that is was at the beginning of the season. Something's bothering him.
