This. Why even bring harden in to the conversation? Even if he wasn't trashing Harden, the language he uses does, context or not.
Harden lead the league in steals by a healthy margin. Random thought: If that was talked about more maybe Harden would be more than “JUST a scorer”
whether he meant it as an insult or not, there's no reason to literally name drop a peer in the league to try to make your case better. pg13 is struggling. it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. harden has nothing to do with that. personally i took it as he's telling himself he plays both ends, while harden is a scorer and doesn't so pg13 is going to struggle and its ok. pg13 just talks to much. that clippers team just has too many guys who don't know when to shut up talks all that trash to lillard and gets owned so he moves onto harden. just an idiot
Reading the quote sounds like he’s jabbing Harden. Watching the whole clip sounds like he’s just being down on himself. Saying he isn’t the type of scorer JH is and he will have these types of games. I don’t see the issue
If I were Harden that would be disrespectful. Harden doesn’t just shoot the ball. He has a huge resposibility and distributes the ball and controls the game. PG doesn’t even play the same position. Lebron and Harden play the same positions and distribute based on the huge gravity they create. They are creators not role players. This is a diss whether he meant it or not.
The name drop is the most telling thing, obviously. PG literally could have said that he's no Kawhi Leonard or Lou Williams. The former is carrying the entire team while the latter is more or less known as the professional scorer. If PG was down on himself, he would have just kept his thoughts contained within his own team. But to name drop Harden? And then word it as though Harden only shoots and scores while touting his (PG's) own defense? That crap is suspect. edit: I agree with this, also after listening to the clip. Also, I don't think PG has any reason to randomly diss Harden. Giannis' motive was that both he and James were in the convo for MVP.
Reputations are hard to shake. If Harden wants to clean up his image then he just has to play consistent defense and not take any possession off..... which he has been doing so far in the playoffs.
I recall him going out of his way to call himself a "two-way" player when he was being compared to other MVP candidates (Harden, Giannis) during his two-month hot streak last season. Obviously he was talking about Harden, so I'd look at this as more of a jab than a compliment.
The reason PG did this is the same exact reason Giannis did it: because that's the narrative that the media has been painting for years. Not only is Harden a scoring-only player, but the way he scores those points is shady—nothing but jacking up threes and flopping for fouls that the refs continue to give him, game after game. These players watch sports shows and Youtube/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook clips. They've heard this narrative so much in the last six or seven years that it's become embedded in their subconscious, even when they know on some level it's not actually true. In the moment, when they need an example of a star who never plays defense at all, their brain feeds them the name they've heard most often in that context.
I don't think it was a jab but I hope Harden does and uses it as fuel. That's what Jordan or Dream would do.
Nah, it was absolutely a jab. He wasn't trying to make Harden look bad, but he was using Harden's reputation to try to make himself look better. Still a jab. A jab is a jab.
James has been playing GREAT defense for 2-3 years. Before that it was solid. Sad to see James get crucified for his first few years as a lead dog in Houston where he was trying to figure it all out while everyone doubted he could be a "#1" to begin with. Its pretty stupid - these purists with their own idea of what aesthetic basketball really is so they remain blissfully ignorant. Im still laughing at the comment though - guys can try to lessen the message with semantics, but quite frankly George didnt need to put James Harden in his mouth unless he was gonna finish the job especially after getting passed around the league like a rap video THOT!!
