One of the oddest stats I've ever seen about Harden

I never understand people who don't enjoy Harden's game overall. I'm saying overall. He has his moments but he can get hot from downtown, step backs, post game, euro steps, deadly crossovers and in the past very electrifying dunks. He has games were it's a free throw binge and sometime he isolates too much (as a result of what's around him) but his game is great to watch when everything is clicking.

 

Oh, don't poo poo my research like that ... that might be true, but I'm not so sure.

At equal age, the numbers are much closer, whereby Howard only needs to shoot slightly better FTs. Harden might not keep this up.

We are talking Howard has 2200 more FTAs than FGM. 7739 to 5502. You might be overstating how many are due to hacking him. In his younger days, a lot of that was to prevent dunks, which teams would do no matter what his FT% is. Just like Harden gets fouled often to prevent a layup (despite being 86%), same applied to Howard.

 

Harden's game is very beautiful, especially when his jumper is hot. It is a very crafty and subtle type of playing style. All those jab steps, hesitation dribbles, feints serve the purpose of putting not just the man in front of him, but the entire team on edge. Just because someone is guarding Harden, does not mean the rest of the team isn't paying attention to him. When he puts those moves on you, as an individual defender you are always constantly shifting to keep up and in front and resisting the urge not to press too much and get blown by or fall back too much and give him room for him to do a quick step back and drain a jumper in your face. Meanwhile, no matter what anyone says, Harden is an incredible penetrator and finisher at the rim. This means the rest of the team HAS to keep an eye on him in case he blows by his man. When the D collapses on him, Harden has enough vision and more than enough IQ to recognize who should be open based on who was covering whom. That said, he DOES have weaknesses.

His biggest weakness is that when his shot is not falling or he is getting slammed at the rim with no calls. Take away those 2 strengths and he has to rely on penetrating and dishing. This leads to his 2nd weakness; Harden is pretty careless with the ball. He tries to do too much with too little and as a result, he sometimes loses the ball over dribbling or taking too much of the clock off and other times he gets baited into throwing that across the short court pass, which usually immediately leads to the fast break going the other way. Honestly, if Dwight set better picks and had a bit more explosiveness left, the PnR would allow Harden to get to the rim or pick up a few short range jumpers a lot easier, which would pay dividends for Harden's long ball IMO.

Personally, I still think the Rockets are better off trying to get Barnes and Harford in the offseason than going all in on Durant.

 

Harden's ability to get to the line is special, but far from unique in the history of the game.

Here are all the seasons where a player has >4 FTA per game, played in more than 50 games, and has more FT made than FG made since 1946

There are 234 player seasons that qualified.

 

Seems like Dantley was close

 

Good research. That's the thing I don't get about this FT complaint about Harden. He is not the first superstar to get to the line a lot. In fact, getting to the line is a sign a superstar has arrived. I remember I was bugged in the 90's when I'd see David Robinson would have 40% more free throw attempts than Hakeem. Any bball fan should know the advantages of getting to the line.

When I watch sports, I just want my team to win. I don't care how pretty it is. No one has ever said the Rockets lost because Harden got to the line too much. Harden getting to the line is ALWAYS a plus for the Rockets, so people should appreciate it - esp. when past stars (TMac) of the team have settled for a jumper over and over again.

 

My initial guess was Adrian Dantley, but nope.

Corey Maggette and Dolph Schayes, who recently passed away would qualify.

 

Used the same query as jchu14, except used PPG Leaderboard as a criteria vs games played. Only 17 players have done it two or more years. Harden has done it all five seasons.

To answer OP, these are the main players

1. Chauncy Billups - 7
2. Moses Malone - 6
3. James Harden - 5
4. Corey Maggette - 5

Here's the top list:


http://www.basketball-reference.com...&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=fg&order_by=ws#stats::none

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I think he said for their career, not individual seasons. Query that one.

 

We really should do for first 5yrs in the league.

For career, sorted by FTA

1. Corey Maggette
2. James Harden
3. Cedric Maxwell
4. Michael Williams
5. Dolph Shayes
6. Ricky Rubio (probably shouldn't be on list, because has so few FGM -- less that 3 per game)

http://www.basketball-reference.com...t&c5comp=gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=fg&order_by=fta

 

To be honest, I wish he was more known for his shooting than living on the charity stripe. Don't get me wrong, I know the whole point of basketball or almost any sport is to score more points than the other team, but let's not pretend that this is a stat you'll brag to your friends.

 

Yeah thats odd.

Now, how about these two oddities?

1. Harden's steal/turnover ratio is 0.373.

2. Harden's assist/turnover ratio is 1.536.



HAS THERE EVER BEEN A TEAM THAT WON A CHAMPIONSHIP WITH THEIR PRIMARY PLAYMAKER HAVING THESE TWO RATIOS THIS LOW?

 

What about the playoffs?

 

I thought about this, then the rockets were only enjoyable when they were losing to you.