https://spacecityscoop.com/2017/12/...m_medium=referral&utm_campaign=bleacherreport James Harden continues to find ways to improve year after year. This season, he may be having his best one yet. Despite averaging fewer assists and rebounds, he is more efficient and has been doing one thing in particular better: taking care of the ball. That’s one thing I think we are overlooking about Harden’s improvement this year. In the NOP game he had 14 assists to go with 0 turnover in the 1st half. That’s amazing. The CP3 effect.
last season he had 294 bad pass turnovers according to bbref in 81 games this season he has 58 through 25 games which puts him on pace for around 188 bad pass turnovers if he played in 81 games...that’s a huge decrease
Big time decrease. It shows his BB IQ at work. One thing we have as well are smarter players. We had a couple of lower bball iq players in the past.
What this shows is that all the blind homers who defended Harden's stupid turnovers last season were exactly that : blind homers. Apparently he CAN improve, and nothing about Harden's insanely high turnover numbers was inevitable.
I like MDA's rotation with sitting CP early, then bringing him back towards end of the 1st quarter. Overrall Paul's did exactly what he hoped he would in giving Harden time to play off the ball. This allows James time to be a pure scorer with Paul facilitating
What about the folks who look at one stat and conclude something without using any context like number of times he was handling the ball. Numbers compared to other playmakers that have the same usage rate? Would you deny that he has less usage rate this year compared to last and do you think that CP3 something to do with that?
Actually, Harden's usage rate has gone up this season (according to bkref), as well as time of possession. Surprisingly, Harden is handling the ball even longer this year. Yet, Harden's turnovers are significantly down, while also improving on the AST/TOV ratio. Just much better all around.
According to cleaningtheglass.com, Harden was 11th percentile for his position last year in limiting TOV%. This year, up to 50th percentile. Big improvement.
I disagree that it was homerizm. I think that many of the turnovers were due to him trying to play at a higher pace with no help at leading the ball up the court. He has really decreased his full court passes this year. That was at least a turnover a game but it kept defenses on edge so had overall positive effect. This year he has Paul to take care of the ball, that alone puts defenses on edge and Paul puts a concious effort for each possesion. Other reason for last years high turnovers was that scoop move when going to the basket to get the foul. This year Harden makes an effort to finish the play as he knows he will not get that calls as much. I didnt like those moves last year and happy he's trying to finish at the rim more often. All and all adding Paul definately helps, but mainly because he needs to take less risks this year.
I told you last season that when we got another true playmaker in the lineup that was a better passer than Harden, that would share possessions with Harden and allow Harden to play off the ball and run point with the reserve unit that Hardens scoring would increase, his scoring efficiency and shooting percentages would increase, and his turnovers would decrease significantly.
Not really what you said. And adding ANY superstar to the team would have increased Harden's efficiency. Are you saying Cousins or George wouldn't have increased Harden's efficiency? You said a scrub like Rubio would by taking over PG duties for nearly every minute Harden is playing. None of that's happening. Harden isn't playing off-ball much like you said. He's playing 12 mpg while Paul sits. And his ISO's have actually increased. Those were your main points, based upon Harden switching back to SG nearly exclusively, and the new PG playing all his minutes with Harden. nice try at reinventing history to appropriate the success of adding a Superstar (any superstar) to that of adding a scrub.
btw: are we just going to ignore Rubio's really bad year...at everything. His apg are under 5.0 for the first time in his career, lowest by a huge margin. His turnovers have actually increased to highest of his career His Ast to TO ratio is the worst in his career (by a huge margin) making him like 45th out of 48 PGs in the NBA. And, Rubio is sporting an ORtg 10 points below the team's ORtg. I told y'all this would happen when Rubio got shipped away from his drafting team who needed to prop up his stats to keep his trade value up. Now Utah realizes Rubio cannot be a floor general like Chris Paul, because he screws up winning basketball with his bad shooting, if he tries to be crispy. So, now they have him as just another player in the ball movement wheel , and his Assists have drastically dropped, because he can't be a ball-dominant PG. So if you match him with Harden, Harden's scoring and efficiency would drop. Five of Utah's top 7 +/- lineups feature Rubio on the bench, Including the Top Lineup with Mitchell at Point Guard. so there.
The fact the 13th pick surpassed him as a playmaker so quickly is pretty eye-opening. Garbage player.
No that's not what I said. I was very clear that a playmaker that was a superior passer to Harden would lower Hardens turnovers and make Harden a more proficient and efficient scorer because Harden works be able to get some easy looks playing off the ball. Here's some posts: MDA has to have a serious talk with Harden So is James Harden a PG forever? So is James Harden a PG forever? So is James Harden a PG forever? So is James Harden a PG forever? Harden's meltdown during important games Ryan Anderson makes $18.74 million
Rubio has significantly underperformed. No question. And I WAS WRONG about him getting double digit assists in Utah's system. After watching Utah play this season it's obvious they're not running a pick-and-roll offense. They're almost running a Princeton offense. They throw the ball around on par with the Spurs. Nobody is really ball dominant. I thought they woild be running the spread with one big. And they are trying to. But Joe Johnson is out and Hid had missed practically all season as well. They've got Favors on an expiring deal. And they really need a shooting 4 to become more efficient offensively. But defensively they are nails. And Rubio is a huge part of that. I really think their lineup will evolve to a Rubio/Mitchell backcourt with Hood at the 3 and Ingles/JJ at the 4 and Alex off the bench. And if they get healthy and stay healthy they're gonna be a huge pain in the butt in the playoffs once again. And Rubio is going to be a huge part of that. His numbers will improve. But because they're paying a passing offense his individual assist numbers won't be that high. Although if they went to a pnr offense with Rubio at the controls and three shooters, he'd kill it.
