jeff van gundy was 1 of the worst coaches in nba history. He was 1 of the architects in the 90's that ruined the nba. He has smoothly transitioned into the worst broadcaster in nba history.
Maybe you should tell Kobe this after you ascend to Valhalla. Like pretty much almost every player ever, his efficiency somehow dipped in may.i don't get it!
Please expand on this! I'm sure your data is sound. Most players play better against good teams than they do against bad. GO! @Icehouse I know you can make this work. And fwiw, I'm sure there's a few outliers. Like Olajuwon and Leonard. But there's also a lot of non outliers. Which is what makes the outliers into outliers.
In the 5 years Kobe won titles: Reg season 47%, 49% eFG, 55% TS 46%, 48% eFG, 55% TS 47%, 48% eFG, 54% TS 47%, 50% eFG, 56% TS 46%, 49% eFG, 55% TS Playoffs 45%, 47% eFG, 52% TS 47%, 49% eFG, 56% TS 43%, 46% eFG, 51% TS 46%, 49% eFG, 56% TS 46%, 51% eFG, 57% TS 45, 48 and 55 in the regular season for his career. 45, 48 and 54 in the playoffs for his career. Kobe didn’t pull a Harden. Neither did most others that led their teams to titles.
I give harden credit for the Timberwolves first round series win in 2018. That was harden best series and, he had a 44 point game, another game of 36 with plenty of steals in each contest. Only problem was each series after first round gets tougher. Versus wolves,Rockets beat two MVP level players in Butler and rose. Rockets beat two rookie of the year level players in Kat and Andrew Wiggins.
It was a problem when we missed 27 threes in a row. Westbrook was not on that team back then but we certainly need more diversity in our offensive scheme instead of purely ISO.
You mean the game Harden should've had 3 and 1 threes and got BS offensive fouls called? U know that was taken from us.
Stubbornness can be a sign of greatness that may pay huge dividends... it can also be the sign of a diva douche that can keep your team stagnant and underachieving for years... For every MJ or Kobe theres at least a couple hundred divas with overinflated egos that are nothing but fools gold... At present, I'd say Harden is a pretty good bet to provide a positive return - the investment is reasonable for the potential return... a far better bet than say Tomball Jimmy... Harden I would gamble on - Tomball Jimmy I wouldnt... but parameters can change...
So DM has built an offensive juggernaut that averaged 123.3 per in wins/109.5 per in losses under MDA last season to wanting to hire a coach in JVG who in his best year with the rockets averaged 101.7 per in wins/88.5 per in losses. Not even going to look up Tibs. If that is the case there is going to be another huge roster shakeup. Harden/Russ/Covington, goodbye everyone else.
man, who are you even arguing with? if you think harden hasn't proven to be as good as some of the few like hakeem/lebron/jordan, you're preaching to the choir. i literally said guys like that might have stepped up even more. i don't know why you don't think 35/7/5.5 against the warriors is not his regular level of play. those are give or take his regular season numbers and obviously his regular season numbers are built with some games against the warriors and some against the knicks. and 29/6/6 against the 2018 warriors (who were an exceptional defense and a decent bit better than the 2019 warriors but our 2019 team, especially cp3, fell off also) is basically his average level of play. a series for the ages, no. sometimes your best player isn't michael jordan. sometimes you just get a really good series instead of a really great one. i don't know what you want me to tell you. i guess i don't even understand what you're really arguing. the history of the league is littered with really good players not annihilating really good defenses. larry bird has 3 titles with some pretty terrible regular season vs playoff numbers. it happens. sometimes you get dirk nowitzki as your best player. where you go through some bitter disappointments. where you probably think "will it ever happen for this guy." and where all you can really hope for is you get just the right supporting cast, the guy catches lightning in a bottle and you win it all. and maybe that perfect team already happened for harden and 4 HOF'ers and an injury were standing in the way and it's not going to happen. but what's the alternative? blow it up and rebuild? just be mad that he's our best player? ok, but by that logic you certainly couldn't have expected us to be up 3-2 on the warriors, either. and they were obviously much better than those other 2 teams.
The numbers clearly display which seasons were better or worse, and how it was pretty much the same level. Which would not be similar to Harden, who is worse practically every year.
I think Harden hasn’t shown us anything as to where we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t fold in a Finals series vs LeBron or Kawhi, with solid supporting casts. His history shows he will play worse instead of elevating his game. Your initial comment that I responded to was about us winning if we got past GS those years. My response was Harden has a history of playing worse, so I wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt against those guys with help. He’s not his regular season self literally every postseason. Because his regular (season) level of play is an uber efficient scorer. That’s what makes him special. He’s not uber great at any other aspect of basketball, and that extends to the postseason. If you think Harden was his regular season self you should revisit the game threads from that series.
i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. i think the 2018 rockets were special. something like 50-4 when harden/cp3/capela played. if you had asked me before the warriors series, i would have said we'd be lucky to win 2 games because golden state was that good. the fact we were up 3-2 just says something about that team to me. i suppose we'll have to agree to disagree again. if i'm being honest, i just don't expect anyone to be able to put up harden's last regular season in the playoffs. it was an insane/historic regular season. that volume with that efficiency just basically doesn't exist in the playoffs (or the regular season). it feels like we all know that no one is going to put up 36 ppg on crazy high efficiency in the playoffs. maybe one, maybe the other, but both? i feel like he's basically being penalized for having regular seasons basically no one else can have and no one can duplicate in the playoffs. he's a historic regular season player. he's merely really really good in the playoffs. and i do think one reason harden has underperformed more in the playoffs (though i still say he was damn good the last 2 and true underperformance lies further in the past) is the same reason i think guys like steph, bird, and stockton have. they're not freak athletes and/or don't have freak measurables. maybe one has nothing to do with the other and the list of underperformers has just as many athletes and non-athletes (david robinson was certainly athletic), but i just feel it is harder to maintain regular season performance when you are not ultra-athletic but have perfected most every aspect of whatever you happen to be great at. those guys tend to be regular season nightmares because you have no ability to gameplan for that level of skill and intricacy and smarts in one day. but with 2 weeks to study and teach your team how to react to them, to know their tendencies, to find all their weaknesses, you are left with a guy you understand really well and who doesn't have the ability to fly by you or raise up over you or dunk on you. you can teach your team to stop reaching on harden and giving him 4 or 5 extra free throws every game. you can remind guys to not leave curry when he passes the ball so he can run to the corner for an open 3. you can learn a bunch of utah's plays so stockton doesn't trick you as often. you can't teach guys to not get trucked by lebron. you can't teach centers to keep up with 7 different spin moves from hakeem. you can't teach someone to block kevin durant's jumper. you can't teach someone to keep jordan from shooting an unblockable fadeaway. harden is probably an extreme example of someone who has mastered every trick/nuance/rule/subtlety to maximize his success. it appears to be essentially impossible to gameplan against in the regular season. it is at least possible to pick up on some of the tricks in the postseason. i suppose if harden relied less on tricks, the gap between regular season and postseason performance wouldn't be as large, but i think only because the regular season success would drop, not because anyone would suddenly find him more difficult to guard in a 7 game series. and i think a huge reason he does all that is he's shorter than most shooting guards, maybe average in speed, and definitely nothing special in athleticism. strength is really the only measurable you'd put him above average in at his position (granted, he might be #1, much less above average). if he hadn't mastered all of these things, he'd probably be james harden, borderline all-star shooting guard for the oklahoma city thunder and we'd never be having these conversations. having mastered them, it probably means there's a little playoff underperformance built in from teams being more disciplined (and the refs very obviously changing the way they call him from the regular season when most star players actually get more ft's in the playoffs, but that's another discussion).
Jeff as primary coach on defence and MDA as assistant coach or double coach as offence. I think coach does not count as players salary. Strongest offense plus strongest defense should be perfect combination. MDA does not know how to call timeout. Jeff should be good on that.
It's not just postseason stats, he gets slapped around, poked in the eye, and roughed up in the Playoffs alot more by opposing enforcers. Unless he can dish out on that end, he would always get bullied. He has the bulk to absorb but still is too hesitant to fight back. Complain to the refs instead.
You are comparing totally different eras of basketball. JVG wasn't coaching in a leauge where teams where taking 50 3 pt attempts in the regular.
Thinking Basketball Podcast has a pretty damn good deep dive on the greatest scorers ever. I found it to be extremely fair and highly researched breakdown. It combined regular season and playoffs. He looked at production and efficiency vs the level of opponent faced. Harden was just outside his top 10. EVER. Mainly for his dip in playoff production. But the funny thing is when he went into talking about Harden he highlighted the fact that he has two 3 year playoff runs that are much better than you would think when adjusting for opponents played. And made it pretty clear his reputation is worse than the reality. No doubt his numbers have suffered in the playoffs, but he’s still in a pretty elite class.
