Still early, but it’s looking like Harden will be the third scoring option on the team. But it does seem like Harden will be a double figures assist guy for the second time in his career.
Its really weird to me that he's attempting so little....he has like 5 FG attempts today its so weird.
I don’t know — it’s not that weird to me. He doesn’t want to overly dominate the ball to get his points, being the new guy. I think he wants to embrace more of a distributor role.
I guess it's a theory of comparative advantage. Harden is better at scoring than anybody on the Nets. Harden is better at passing/assisting than anybody on the Nets. But I guess since Irving and Durant are better at scoring than passing, he's gonna pass and not score. Still think the nets would be crazy not to ditch Irving for Covington Ariza type players.
My view is Durant and Irving are better equipped to score in the flow of a read and react offense. Harden’s scoring moves often depend on other players to be spaced and stationary to allow him room to operate 1-on-1 or find driving lanes. He certainly doesn’t have Durant’s ability to manufacture a good shot anywhere on the floor. And Irving has a more robust stop and pop mid-range game and is generally more comfortable shooting off the catch (huge difference on percentage of 3PM assisted over the last several seasons). Given that, it’s just not that surprising to me that Harden’s shot attempts would dip significantly with other talented offensive players around him. He has the biggest adjustment to make here.
I'm not surprised by much of Harden's role on the Nets. The only thing I'm surprised by is the amount of times Kyrie or KD get free and are lightly covered. Defenses are hedging more than I would have thought with Harden going to the rim.
Harden is a better scorer than Durant? Bro I get that you like Harden but stop the madness. Now if you wanted to say that Harden is the most versatile offensive player on the Nets then that would be more accurate. But he's never been a better scorer than Durant, EVER...
In regards to Harden vs Durant and who is the better scorer. Career PPG Harden : 25.2 Durant : 27.1 Points per 100 possessions Harden : 36.2 Durant : 36.8 TS % / eFG% Harden : .611 / .527 Durant : .614 / .543 Peak Scoring season(Harden :18/19 Durant : 13/14) PPG Harden : 35.4 Durant : 32.0 Points per 100 possessions Harden : 48.2 Durant : 41.8 TS% / eFG% Harden : .616 / .541 Durant : .635 / .560 I think over their careers thus far Durant has the edge. Not big, but definitely an edge. Harden is the efficiency god and Durant is just a slight step above him. I think Harden very clearly had the better peak scoring season. Which is why no one was ever comparing Durant’s scoring seasons to Jordan and Wilt and they did do exactly that with Harden.
Durant is a more versatile scorer. Harden is very effective playing in a very specific way in which the other players are just waiting for him to create something. Durant can excel in a variety of offenses, because he can get a clean look almost whenever he wants regardless of the defense on him. And, unlike Harden, he's a willing shooter at all spots in the half-court.
I agree. Durant is clearly more versatile at scoring and as I said agree that for their careers Durant is the correct answer. I just cant overlook the actual scoring production in their peak seasons. And if I’m ranking their best scoring seasons I would probably choose Harden’s top 2 peak scoring years before Durant’s peak year.
And this is why once the Nets fill out their roster via trade and buyouts they will have the most fearsome offensive trio to ever play basketball . Kyrie is balling this season as well
Career stats are fine but we're talking right now - Durant last won a scoring title 7 years ago, Harden hasn't not won a scoring title in 3 years. It's frankly not even close to being close as to who's been the more prolific scorer in recent years. If you ran the "last 3-4 years average" or whatever it's going to be a wipeout in favor of Harden (though, obviously part of that is because Durant had to share in GS), mostly because he just put up the greatest stretch of the century by playing at Jordan-Chamberlain scoring levels for 1.5 seasons or so.
A lot of that is simply because Harden had the ball in his hand so much and the entire offense was centered around him scoring first and passing second. The fact remains that in the 18-19 season, Harden was isolating 48.7% of the time when he had the ball. As a team that season our isolation frequency was 20.4%, which by far lead the league. The second closet team was OKC at 8.9% isolation frequency and that's with them having Russell Westbrook too. Last year as whole we were 19.6% (which obviously led the league) in isolation frequency with Portland being the second closest team to us in that statistical category at 9.9%. My point is simply when only one or two players have the ball and are doing damn near all the heavy lifting it's not hard to lead the league in scoring. Harden is a great player, true. But when you are attempting 24 shots a game, 13 of which are three pointers, and 10 free throw attempts a game you damn well better average over 30 points a game. Compared to a guy that's only taking 18 shots a game and only averaging around 6 free throw attempts a game in Durant. With Durant being a more efficient scorer if he took the same amount of shots Harden did over this few year stretch Durant could easily average close to 40 a night. Even when you watch the Nets play this year you can just see it from the eyeball test that Harden is not the scorer Durant is. Durant can score literally from anywhere on the floor with a one dribble pull up and from almost any angle. Harden has to get in his dance and get to his spot, big damn difference imo. I'll speak for me personally, I've been watching basketball since the 80's and maybe other than Jordan I've never seen a player as gifted offensively as Durant is. Easily one of the top 3 greatest scorers to ever play the game of basketball in my book. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duranke01.html https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hardeja01.html https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/isolation/?SeasonYear=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular Season&sort=POSS_PCT&dir=1 https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/isolation/?SeasonType=Regular Season&SeasonYear=2018-19 https://www.nba.com/stats/players/isolation/?sort=POSS_PCT&dir=1&SeasonYear=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season
