[538] How James Harden Changed His Game In Brooklyn

I feel like you could have formatted this better man haha.

 

But aren't all changes just a change in frequencies in play distribution? What would be an example of him legitimately changing that can't be described in that way?

 

As someone who has spent way too much time on this forum trying to format statistical tables, I can empathize with him.

 

Yeah, it hard ito fit the words unless abbreviating......but abbreviating might not be understood as well.

 

From the data he is not playing different the statistics the quoted have been the same most of his career and they are the same as last year.

2020-21 57.2% 27.0% 22.5% 63.2%
2019-20 57.6 27.9 18.3 . 65.5
2018-19 46.6 37.9 . 15.6 . 69.1
2017-18 54.8 . 31.2 . 17.0 . 65.0
2016-17 62.0 23.9 20.1 . 63.2

So where is he playing different?

 

Bingo

 

Not if you are adding new plays to them right? Do you see any plays that Harden is running differently? Its all the same man pick and roll and isolation. Legit change would him getting more opportunities off ball, running off of pindowns etc. Just different plays.

 

The stats are slightly different what are you talking about?

 

You’re right, his play hasn’t changed in that way. Within the same kind of plays he’s been asked to run for years, the numbers indicate that he is passing more and getting better quality shots on fewer attempts and not as focused at drawing fouls. People seem to like watching him do that more than what he was doing in prior seasons. Can’t argue with taste. My issue is people who say Harden was a selfish inefficient player who didn’t pass while in Houston. That wasn’t a fair characterization of his game, and there were a shockingly high number of people who thought that.

 

The title of the article should be "538 never paid any attention to Harden's game before"

 

Just now:

JVG: “The one thing that’s changed stylistically is how long he’s holding onto the ball.”

Not so crystal clear, it turns out.

 

He was never gonna do that with Irving or Durant. Thats pretty clear. Time of possession is lower but again so has the whole roster. Why would you hold on to the ball to isolate more when you have tow other players on your team.

 

True. He’d be crazy to do that.

 

Friendship ended with 538.

But on a serious note, Yaya Dubin sucks, that guy has been a loser and Harden hater on twitter for years, I was bummed when 538 hired him. Big fan of 538, really dislike Dubin.

 

Well to be fair Rockets also had shooters surrounding the Rockets during Harden era. Every season Rockets had at least 3-4 three-point shooters. Harden also put up similar numbers and show while with the Rockets during the season. They simply just did not have another star that could lead offensively besides Harden. Howard sucked, CP3 needed the ball more which clash with Harden and Russ/Harden combo was no complementary.

The difference now is that with KD and Kyrie, there will be less burden for Harden to carry scoring-wise. Kyrie also accepted his role at SG and ok with Harden running the offense. Rockets never had the luxury for plan B because all plans had to run through Harden and ended with Harden. Rockets could have done a better job by acquiring better and complementary stars surrounding Harden. It is simply what good teams do such as Bulls with Jordan and Lakers with Kobe. I am just surprised that Morey failed to surround Harden with such players considering he is such a stats guy and all.

 

Are they forgetting that Harden played like this in D'Antoni's first season, was actually even more productive with a much lesser cast.

And Harden is STILL playing for Mike D'Antoni!

LOL

 

Just durv being durv.

Watch out he'll post a fake poll on you.

 

You’re too caught up in one narrative: Has he changed or not? Don’t you see how that frames a discussion, like it’s the only way to talk about Harden now.

why are some media pundits framing that as their only discussion ... bc they want to ,,, for a reason.

that isn’t the only analytical discussion...it’s a limited, casual one that doesn’t consider one system vs another and how we should have known from the McHale to MDA transition that Harden can run different systems, and so it’s not surprising he can tweak what he does instantly to his Nets teammates

then the talk is about one team makeup vs another (the Kobe/Lakers talk), and how and why a high IQ, great passer, maestro of offense floated between the two, when everyone expected a Big 3 would require drastic change to his game...like going off ball.

and “tweak” was the word an interviewer used in a pre-game interview. Tweak is not a big change. And JVG stressed he “hasn’t changed at all” in response to a question about the current talk show takes. JVG is making a point that that discussion is shallow. We can have better discussion around what works with each team.

then we don’t have to imply the dislike of Rockets ball was some type of ego-driven concoction of Harden, as if now he’s bought into something, rather than teaching this team what he wants them to do. Paul also bought into the ISO of the 65 win season. That was a team decision ,,, which again JVG explained.

this is a better basketball analysis, but the discussion is an over simplistic “has he changed or not,” which is completely framed that way to allow harden-hating pundits to say “wow, I didn’t know I could like him.”

as for the stats, are you talking about efficiency? That’s just being pickier with his 3pt shot, as part of better teammates. The equally true story there is Harden was asked to shoot more threes here, bc it was still better offense getting off 4 more per game (plus the fouls on 3s), despite higher level of difficulty.

 

harden with a non-tanking team without him

 

He's doing exactly what you'd expect him to do with better players around him, if you've watched him in Houston. Whether he's "changed" is mostly semantics to me.