Are Harden and Durant in a lower class than Kawhi, Lebron, and Curry?

Okay, we try a negotiation game.

2 Finals MVP = 1 ring by himself..... okay?

 

Curry is clearly better than anyone mentioned in terms of winning.

 

I am not a Cowherd fan by any means but what he said was true.

Curry isn't the individually best player of this list, he is something else. He is the cooler.

The main ventilator in a machine or Computer.

He is the guy that you need to keep everything under wraps.

He makes drama die down with his shooting. A Revolutionary.

 

Hypothetical
Remove them all from their teams.

Toronto with Kawhi
GS without Curry and Durant
Houston without Harden
LA without LeBron

How do you rank them?

Rocket River

 

I sure as hell wish we could get that superfluousness!

 

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

GSW. Alas, Aristotle.

 

Kawhi was a #1 option???????
With Duncan, Ginobili and Parker???????


Finals MVP: Kawhi Leonard (17.8 / 6.4 / 2.0)
Parker (18/4.6)
Duncan (15.4/10/2)
Ginobili (14.4/3/4.4)

Revisionist history much??

Kawhi wins it this year I might give some more credit but as of now .. . . no. . . . .

Rocket River

 

No, I don’t consider Durant to be in a lower class.

James Harden is the least reliable playoff performer in that group.

 

By the same token
He has had the worse performing supporting cast and maybe even coaches as well


2019 Playoff Stats
Durant 34.2 pts 1.2 stls 4.9 ast 5.2 rebs (1 gms)
Harden 31.6 pts 2.2 stls 6.6 ast 6.9 rebs (11 gms)
Leonard 31.2 pts 1.6 stls 3.8 ast 8.8 rebs (18 gms)
Curry 27.3 pts 0.9 stls 5.6 ast 6.3 rebs (16 gms)
LeBron 0 pts 0 stls 0 ast 0 rebs (0 gms)


Rocket River

 

To me it's very simple:

Curry, Kawhi and Lebron all won while playing with Draymond/Klay/Durant...Duncan/Manu/Parker...Wade/Bosh/Irving/Love.

Harden almost won (against the best opponent any of those other guys ever faced) with only CP3 and didn't when CP3 was obviously declining.

Durant is a b**** and is the only one who couldn't win while playing with two all stars, needed three to do it.


This is why in the end, while i do think Harden shouldn't be immune to critics, he should definitely get a pass. It's easy to say he should've done more (and in some situations he should've imo), but in the end without talent you just don't win in this era.

Spoiler

let alone if the refs steal you even a single game.

 

Not sure about the others but Harden is not on the same level as Kawhi

 

Considering how we lost G5 and G6, this is a joke now. Curry ran his ass off to get a win while James Harden looked disinterested...

 

Lmao.

Those Harden lazy walks...
Harden looked disinterested.
He was invisible in crucial moment.

 

The way I make this assessment is:

1) What support did the player have in the Finals?
2) What share of the load did the player carry?
3) Who were his opponents in the Finals?

Tier 1
In the last 25 years, the two players that are in a tier of their own who absolutely should not have won their titles are Hakeem and Dirk. These two are the only ones in recent history who absolutely snatched their titles from the jaws of logic. This puts them in an entirely different tier. One could argue that the Detroit Pistons team could be in this category but there was no herculean effort by an individual to define it.

Tier 2
Lebron (2016) is alone in this second tier. Fairly impressive but you must consider that he was playing with 2 guys who would have demanded and received the maximum allowable salary the previous summer and Dan Gilbert spent enormous amounts of money on even marginal role players to make this opportunity happen. You could maybe make a case for Curry's 2015 title here, but he went up against an extremely depleted Cavaliers team while himself having the benefit of Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Finals MVP Iguodala along with a formidable supporting cast of veterans. I do not believe for a second that Durant could emulate these 2 titles, and he has had 2 legitimate attempts at doing so: losing in the Finals with Westbrook/Harden/Ibaka and choking a 3-1 series lead to the Warriors with Westbrook and an excellent cast. James Harden has not emulated this and has never had a supporting cast resembling any of these 3 players had when they made their runs. A 34 year old Chris Paul - who did put on some series altering performances in 2018 - is not comparable to the max-level star-studded players in their prime that these other 3 guys had at their disposal. Kawhi would join this tier if he defeats the Warriors since he has a good but not incredible cast, however even without Durant he's facing a team that is on a 73-win pace when Durant is injured. Again it's debatable if that puts him in tier 2 if Durant doesn't play, but it would be more impressive than the below title wins imo.

Tier 3
Everyone else. Lebron's Heat. Duncan's Spurs. Durant's Warriors. Kobe's life. All of these people's supporting cast were proven monsters independent of the star player. I don't believe that anyone in this tier has accomplished more success with less resources than Harden. I believe he would pick up most of these titles if swapped. He has also never had the opportunity to play with teams of this calibre. A prime Wade and Bosh next to Harden, for example, would likely crush the Warriors given what we've seen him do with far less.

Equally important: I don't think anyone would defeat Durant's Warriors. He joined a 73-win regular season team. Durant has not achieved anything greater than Harden without the help of Curry, Klay and Draymond - he has barely been able to keep THAT team at .500 when Curry goes down. He has never had a better individual season. He has never had a better series without the Warriors than Harden just had against the Warriors.

The truth is Harden has never been afforded the opportunity most of those guys have gotten because he didn't walk to the opportunity. He wants to win it here. No other star of his stature goes through this and doesn't even give the media chance to speculate about a departure to a super team.

The only question to me is: has Harden shown that if he were surrounded by 2 All Stars and 3-4 good role players, he could do better than beating a dynastic team more than 2-3 times in a series? For me this answer is abso-****ing-lutely yes. He took them to a 3-2 series lead with Paul, Gordon, Capela, Tucker, Ariza. No one has ever been able to beat that team 3 times in a series. He has been closer than everyone else. Nothing is for sure, but logic dictates that the person who comes closest even in an uneven playing field has some magic in them.

 

LeBron is above all of them. He has lead multiple teams to multiple titles. Without him, none of those teams win a ring.

Next tier is Curry, Kawhi, KD. All 3 were parts of championship teams. Those teams PROBABLY would have still won a ring if these players went down with an injury.

Last tier is Harden. He hasn’t won a ring yet. He needs some all star talent to join him (start recruiting better like LeBron) or he needs to bandwagon on to another team like KD. He will never be part of a champion built from the draft like Curry and Kawhi.

 

Skills wise no ,mentally yes.

 

some newbie in the dish claimed curry is better than harden b/c of his defense hahahhaaaa

 

Harden didn’t “take them” to a 3-2 series lead. He was awful in game 5. Chris Paul was the guy making the plays at the end of that game. And we lost the final two games with Harden unable to rise to the occasion.

So, no, that series didn’t show that Harden personally can lead a team to a championship. It didn’t show Harden is on the same level as those other guys in the playoffs. I haven’t lost hope that he can be that guy, but he hasn’t yet shown it.

 

hold up there...

klay destroyed HOU in the 1st half

donkey and looney DESTROYED crapela

livingston and iggy had their best games of the series

and even their bench players (ie jerebko/mckinnie/bell) all showed up while ours (ie. green) were MIA

lastly, pringles got OBLITERATED by kerr

 

This has been the popular Rockets homer narrative lol. But a championship is a championship at the end of the day. You get no points for losing against a great team, no matter how they're constructed. Playing the "if" and "woulda coulda shoulda" games don't do anything. A loss is a loss and a win is a win. There is no pass or consolation trophy. History will not shed a tear for the Rockets not winning.

90's Jazz
90's Supersonics
90's Pacers
90's Knicks
'04-'09 Suns
'15-'17 Raptors

2014-2018 Rockets are on that list of teams who could never get over the hump. Stockton and Malone never got a pass. Gary Payton never got a pass. Miller never got a pass. Ewing never got a pass. Nash never got a pass. Harden won't get a pass (except maybe from Rockets fans, as mentioned). All it takes is one title to change perception. Dirk is a great example of that before and after his title against LeBron, Wade and Bosh.