[Calvin Watkins] Harden named starting point guard

Harden's strength on scoring relies a lot on his ft rate, of course as a whole his scoring repertoire (including playmaking) puts him on par with the best like KD and Curry but as a closer I think he's a tier below those two because closing out means scoring despite having the defender right on your grill, and Harden's conversion rate is 6% lower than those guys, I mean sure when you take fts into account they end up the same TS% but ft calls on high impact situations are arbitrary, most of the time they won't call those shots so Harden who normally gets ft shots would get surprised when he gets hammered and no call was given like on the Laker game.

I think Harden is best as a playmaker and opportunistic scorer, as we saw with his assists Harden's playmaking (IMHO) vastly outstrips his scoring power lots of people can score 20 pts but how many can get 17 assists in just one half? This is why I always cringe when I see him trying to hero-ball it out in tense situations because his playmaking power is way better than his scoring power. It doesn't mean that he can't convert since he's obviously pretty good but I don't think that maximizes his strength.

 

So what you're saying is KD and Curry frequently have bad shooting nights, yet they still end up with 50% FG average? How is that supported by facts? The average takes into account all the games they've had, if they frequently have bad shooting nights as you claim how can KD and Curry end up with a ridiculously high FG%? Your sample size of 15+ games doesn't even meet the 30 minimum required for statistical analysis, and your highlighted games are arbitrarily done since it might be that their great string of games happens in the end of the season. More importantly, you didn't even define what would count as a "bad shooting night", if you did all that you would still arrive at the average, 50% for KD and Curry but only 44% for Harden which is a huge difference esp. for Curry who gets almost all his shots in the 3 pt and mid range area. You don't even need to use stats for these, if Curry and KD frequently have bad shooting nights then they wouldn't be considered among the best shooters in the league and would instead be accused of being chuckers like Westbrick and Melo considering the amount of shots they take vs their conversion rate.

My quote said my statement was "KD and Curry very rarely have bad shooting nights", you changed it to "KD and Curry don't have bad shooting nights like Harden" which is why you started screenshot and highlighting stuff and now you boxed yourself into arguing the best shooters in the league somehow have bad scoring nights every other game they play. Honestly I don't even care anymore I've spent way more time on this than I needed to, I don't like talking a lot about non-Rockets players. My opinion is still Harden shouldn't hero it up in games if you think he should always try to close it out like Kobe or MJ does then more power to you, personally I'd had enough of his hero ball as to me it seems to be wildly inconsistent.

 

no you're just proving to me that i'm right. It's always someone else's fault. Your PG with 7 turnovers = a loss on a majority of nights.

 

nahI cam here when Yao showed. Grew to love players that actually had some heart even if their bodies were frail. TMac, Bob Sura, Juwan Howard, I can go on and on.

As a Knick fan i can relate to how a superstar somehow escapes all blame, instead he's the least of the problem and it's really everyone else around him! Keep telling yourself that.

 

Yep his 17 assists was useless?. Considering he could have probably finished with 25 assists if Ariza, Anderson and others didn't miss so many open looks. Harden was probably the last person you could blamed for that mess but it seems you have an agenda

 

Now the dominos are starting to fall. You are a lof/yof who despises harden regarding youre beloved lin.So after every loss should we brace for you YOF/LOF's to come here to troll?

 

Yeah, i'm not going to break it down how Howard burned bridges at every stop and Harden was beloved so much on his former team that it ran Kevin Durant away. The trade of Harden was the sticking point of Durant that his GM was never going to get it.

I can name 5 ex-teammates with quotes that did not say kind things about Howard. Can you do the same for Harden?

In the end you are not in that locker room nor I. I'm open to Harden being the 'cancer'...problem is there is little proof behind that theory. There is more proof and history that Dwight was an issue. When you have problems with Steve Nash, one of the most unselfish players to ever play the game...then maybe it's a 'you' problem.

 

This is flat out false bro. We are talking about who is the best pure scorer. You're making it seem as though your preference for KD and Curry's style implies a sort of standard. By the same token I can say those two guys are not in the elite category of FT makers in history.

I know what you're saying, but what you're stating is just your personal aesthetic preference. It has no bearing whatsoever on the definition or ranking of a pure scorer in the NBA. Those guys are not better pure scorers than Harden. Curry might be a better passer, Durant might be a better rebounder, but Harden is without question in the same tier as those guys when it comes to pure SCORING OF ANY KIND OF NBA POINTS.

 

We are going to continue vacillating somewhere between mediocre and above average until Harden realizes what it takes to win big in today's NBA. Playing this way will not get it done.

 

Agreed. We need Ricky Rubio to get it done. With Ricky Rubio we automatically go from mediocre and above average to an excellent super team that could win 75+

 

Dat Wussio, Scrubio

 

It makes a difference when these guys go hero-ball, KD and Curry can still convert a high clip even when they're playing selfish basketball but Harden cannot do it at their level when he's going ISO-ball, this is something you can't really contest because otherwise they'd all have the same FG% rather than Harden's FG% being significantly lower than those 2. When the enemy defense is set and the refs aren't calling fouls I have less confidence with Harden going ISO and converting rather than KD and Curry, which is why I like Harden to be creative and act according to the situation since he is a lot more versatile than those other guys. If you want a comparison, I think KD is like a chisel, he's really only good scoring but he's really good at scoring. Harden is like swiss army knife, he has so many tools at his disposal but he's not as good as KD in scoring against a tough defense when the refs aren't gonna call fouls on him. I think Harden is more of a generalist except when it comes to playmaking, he's the best in the league at finding open teammates and that's why he led the league in creating open 3s for others.

Obviously they're all at the same level overall, but as individual players these guys also have things that they excel at if they were put in different roles. So it's wrong to assume these three will do all things equally well, they obviously have different strengths and weaknesses.