wiggins and oubre were always tough defenders who could hit an occasional three. they could fill in for luc and ariza on the rockets pretty easily.
i can only speak for myself. part of doing it is it's a little fun (we all have a little troll in us), but part of it is hearing that someone like harden is great in the regular season and bad in the playoffs and then having to see these warriors players (especially durant and curry) elevated above while having very similar individual dropoffs (and unlike the rockets, the warriors (before they got lazy with durant) are actually dominant regular season teams which somehow everyone thinks the rockets have been). durant and curry were legitimate dominant regular season mvp's. draymond is a DPOY and legit western conference all-star. klay is one of the greatest shooters ever and plays good D and is a legit western conference all-star. that's as much talent as you'll ever see on a team. and yet they barely scrape by the cavs with love and irving out. they barely get past the thunder and actually lose to the cavs in 2016 after winning 73 but curry is still somehow a great playoff performer. they add durant and somehow, with 2 mvp's having another all-star teammate and also ANOTHER all-star teammate, they are odds on favorites to lose to james harden and 33 year old chris paul but now we're supposed to talk about curry and durant as unbelievable tier 1 playoff guys even though they could not play on a more talented team? steph plays like absolute crap in the 2019 series but he has 1 good game so now he's great again? these dudes live this charmed life of not having to hard carry like other players (lebron, harden, giannis) and time and again are on the brink of losing until some lucky break saves the day or their talent just finally ekes them by, but somehow they always get treated with kids gloves. that's why they get talked about as having so much talent but also seemingly needing endless help to win.
i mean last season he pretty much had league average stats. right on average for PER, WS48, and TS%. and most of the podcasts i like seemed to talk about him as a decent defender. at worst he seems to be a league average player. curry seems to have accepted the fact that he has to step up and not just be on cruise control and hope the system will work itself out. if he keeps it up all season i'll be impressed. it's amazing how much draymond changes things. everything about the D is so much better when he plays. he has a 6th sense for how to stay in front of people, not get beat by quick people, force bigger players into bad angles and he stop drives about as well as anyone i've ever seen who isn't a 7 ft rim protector.
Two totally different players bro. They are about neck and neck IMO. Curry's could damn near fit on any team. Harden? Not so much. Both are probably the best ever at certain aspects of the game. Harden is great at what he does, he is the greatest iso player ever. Curry is the greatest shooter ever. But I'd be willing to bet that more NBA GM's would take Curry over Harden. I don't think either is miles ahead of the other.
You really think Harden is a greater isolation scorer than Michael Jordan? Like, final possession, tied game, playoffs -- you'd rather the ball is in Harden's hands than Jordan's on an isolation play? Isn't that what it comes down to?
Firstly, the high volume of 3s Harden takes is often directly related to his poor shooting in the playoffs. When you have the luxury of being selective about your 3-pt attempts, you can get better looks rather than your team depending on you forcing shots because you're the only shot creator against a team with Draymond, Klay, Iggy, and Durant on defense. Secondly, you're creating an oversimplification to hyperbolize your point. You can point to the worst stat or two for the worst season or two for any great player on mediocre supporting casts to try to make them sound bad. Harden still put up 29, 7 and 5 en route to what many would agree very well could have been a championship if not for the Paul injury OR Scott Foster (let alone both). His playoff stats on the whole are also still unequivocally incredible, despite some poor shooting percentages. God knows how good those shooting percentages would be if he had Klay, Dray, and Durant (not that I'm arguing he's as good of a shooter as Curry in any case, but Harden is certainly a better player).
A surprising number of people on this forum would answer yes to that question. And they would back up the yes with a smattering of advanced stats which prove Harden is on the same level as Jordan offensively.
I have a good handle on what the advanced stats say about Harden. But you can't look at stats in a vacuum when comparing players across eras. For a variety of reasons, stats are inflated. The comparison has to be based on their efficiency relative to the league they played in. The other thing is that playoffs vs regular season really matters.
Do I in my heart of hearts really believe Harden was a better isolation player than Jordan? Hell no bro lol, not even almost, but I'll say as much to the kids here on CF to avoid a long pointless debate about Harden vs Jordan lol(I grew up in the 80's). Jordan was superior to Harden in almost every aspect of the game, Harden might have Jordan beat in three point shooting and handles but that's about it. I have to keep reminding myself that when I'm here on CF that most of these guys are either young are just Rocket fans. To them no other team or players matter outside of Houston so it's kinda hard to really discuss things properly when someone has very limited knowledge of the game.
Sorry, but when it comes to Harden, that's a garbage take. He's not forced to take step back 3's. He wants to shoot them. They're his go-to move. I haven't oversimplified anything. Efficiency matters, especially when it comes to high volume shooters. Do you think it's only been one or two series where he's shot poorly? He's shot around 30% from the 3pt line for a series at least 4 times. Also, let's not play the "what if" game regarding Harden's shooting percentages. As a Rocket, he's never come close to shooting 40% from the 3pt line for a season.
Yeah, they're his go-to move, but that doesn't change the fact that they become more difficult in the playoffs, especially on a short rotation devoid of any other stars, along with other reasons I mentioned. Again, you're focusing way too much on one statistic. Firstly, Harden dominates offensively even on many nights when he's shooting poorly from outside, as his TS% will often demonstrate, not to mention his incredible vision and passing (way better than Curry's). Every advanced stat I'm aware of that is designed to measure offensive impact will demonstrate this and puts him in line with or ahead of Curry, even in the playoffs (OBPM, OWS, ORPM...) over the past 5-6 seasons. Secondly, I would hope even you wouldn't deny that Harden is a significantly better defender than Curry, and a better rebounder. As for not shooting near 40% for a season... so what? Neither has Jordan or LeBron. Does that mean Curry is better than them?
If he's getting the shot he wants (albeit a difficult shot), you can't argue that he's not getting good looks or forcing shots. I disagree. He's a high volume 3pt shooter. His 3pt% is extremely relevant. When his 3pt% tanks, his TS% will also suffer unless he shoots a tremendous amount of free throws. In the 2014 playoffs against the Blazers, he shot 29.6% from the 3pt line for the series (we lost). His TS% was 51.9% In the 2016 playoffs against the Warriors, he shot 31% from the 3pt line for the series (we lost). His TS% was 55.5% In the 2017 playoffs against the Thunder, he shot 24% from the 3pt line for the series (we won). His TS% was 59.7% In that 5 game series, he had 3 games of 17+ FTA. In the 2017 playoffs against the Spurs, he shot 30.8% from the 3pt line for the series (we lost). His TS% was 56.8% In the 2018 playoffs against the Jazz, he shot 29.5% from the 3pt line for the series (we won). His TS% was 54.7%. In the 2018 playoffs against the Warriors, he shot 24.4% from the 3pt line for the series (we lost). His TS% was 53.8%. Unsurprising. Harden is in a system designed to inflate his stats. Better rebounder? Absolutely. Better defender? Questionable. Curry plays solid positional defense, he plays better team defense, and he's quick enough to keep up with opposing guards, but opponents take advantage of his small frame. Harden is generally too slow to guard opposing guards and he has a tendency to lose track of his mark b/c he's ball-watching, but he's great at guarding opposing post players. However, IMO, guarding 4's is a half-measure since it forces us to use an undersized PF (for switching purposes) which hinders our rebounding. Jordan and Lebron are physical freaks (though Lebron did shoot 40.6% one season) so it's a poor comparison. They don't need elite skills to be elite players. Harden and Curry do.
You can't look at individual series, especially those against the best defensive teams in the league (as all except the Blazers in your example were top five defensive teams). That's just a slightly broader way of cherry picking. And again, all those numbers are better if he plays with Klay Thompson and Draymond Green instead of Corey Brewer and Josh Smith, or Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson. Not to mention, again, we have direct proof that those numbers are highly exaggerated in terms of impact. Look at how close Harden came to beating the Warriors in 2018 despite his horrid shooting, and Foster effect, AND Chris Paul missing two games, AND going against a team with four all stars and two MVPs. You think that was all because of Eric Gordon's offensive impact? As for "inflating stats", I think you may be thinking of box score stats... Not that they are perfect, but advanced stats take team performance into account. There's a reason Westbrook's have never even been in the same league as Harden's despite all-world caliber box score stats. You can't very easily "inflate" your OBPM, for example, without just playing better offense. Disagree strongly re "better team defense", and again, all the advanced stats have my back (along with the eye test, IMO, over the last five years). It's telling that the only number you want to talk about is 3-pt shooting. With regards to Jordan and Lebron, of course they're physical freaks. That is a pretty nonsensical digression. My point is that focusing on one stat distorts the whole picture, and you're essentially admitting that when talking about how they're "physical freaks". There are numbers that point to the benefit of their freakness outside of 3-pt shooting. Just as numbers point to the advantages Harden has outside of shooting.
The 2017 Thunder were a top 5 defensive team? 2018 Jazz? I find that hard to believe. In any case, it's the western conference playoffs. The competition is going to be tougher. It's expected for players to have drop-offs relative to the regular season, but not to this degree. That's pure speculation. In the 2012 finals against Miami (when he had Kevin Durant), he shot 31.8% from the 3pt line for the series. I could very easily argue that Draymond Green would've never flourished alongside Harden. Harden wasn't the best Rocket in any of their 3 wins. In 2017 (Westbrook's MVP year), Westbrook had an OBPM of 8.7. Harden's was 7.5. Because for a volume 3pt shooter, 3pt% is significantly more important than defense. Average/below-average defenders can be hidden, and team defense can compensate for individual defensive lapses. I'm simply pointing out that you can't hold Lebron/Jordan to the same standards as Curry/Harden. Maybe if Curry/Harden could touch the top of the backboard like Lebron/Jordan, then their individual skills wouldn't matter as much. But until that happens, they do matter.
i suspect "greatest iso player" ever is kind of like carmelo being called the best scorer in the nba for a number of years. he scored a lot and he scored in a lot of different ways and scoring was his main skill so it got overrated, but at the end of the day there were people who scored more, or more efficiently, or both. with harden, seemingly no one has ever scored so much, so efficiently, while being almost exlusively an isolation player. so since he's so well known for that and because he basically laps the league in iso points, he gets called the greatest iso scorer ever. is he a better iso scorer than the greatest scorer of all time? no, of course not. is the list of people ahead of harden a long list? also no.
