Save your sob story. You gotta understand what I'm dealing with. In the midst of arguing, a poster actually said/inferred Paul George makes ZERO difference on IND defense. They think/claim saying George might be SLIGHTY better than Harden isn't just wrong, but the entire notion is ludicrous (trolling). These lies/exaggeration are levels some posters go through to make a point. If you can't respect what I'm saying, so be it. Enjoy your evening.
Paul George is among the top 5 players in the league due to his incredible defense and offense. There are people that are comparing Harden to George on this site? I know there's a lot of homers, but be objective here. Harden barely averages more points than George per game, but on the defensive end, George is 1000 times the player Harden is. Defense wins championships. Here's the top 5 players in the league right now in my opinion: 1. Durant 2. Lebron 3. Griffin 4. George 5. Curry George was #3, but I think Blake Griffin passed him up in the last month. CP3 was in the top 5 before he was injured.
You could just pass the ignoramuses off to me. I can be appropriately brutal. And I do not mind the task at all.
You seem like the most sane poster (besides me. of course) in this thread. What exactly did you mean in this post?
Disagree that either Harden or George is miles/clearly ahead of the other. I just favor George slighty.
Sigh. And Dwight does not make the top five? How can you support that? Is he not the current leading candidate for DPOY? Has he not transformed the entire Houston offense? I could go on about your rankings. I personally find it futile to rank NBA players after LBJ, KD and CP. But thinking about it the three best by informed NBA sources are a PF, SF and PG. Why should not Howard and Harden be the consensus best center and SG in the league? Wait! Holy cow they are the consensus best center and SG in the league! I think we have the 5 best players in the NBA! Curry is fragile and has not proven his worth long term. George? He was on fire during the ECF and the first six weeks of this season. Does he have any staying power or is he just a flash in the pan? Your guess is as good as mine. Basically don't be so damn sure your opinion is fact. If you are Morey sure. But you are not. Your opinion is your own estimation of the relative worth of players. Nothing more.
You bash Harden's defense, then go on to rank Stephen Curry a Top 5 player? And his team is barely a playoff team right now? LMFAO!
I can be cold blooded in my dissection of ignorant posters. I have no qualms about doing whatever necessary to put them into their place. I can overwhelm them with facts and statistics.
Not you obviously. The guy (troll) you had to fend off of course. You seem like a reasonable and intelligent person to me.
"Save your sob story" "Here is my sob story" I really don't care who you are debating with, and I don't understand why you are trying so hard to discredit Harden. Is George better on defense than Harden? Sure, and you probably don't need stats to tell you that. Does George benefit a lot from good team defense however? I would say yes to that too, but that doesn't mean George is any less important to their defensive schemes (in fact he probably anchors the perimeter defense). Is George better than Harden offensively? Absolutely not, and his regression to the mean is showing you exactly that. If you prefer George over Harden, that's fine. That's your opinion. I would prefer Harden because elite offense is harder to find than elite defense.
Here lies the problem. It's not that I'm trying to discredit Harden. Just giving an honest opinion. I discredit all players on the Rockets (Texans, Astros) when it needs to be done. Lin, Dwight, McHale, Beverley, anyone can get it. Most of you think I'm a LOF due to 2013, that's why you give ridiculous responses like George > Harden SLIGHTLY is trolling. Many ways to discredit this post, but I'll consider the poster's preconceived notion of myself. We can still debate if you have a problem.
Back to defense. Let's take a look at perhaps the most accurate statistical measure available to fans. xRAPM. Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus. With some odd lower case x prepended. Plus/Minus is a box score stat. Put it together with the teammates on the floor using parsing computer algorithms blowing through play by play game logs and you get what some fans may me familiar with: the performance of 5, 4 3 and 2 man combinations on NBA teams. Regularized means that a Bayesian statistical technique has been incorporated to factor in previous seasons and lineups. It gets somewhat complex here so let us just skip it. xRAPM is broken down into oRAPM and dRAPM. It is just the same algorithms broken down into their offensive and defensive components. So what exactly does that lower case x mean. xRAPM? Actually it is shorthand for integrating back into the results of RAPM a portion of the games box score. Proprietary black box stuff. But overall it is one of the best indicators of future NBA performance. Anyway I am done tonight. Maybe tomorrow I will resume this discussion.
Howard is the top candidate for Defensive player of the year? Is this 2010? Dwight used to be a defensive beast, but since the back injury, it's not been the same. There are currently 8 players in the league that are averaging more blocks that Dwight this season. I sort of agree with these rankings for DPOY this year. Hibbert for sure is the front runner. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10331297/2014-winter-forecast-defensive-player-year
I think Kevin Love and LaMarcus Aldridge are in the discussion as well for the top 5 in the NBA. I mean, it's Lebron and Durant, then a huge drop to #3. I just think Griffin has taken over in the last month and surpassed Paul George for #3. CP3 was the top 3 for the beginning of the season, but his injury took him out of sight out of mind.
