don't know about you fellas but I feel personally violated by Harden's low ranking. So much so I'm immediately leaving for my local ER so they can put me on suicide watch. See you all later
The main point is that saying Harden is the 8th best player in the league is, by any measure, silly and indicative of how the media views Harden.
Considering the parts of the list I looked, he's probably in the top 15 of most appropriately rated players on ESPN's list. He shouldn't be above Harden, but I think that says more about perception of Harden than Davis. Think SI has him right. Caveat: I really have not liked Pelicans team around him. It is almost like they are intentionally finding guys that don't fit with him. He's not the Top 3 player the media made him out to be in the past, but media seems to have accepted they were wrong.
He has to generate about 50% of the points for a historically great offense AND play average defense on a nightly basis to be in the top-5 like Westbrook. Spoiler särˌkazəm
Their list this year is clearly much worse than it has been in previous years. Clearly they did not go through the lengths they did in previous years to ensure a good ranking system and large sample size among voters.
I can agree with the top 4 and by the way I have had those top 4 ahead of Harden for a few years now beyond that the list is shady In no way shape or form is CP3 better than James Harden I think the rankings are predominantly influenced by the game 5 choke and the game 6 quit Regular season - harden is no doubt a top 5 player Playoffs - Harden is NOT a top 5 player Overall, he is somewhere between 5 or 6 depending on if you prefer machoman Westbrick
Unbelievable. Pure insanity. I can't even formulate a cogent response. But I'll start by listing the NBA Win Shares leaders for the past three seasons combined: 1. Steph Curry 2. James Harden 3. Chris Paul 4. Russell Westbrook 5. Lebron James 7. Kawhi Leonard 9. Anthony Davis 10. Kevin Durant
Yeah, definitely agree he's top 5 for sure, maybe even top 3 was exactly what I was thinking. I don't know Wtf ESPN is watching, they just suck. The dude lead his team in a tough as hell conference, won more games at 55 and was the only star. Wtf is this 8th bs about??
It's because most of ESPN's analysts only watch Warriors games(they admit this) and AD plays well against them.
Saying ESPN just sucks is an opinion many of us have shared for a long time. I remember when major media opinions counted for something. If you made the cover of SI, it was a big deal. Back in the early '80's, Ralph Sampson was on its cover several times, both as a collegiate player and after being drafted by the Rockets, and it was both deserved and considered very significant. ESPN? Does anyone really care? Should they? Personally, that ESPN has as much attention paid to it as it gets is more a reflection of the state of traditional media sources today, than the amount of worth the media outlet deserves, in my opinion.
Does anyone have an issue with the real plus/minus stat. I mean I'm sure a stat nerd like Morey must HATE such an opinion based stat like that. Example Stephen Curry s defense is seen as above average by the real/plus stat. But is it Curry s defense or the fact that curry is usually on the court with 4 strong defensive players. Real plus/minus only takes in stats while on the court. But the problem I have with the stat and that I have always had with the stat is that real plus minus doesn't use raw stats like blocks and steals to boost the players rating. Those attributes would boost harden plus/minus on the defensive side of the ball Also the espn list really ignored player efficiency rating. Which curry was below average at. Harden unequivocally was better than curry, cp3 and Anthony Davis last year. But espn has been on this mission to try and downplay hardens accomplishments. I don't know what harden has done to make him so hated. They ranked harden as the 13th best player in the league in a march 2016 list player ranking in 2016. And one of the reasons listed was because he couldn't get Dwight involved on the low post. ESPN also lied when they said harden didn't break tiny Archibalds record. They trolled him by saying he came 1 point shy of breaking the record (knowing harden takes his legacy and accomplishments serious). The media flat out hates the man. If fox sports 1 would take the nba more serious I would never watch espn again.
