George is a much better player. Legit two way superstar. Harden is very good too and I'm happy to have him.
Currently at LA: George is 27/5/5/2 with only 3 To and playing elite defense as always. There you have it. Not a knock on Harden, I want him to do really well but PG is a better player and they are not comparable until Harden learns to play some D
Just reading through the thread... All I have to say is no matter who you think is better, if you're using the phrases "it's not close", "clearly much better", "not debatable", etc., then I know your knowledge of basketball is so much less than you think it is.
What excuse you have now, he doesn't score enough points in the 4th quarter to be better than Harden?
It's definitely close. Harden can better create his own shots and is a better ball handler. George is better at defense by a mile. Both are in great systems that accentuate their strengths.
I love George, I think he deservers every penny he gets. But I still prefer Harden on my team. George is the better two way player. But he is not the guy you can rely on to create offense when it is needed. He is great when he has someone that puts him in the right spot. Harden is special - when we need a score he can take over, score 20 points in a quarter with the ball in his hands. And he´ll assist on all the other points scored. He is a playmaker. George does everything great, some things even on an elite level. He would be the perfect 2nd star on any team - to say it like this, he is the perfect Pippen. Harden is very bad in some areas of the game, but he is elite in the one area that`s the hardest to find: he can take over games. There aren`t many guys that can do what Harden can do. He can be the Jordan of a team (no, he is no where near Jordans level, but he can play his role) and that part is more important than the Pippen part. Or to put it another way: George can do all the heavy lifting, but he can`t carry a team on his back like Harden can.
How is that a excuse, it is what it is. 2 points in the fourth quarter...of a very close game. Again, look at what I said about PG vs Harden. That I wonder if PG is the guy that can score points when you need him too. They needed him to. I said he scores more within the offense of the team, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact for the regular season that is just fine for like most of the games...but against elite teams he's going to have to do much better than just scoring 2 points in the 4th quarter. Harden on his worst of days is scoring more than that when his team needs points. He would have had 5 points off FTs alone.
If Harden had this same performance, there would be dozens of threads stating he is not a star, he is not a closer, he can't lead...etc.
8:25 Paul George makes 9-foot two point shot 91-81 7:52 Paul George misses 19-foot jumper 91-84 6:52 Paul George misses 15-foot jumper 93-89 4:01 Paul George misses 27-foot three point jumper 97-96 2:15 Paul George misses 25-foot three point jumper 100-98 1:15 Paul George offensive rebound 100-98 0:11 Paul George misses jumper 102-100
Yep I feel the same way. Some people are adamant though that Harden is just so far beneath George and don't consider that disrespect. Pretty much how I feel about it. When Harden is on he's on and there is no team that can stop him. We've even seen him do this against teams like the Spurs (many times and in the playoffs...) and the Heat. When he's in his groove there is nothing stopping him and there are not many players who can do that in this league.
