If George is a superstar than so are a long list of other guys. I think I'm with the group that think it's just Lebron and KD. There's a decent sized group of perennial all star types that Harden belongs to, although I will say I think Harden is actually one of the few in that group that could potentially make the jump up to superstar if he gets his defense together. I really do believe he is the 3rd best player on offense right now. I could see some arguments for a couple other guys, but at the very worst he's top 5-6. Bring something on defense and he's there.
Harden was fifth in PPG, fifth in TS%, fifth in WS, sixth in WS/48, ninth in ORtg and fifth in MVP voting. If that's not a superstar, I don't know what a superstar is. And I don't buy that his lack of defense eliminates him from the superstar discussion, because numerous superstars in the history of the NBA were sieves on the defensive end.
I miss the option: Defense Liability who was saying offense wins games and defense wins championship?
So LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan are your superstars. So Nowitzski, Durant, Rose, Pierce, Anthony, Love, Curry etc. have never been superstars. So neither LeBron nor Jordan were a superstar until winning a title. So Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan are in fact not superstars. Spoiler [youtube]Wvx5JMZzUUA[/youtube] Spoiler [youtube]N4oXChU2AHM[/youtube] This is a total cliche. "Student of the game" is a self-granted title (or media granted). So how do you determine that winning a championship was not about the money? Of course everyone wants to win and be famous. This probably knocks out Kobe again. Your "superstar" attributes were obviously all created to exclude Harden and thus don't have any objective value. Your arbitrary cut off of "1 superstar/10 years" is absurd and would only apply to non-NBA fans. The poll options are also silly--> either Harden is 1 of 20 top-NBA players picked yearly or he is the best player of the last 10 years? JCDenton needs to create a chart of this.
LOL half the people here calling Harden a super star?? The same people who shat on Dirk for years despite the MVP....had to shut up after he beasted his way to a title. Harden has to at least perform in a couple post-season series before I call him a superstar.
Curry is def not a superstar, neither is irving, griffin took a big step there last year but not quite there. Love is in the same boat as Griffin, on the cusp perhaps. As for D-Rose...can't play defense?? Thibs disagrees!! But hey if you can win an MVP award while playing no defense, then i'll grant you the superstar label! http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...u-who-is-responsible-for-the-teams-turnaround
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only scraps into superstar tier imo because of how good he is offensively... but kinda alarming to see him struggle so much in the playoffs.
There's currently only two superstars in the league IMO, lebron and Durant. Those two can make a substantially bigger impact on the success of a team than any other players in the league. Cp3 and Dwight Howard was on that short list a few years ago, unfortunately injuries age and whatever else has reduced their impact offensively and defensively to fall to the next group... The franchise stars. This is a list below lebron/Durant, with ten or so players, starting with curry, cp3, howard duncan, griffin, love, pgeorge, Westbrook, harden, melo, Aldridge. etc. Knocking on the door are the injured or still learning like adavis and drose.
The shooting guard position is one of the weakest in the league these days. That's not really saying much. There aren't that many superstars in the league and he isn't one of them.
Without question Honestly, the poor guy gets a bum wrap because he has a bad tendency to go to sleep on the defensive end. You're not quite right - he was 6th in win shares his last year with OKC, then 4th his first year with us, 5th last season.
Regular season superstar. Playoff All Star. Beard man needs to step it up. Just play a little D and he will be completely there. Now Dwight is a superstar in both seasons.
The fact that people are dropping absolutes either way on this is interesting. If you had a really good, I mean REALLY good steak dinner would you call it amazing or fantastic? See what I mean? Superstar is too subjective. Now I want steak.
