James Harden is gonna get screwed over again in MVP Voting

i think the Thunder will get the 7th seed

 

Thats your preference not mine. I without a doubt prefer nene's play over Kanter

 

Fair enough. But Kanter, Oladipo, and Adams are very decent NBA players. I think the talent gap team-wide isn't as far of a stretch as people tend to think. I truly think Harden makes his entire team look far better than they actually are, and the D'Antoni offense just expounds on that further.

Just look back to Tjones, who many NBA "experts" felt was in line for a gigantic contract. Nearly all of his offensive success can be rested at the feet of James Harden. Granted, he had a terrible season last year (freak injuries definitely did not help) and is now clinging onto his career by his fingertips. But many thought this kid was going to be a good player, and Harden putting him in absolutely great positions to excel widely helped that narrative.

Omer Asik? Do you remember how many wide open dunks and layups this guy got? God forbid if the dude had hands half as good as Tjones, or could jump more than 8 inches off the floor to catch lobs, I wouldn't be suprised if he averaged closer to 15 ppg with us. Anyway, he gets traded to the Pelicans for a first round draft pick, and then the following season the pelicans give him a gigantic contract. And now? The dude barely even plays.

Chandler Parsons? Feasted on wide open looks from 3 and drive opportunities while playing with Harden. Harden commanding the collective full force of a defense to even attempt to contain him really made this glorified role-player's time in Houston pretty damn easy on the offensive side of the ball. We all know what happened with Chandler. Bolted for a max deal in an extremely douchey way. Did not produce nearly at the same level and now is completely riddled with injuries. Hell, even Mavericks fans hate this guy now.

The additions of Anderson and Gordon were great moves for this team and offense and fit our philosophy nearly perfectly. But, plain and simple, these guys are not having to fight for their looks. They are both shooting career highs in 3-point attempts, and a lot of these are wide open shots. They are both shooting the 3 at a good percentage. Gordon at around his career avg (largely due to his performance in January, should be much higher) and Anderson barely off of a career high %(a difference of .005%). Gordon is posting a career high eFG% of .547. Anderson, just under his career high eFG% of .558, he currently sits at .550.

I find this narrative of Harden having so much more to work with slightly annoying. I may not completely disagree, but I really don't think the gap is that gigantic, as I previously stated. Harden is just that damn good, even with his flaws. He possesses that rare ability to make his teammates better, and he shouldn't be punished because of it.

If you want to have a laugh, go back and check power rankings in the beginning of the season. Preferably, power rankings that were made before the preseason started.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17873365/nba-power-rankings-preseason-edition

And that's just one example. I found quite a few with the Rockets as low as 17, with the Thunder as high as 7. No one expected this team to be as good as it is. Yet, now that Harden has made the transition to PG and has his teammates shining, people are trying to take credit away from the guy. "Oh, Houston has so much more talent!" We have 33% of our team virtually glued to the bench and roll with an 8 man rotation. Quite a few of our guys play heavy, heavy minutes. And one of those 8 most nights is Corey ****ing Brewer.

It's quite frankly, bullshit.

 

1) Neither roster is significantly better than the other.

2) Harden wasn't underwhelming last season, the team was. His stat-line of PPG / RPG / APG hasn't been duplicated more than 5x in league history, IIRC. He didn't shoot poorly either.

 

Harden was underwhelming last year. There was a huge drop-off between 2015 Harden and 2016 Harden. And in regards to his raw numbers, I'm not impressed by gaudy stats when they're empty and don't contribute to winning.

And objectively speaking, the Rockets' roster is significantly better than OKCs. Our team is actually built to capitalize on Harden's strengths. OKC's roster was built for the Durant/Westbrook duo and then Durant left. That forced OKC to cobble together rotations that don't really work. Look at their perimeter shooting compared to ours. Anderson (40%), Ariza (35.5%), Beverley (39%), and Gordon (38.7%) are all solid shooters. Who does OKC have after Oladipo? Roberson shoots 24% Sabonis shoots 33%. Their best shooter, Jerami Grant, averages 1.5 attempts per game.

 

After further research, Rockets do have a significant talent advantage.

Morrow is having a very down year, and you haven't mentioned Dekker yet.

 

There wasn't much of a drop-off, but Rockets do have a much better roster than OKC this season.

 

I've said numerous times that Harden doesn't deserve MVP if he keeps playing like he did in January. Hopefully, he seemed to have picked up his game this month, so let's see how he does in the second half of the season. That being said, if Harden does not win MVP, it sure as hell shouldn't go to Westbrook. People claiming our roster is significantly better than OKC is a joke; our role players are better offensively, but their role players have clear edge on defense. So at best it's a wash, and tbh if I can trade for Adams + Oladipo with Capela + Gordon, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Surrounding your offensive superstar with stout defensive players is a formula that has proven to work given the right circumstances. That's how 00-01 76ers made it to the NBA Finals, with only one legitimate scorer in Iverson. It's a much better fit than having bunch of offensively decent but defensively lacking players to support yet another offensively great but defensively lacking superstar. It's just not a good combination, and if you look at this team we don't really have a rim protector (such as Adams) nor a real defensive specialist who can guard the opposing team's best wing/back court players every night (such as Roberson; Ariza is just not good anymore and Beverley is physically limited to guard SFs and SGs).

 

I'm not sure if measuring the total ppg + assists is a great way of determining who's had the better offensive season, but Harden's total of 29.1 points + 22.6 points(AST) = 51.7 is infinitesimally higher than Westbrooks 31.2 + 20.4(AST) of 51.6. Harden does this much more efficiently in terms of scoring, but also with higher turnovers, minutes and a slightly higher pace.

In terms of rebounding, Westbrook gets offensive rebounds at a 50% higher rate per game than Harden, 1.8 vs 1.2. His defensive rebound number over Harden is much less dramatic at 8.7 vs 7.0 a increase of over 20% however. The difference in their rebound % is slightly higher still for Westbrook than the per game numbers, due to Harden averaging more minutes per game.

My argument of why Westbrook has had clearly the best offensive season thus far in the NBA is based on Westbrook leading often times by substantial margins in several major cumulative analytical stats or is near the top of the leaderboard in those categories he doesn't.

In terms of comparing Harden vs Westbrook statistically, Westbrook has a significant advantage over Harden in VORP ( 7.7 vs 6.3 ) BPM (14 vs 10) PER (29.3 vs 27.4) and RPM (6.5 vs 5.6).

The only cumulative analytic, Harden has over Westbrook is WS with a big lead of 10.9 vs 7.9. Given that the Rockets has won 9 more games than the Thunder and that Thunders, this shouldn't be surprising as an individual players WS is affected by his teams totals wins.

 

/ proceeds to write multiple posts arguing for Russell Westbrook (.564) over James Harden (.702) as MVP

 

Can you provide a quote where I said that Westbrook deserves the MVP over Harden?

 

There's a metric for points created off of FTs that would've been assists. That would probably be the deciding factor


Also, go take a look at how many of Westbrooks rebounds are uncontested compared to everyone else averaging over 10

 

food for thought. I appreciate the in depth response. Given the numbers that you and @HakeemOnlyFan provided me with I don't think either one of them is CLEARLY having a better offensive season. I'm of the mindset that it's very close and debatable. I'm a rockets homer and tend to be more convinced by the stats @HakeemOnlyFan provided so I'll go with the beard.

I feel like you can make a pretty convincing argument both ways though. If I was an MVP voter I'd give it to the dude who has more wins

 

Westbrook has significantly worse eFG% and TS% than Harden. His Ast/Tov ratio is also worse than Harden's. So in terms of scoring and play-making (arguably the two most important functions they perform in their respective teams), Harden has been better than Westbrook.

PER, VORP, BPM are metrics that are highly influenced by rebounding numbers. Given how many 'empty' rebounds - such as defensive rebounds after a missed free throw - Westbrook snatches every night, this is not a reliable measure to make the case that Westbrook is having a better offensive season. Scoring and passing constitutes offense in basketball, and as I've already pointed out in the first paragraph, Harden has simply been better scorer and passer this regular season. Not to mention that Harden has higher ORPM and OWS than Westbrook. You can say that Westbrook has been better than Harden defensively (although, Russ is clearly not a good defender himself), but not on offense.

Also, dismissing Harden's higher WS and WS/48 on the basis of his team having higher win totals is ridiculous, when Harden is the very engine that makes this team go. Rockets are winning because of Harden, not the other way around.

 

Nothing wrong with that lol.

I also think Harden has the edge over Westbrook in the MVP race due to the simple fact that the Rockets have won significantly more games than the Thunders.

Since the definition/criteria for MVP isn't clearly defined, my own criteria of it, is a balance of individual performance and team success. IE... if player A has a significant edge in one but barely trails in the other, I'm still picking player A. In this case, Harden may trail Westbrook somewhat in terms of individual performance, but his overwhelming team success IMO negates the difference. In 2015 when Curry and Harden were virtually tied (analytically) in terms of individual performance, the Warriors overwhelming team success vs the Rockets was the deciding factor for me.

 

When we win 60 games and overtake the Spurs this won't be a conversation.

 

i'd rather Kanter, he is an offensive dynamo

 

Especially in the boxing ring... eerrr I mean chair

 

Nene is being paid $3m and Kanter is being paid $17m

Kanter is also going to be in the running, and might well win 6moy

Yeah, a bit of difference in the positions on the depth charts and minutes there.

So basically there's someone arguing that a $3m doesn't play b2b bench player is better than a $17m 6moy candidate

And another who compares their 4th, 6th and 9th best player to our 3rd, 4th and 5th to suggest a talent gap

There seems to be a sort of consistency going on here...

 

If you're going to compare Oladipo to Gordon, then by default, you have to compare Payne to Beverley. Other than that, I compared OKC's starting SF with ours (Roberson/Ariza) and OKC's starting PF with ours (Sabonis/Anderson). The fact that you think I somehow manipulated the comparisons in order to exaggerate the talent gap only emphasizes how big the gap is...

Also, has a 6moy winner ever averaged ~20 mpg?