James Harden is quietly having his best playoff run as a Rocket

Because I disagree with the position that you JUST TOOK, saying Harden has unreasonable expectations.

 

He is having his BEST postseason right now, what else do you think he should be doing?

The Rockets have the BEST defense in the playoffs and much of that is because Harden is playing elite defense now.

Again, your expectations seem unrealistic.

 

Where do you want to start?

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm...+Harden&player_id2=hardeja01&idx=bbr__players

 

b-b-but people told me Harden is trash in the postseason, and his game doesn’t translate...lmao

 

Pick any stretch you want and we can look at their regular season vs playoff performance, and see which one consistently played the same or better and which one played worse.

 

Your expectation to play up to or better than his regular season performance is totally realistic.

Your expectation that we somehow should have won it all by now, with the help he has had, is unrealistic.

James Harden has had a star teammate and the squad capable of doing that for 1 season and 1 season only.

Claiming that this is Hardens “3rd star teammate is extremely disingenuous. Howard had 1 great year, but the rest of the squad wasn’t even remotely close to being ready. Dwigjt then promptly decided to torpedo our team with his Stupidity.

Paul had 1 great season. And he got injured at the most inopportune time.

Westbrook finished this season with 4.2 Winshares. I’d challenge you to find a player whose championship team features a supposed 2nd “star teammate” was only able to muster 4.2 winshares.(Kawhi had 5 teammates with more than 4.2 winshares last season)

CC is number 2 on the Rockets win share list this season. Yikes...

Harden is being asked to produce super team results with mostly average to below average help along the way.

Again. It’s not unrealistic to have expected better individual play. But to be so cut and dry with the “he has failed to deliver a title” stance just seems pretty stupid.

Because it would have necessitated him playing as a no doubt top 5-10 player EVER for him to have pulled that off with what he has had to work with.

 

Wouldn’t it be better to look at win shares per game than whole season?

 

This is easily disproved by going through his postseason game logs. We've won plenty of playoff games where Harden has played poorly.

 

It would but the point remains the same.

Look at prior championship teams.
Win shares or winshares per 48 and look at how strong the rosters after their number 1 are.
Compare it to Harden’s years in Houston.

 

Really? Because I just looked through his entire playoff game log in Houston and looked at his game scores and looked at whether we won the games where his game score was ****.

Not very many at all.

And the majority of the ones where we did when when he played like **** happened in 2018. The 1 year that I said when he played terribly we actually still had a shot because of the star help and the right squad.

On the flip side you can find just as many if not more games where he was stellar and we lost.

 

Sounds like Kawhi gets a lower standard because he isn't nearly as productive as James in the regular season. That's a strange take. Also, Tatum has had some dreadful quarters of shooting here and there. If we're looking at the numbers, James has outperformed them both over the course of the post season and you want to knock him because he's also far better in the regular season.

Kawhi won the LEastern conference and played well against a depleted Warriors team. I'm really not that impressed. James had better numbers against those same Warriors, but I doubt you gave him credit for it. You're looking at James' play in isolation when it's convenient, and then looking at team results when it's convenient.

 

Game 4 2013 against OKC: 4-12 from the field and 0-4 from 3pt.
Game 5 2014 against POR: 5-15 from the field and 1-7 from 3pt.
Game 1 2015 against DAL: 4-11 from the field and 1-5 from 3pt.
Game 2 2015 against DAL: 5-17 from the field and 1-4 from 3pt.
Game 6 2015 against LAC: 5-20 from the field and 2-6 from 3pt.
Game 7 2015 against LAC: 7-20 from the field and 2-7 from 3pt.
Game 4 2017 against OKC: 5-16 from the field and 0-7 from 3pt.
Game 5 2017 against OKC: 8-25 from the field and 2-13 from 3pt.
Game 3 2019 against UTA: 3-20 from the field and 2-13 from 3pt.
Game 5 2019 against UTA: 10-26 from the field and 3-12 from 3pt.

Some of these performances are elevated by his free throws, but we can all agree that none of these qualify as "super human".

 

Free throw s are part of the game last I checked

 

As long as you're checking, can you check how many free throws are needed to elevate a ~30% fg percentage into a "super human" performance?

 

He's a walking masterpiece.

 

Clearly based on our small back and forth I know you know better than to offer up field goals and 3 point field goals as evidence on whether Harden was good or not.

A lot of these games you listed we won the minutes Harden was on the floor. And lost the game.

 

Every game I listed was a win.

And we aren't talking about "good or not". You said that we generally couldn't win unless Harden was "super human".

 

I've been pleasantly surprised by Harden this series. He's adjusted to Dort, after struggling with him a bit in game 2. Dort is built like a tank, actually looks a lot like Harden's build. He's going to settle for his stepback 3s, but he's also getting to the basket and, somewhat surprisingly, is more concerned about putting the ball in the basket than the whistle. That's one major difference I've noticed. Before, I felt he was more concerned with the contact and trying to get to the line, now he's more focused on finishing the play and whatever happens with the zebras, it is what it is (except when they punch people in the crown jewels )

 

Please define "plenty".

 

Did someone say "superhuman" performance?