There's definitely truth to that. Harden is in kind of a honeymoon period right now (he also happens to be playing very efficiently and willingly sharing the ball with his teammates, so the praise has been earned). A bad showing in the playoffs will quickly reverse things.
Paul's 2019 is ignored too often he wasn't good and had a max deal -- then in OKC he hits the PEDs gets ripped and everyone suddenly has buyers (trade) remorse.
Harden has KD and Kyrie to pick up the slack if he’s struggling in the playoffs if u have a bad game, but still win, it gets glossed over...see Steph and his numerous terrible playoff games that don’t even get mentioned Steph has had many games that would’ve gotten classified as a “Harden choke”...he even blew a 3-1 lead in the finals having more turnovers than assists in the final 3 games and scoring 17 points at home in game 7 on 6-19 shooting
We aren’t even talking about the same thing anymore. Now you’re talking about context within which the games happen being a good reason why his previous outstanding performances were ignored. The point is they were ignored. Steph and Lebron’s typically aren’t and his probably won’t be anymore either now that he is in BKN. As I stated already, I only used the GSW game as a reference to a game that he had a lower game score than the game last night, but in my opinion a superior performance because you were using the game score from last night as the standard and the cutoff point to show how many games he had a game score higher than that one. Using that game score as the cutoff makes no sense and discredits so many other amazing games he’s had.
he had to carry a whole team against a multiple star GSW team not even Lebron could have won a chip with the Rockets
LeBron is just a better player than harden and takes it to a different level in the playoffs. I think think with a healthy cp3 he takes out gsw.
LOL you mean Lebron just needs to win 1 game by himself right? that same year he got 4 tries and got swept?
I think you were complaining about the reaction to his game last night even though it was an average game for him. It's not average and isn't close to average. The box score stats (as summarized by game score) indicate it's not close to average. And the manner in which the team won -- coming back from 24 points down, with Harden hitting the go ahead shot in the final minute -- also makes it not simply a typical average game. I don't see the relevance of you picking out a game in which Harden had a lower game score but it was still a superior performance compared to the PHX game. Yes, we don't solely judge a performance based on box score output. It doesn't change the fact that Harden's performance against Phoenix was probably his best of the season (outside of maybe game 1) and among the best games in his career given the circumstances around the game and the dramatic come from behind victory.
Harden MVP voting finishes the last 4 seasons as Rocket: 2, 1, 2, and 3. Where do people think he'll end up this year?
If Chris Paul had 4 months off to eat HGH tacos and prepare for the 2019 playoffs in a bunch of Disney warehouses he wouldn'ta been traded either!
Zac Lowe was basically saying he's disqualified from teh way the year started, I see a bunch of people feeling the same way. It's not as if Harden is historically the recipient of goodwill among MVP voters. In fact Goodwill usually trashes him.
I honestly don’t even see Durant on the Nets just because of the narrative to much help is a disqualification. The media has already given it to Lebron
Harden is . Harden is the most important piece without a doubt but there is always a narrative used by the media
You’re basing your whole argument off of a game score statistic while continuously ignoring the fact that I’ve already explained to you why I don’t believe that one statistic to be the “be all end all” when determining Harden’s greatest games. It’s actually ridiculous to base anything off of one metric. Part of the calculation of that stat is personal fouls minus turnovers. Instead you chose to insist on discounting any game under a 36.2 game score to “prove” your point. Go ahead and die on that hill I guess. Harden averaged 29, 11 and 8 a few seasons ago. 36 and 34 points the previous two. The 40 points over 40 games. The 89 games where he has scored 30 and dished out 10 which is more than Lebron and 2nd only to Oscar Robertson. When I said 38 and 11 was an average game for him, I meant that he has games similar to this frequently so we’ve come to expect these outbursts from him whereas for most other players, this would be a career night. You’re getting caught up in semantics and clinging to a word and ignoring my explanations when I’ve clarified what I meant. Game scores aside, go look at the box scores for points and assists the previous 3 years and there are a plethora of games almost as good, on par or better. Too many to count.
I honestly don’t get this. I acknowledged that there is more than just the box score to assess how good a game a player had. But game score IS a good measure of how good a game a player had by the box score numbers. Certainly it tells you more than just looking at points and assists and trying to draw a conclusion from that (which is what you’re suggesting I do). When I cited how many games Harden had with at least the same game score as he had yesterday, the point wasn’t that it is an exact measure of where that game would rank among all his games as a Rockets in the last 3 or 4 seasons. It need not be exact when referring to a large sample of games. Even as a somewhat inexact measure, it is still clearly a well above average statistical performance (leaving aside the other aspects of the game like him hitting the go ahead shot and there was a crazy second half comeback).
Ok. I suppose I understand the point you are trying to make, I just have a difference of opinion. We can agree to disagree, but the fact remains that Harden has had 89 games of 30 points and 10 assists which is 2nd most in the history of the NBA. Only one player in history has more. Just one and it was from a completely different era. Take care. Going to back to the GARM to complain about the Rockets losing too much lol
I think he’ll finish top 5-7 in MVP voting. But KD is going to have his MVP run too. Lebron and Embiid look like the frontrunners this year.
