It's debatable. But it's also relative to your circumstances. Try to imagine Harden playing with AD vs. LeBron playing with Westbrook. Harden with AD would be ungodly.
I personally think AD is overrated. He is nothing by himself. Harden as great as is he is still can't make the athletic plays Lebron does. When Harden shot isn't falling his impact on game is way less. Lebron can always get baskets and change the game on defense. I'm not even trying to knock Harden. I'm one of his biggest fans but it's crazy if people think he's better than Lebron. If Harden was lebrons size he'd be the greatest player in history but he has limitations.
I think Bron is the goat, personally. I'm just giving it different perspectives. They were under much different circumstances last playoffs.
if rondo of all people doesnt hit all those 3s at the crazy rate lakers lose if ad doesnt hit all those midrangers at the insane rate lakers lose if lebron is better than harden then the intangibles are what makes the difference, as per the raw basketball ablities harden is better and its not even close
I also think Lebron is the GOAT which is why it's crazy for people to say Harden is better than him. Although I'd even admit it closer than most people think. Never seen two guys carry such inferior supporting casts like Lebron and Harden. People get mad at Lebron for forming super teams but he tried the solo act for a really long time before. Just like Harden did here. I'm not mad at either of them for wanting to win and changing their legacy.
I mean...that first series of actions he shows from BK was a staple from the Houston days. In fact, I'm sure that MDA just re-implemented it in BK.
Yea, the video wasnt particularly good tbh. The dude has like a ton of context missing. Not to say he's an idiot or anything but I just think he needed to more research here. His plays run in Brooklyn arent different.
Those plays are definitely things he did with the Rockets. It would have been more interesting to see how often he ran those sort of actions with the Rockets vs Nets.
well we know he has nash now who learned from kerr/gsw DJ, kyrie, kd, harris VS morey/mda, wb, ego, tucker, covington
From 2016-2017 to 2020, the pick and roll frequency went down and our isolations went up. I remember Lowe on a podcast once saying that "teams were just giving up defending Harden and Capela pick and roll" they just didnt want to deal with it anymore, most likely same with Cp3. So in 2017-2018 where you really saw our iso revolution you would see teams switch the pick and roll more often. The thing was, Harden and Cp3 were both elite iso players so that really just played into their hands too. In 2018-2019 you saw Cp3 hurt a lot, and this made it easier for teams to just trap /double the Harden and Capela pick and roll, Capela is also especially not really a good decision maker on the short roll so this made things harder(for both Harden and Cp3), nor was he skilled enough to make finishes through contact. At this point we decided to just remove a lot of Capela screens all together to remove the trap. Daryl was also on record saying that we dont use the pick and roll as much to avoid teams trapping Harden(im paraphrasing but that was the jist I believe.) I guess Cp3 came back and our offense never really changed, especially given what happend. Then the very next year Westbrook happend and I guess its very obvious what happend there so I wont delve into it. The spacing is better in Brooklyn with Joe Harris and Kyrie, they cant trap Harden(its why you see Joe Harris play with Harden a lot). I also dont think we've ever really had elite mobile shooters around Harden. Joe Harris helps with the spacing because he's a mobile shooter. In his time here, I dont think we've ever really had a shooter who could run pin downs either. There is also the fact that Brooklyn has such an elite offensive roster that even if Harden is more efficient in iso than the pick and roll(he's really good at both lol) they can afford to bleed raw efficiency by adding in more pick and rolls to get their whole team going because they are so talented. A lot of this, I dont really have a full picture off yet though. But TLDR; Teams will not trap Harden with Joe Harris or Kyrie on the floor.
this. harden continually adjusts and evolves based on the team/coaching's philosophy, talent/lack of talent around him, and how he is defended by the opponents
Wow, that's a pretty uneducated video of NBA Plays. That BKN fan was showing 21-Series (Pistol) MDA invented that And he is actually only showing the Delay action of 21-series. (And suggests Nash made it just for Harden.) Here ... and pick any MDA game, and I'll go find us running it.
just to be clear, "those sort of actions" is just one play from 21-series. There wasn't even another play out of the package. And honestly, I've seen a lot of Nets games, and 21-delay as an Alt-PnR stands out, because Nash isn't running much else except PnR/ISO for Harden, to keep it all simple. Interesting for me isn't so much how often Delay is run, but rather, what is run once a defense decides to take away the DHO or pass from the big, by denying ball. Obviously, for any single play, there are defensive adjustments. Another thing interesting is what does MDA run with different bigs. Not all bigs can do Delay. And what interested me most (as @HP3 pointed out in his last post) is having witnessed the evolution of MDA's playbook to the point of having Paul change his game to go ISO more than double he ever did. So not so much, "look how Harden is running more 21-delay than last year", but rather "what were the defenses doing last year, that clogged up one of Harden and MDAs favorite plays." -- well, uh, they could leave WB weakside and shade a defender to the nail, so Harden has no corner to turn. It's a game of adjustments. People love that. A very good story is how the opponent defenses drove MDA's evolution to ISO, to include asking Paul to change his game. Almost each one of these comments is a story in itself for the history of MDA's playbook ... it's sad to see a video claim 21-Delay is a key unlocking of Harden, invented by Nash. Especially when we saw the Lakers take 21-delay away from Harden/Green ... Dort, as well, worked hard to deny ball
cmon lebron had like 30 allstar 'teammmates' in his career harden had like 5 or 6...and he played his entire career in the east....while harden always played in the west... when people say lebron is bettter they just refuse to take into account any context... Harden was the better player in the last 5 years and it wasnt even close
