Interesting fact : Harden dropped 46, 45, 34 and 33 against Portland this year to Lillard's 31, 23, 23, and 21. Houston and Portland each won twice out of four match-ups. Seems like one guy had to do more work individually just to even out the series.
Let's not bring up that series. Harden was bad. Shot 38% (I know the caveats of using FG% to judge Harden - but not that series) and was single handedly our worst defender. Dame scorched us that series with more efficient scoring despite being an even worse turnstile on defense. And comparing Harden vs. Dame ignores the fact that Aldridge destroyed us and we still barely lost.
Sorry reading comprehension issues. I thought you meant 13-14 playoffs for some reason. Harden didn't get much help offensively this year, no doubt. His on/off reflects that.
Lillard is better than Harden. Truly makes team around him better. He's a better shooter, and WAY better on D which is to say he gives effort.
It's not hate, you're taking this the wrong way... Harden is one of my favorite players in the NBA. I love Harden, like I do my kids. It's more in the spirit of challenging your best players to be even better. Not that any of us here have any effect on these players, but I do hope there's people in the Rockets organization who are considering intangibles/leadership/personality/chemistry/etc in their team building calculus.. I mean they are which is why we have people like Jason Terry, right? They should even more. I think Morey should have a team of people trying to quantify intangibles and it's impact on wins (they probably already do, if not already figured it out.) Which is kind of the spirit of Plus/Minus as a stat, or the Shane Battier effect.
I wonder if Dame takes the team bus to the games. http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/i...ers_back_on_the_practice_court_3_weeks_b.html
eFG which measures shooting efficiency : Harden : 51.2% Lillard : 49.7% DRPM which measures defensive impact : Harden : -0.78 Lillard : : -3.08 Lillard's defensive numbers are literally at rock bottom among PGs by the way.
Lol, the only reason Portland isn't home right now as well is because they won the lotto and had Paul and Griffin break in the same game for the playoffs. No way otherwise. Lillard is good he's not Harden. /thread Oh wait, but we can measure his leadership, Lolol. It was amazing what Harden accomplished with a broken coach (JBB), and a ****ty roster. I guarantee that Portland would win more games without Lillard vs Houston w/o Harden. People tend to forget that harden has to play PG and SG, while Portland actually has a backcourt with McCollum and Lillard.
Both true. Harden is more efficient offensively (that 13-14 series aside) and vastly better defensively. Dame is an annoying gnat on defense but he can't affect anything. Harden sleeps here and there but he's not nearly as bad as YouTube would have you believe.
Lol, people forgetting that the Clippers lost Chris Paul and Blake Griffin it seems. You take the two best players off any team and they lose that series.
Funny thing, Harden is much better on defense "apparently" without even trying. Lillard goes all out on defense and is still a terrible defender...
Partially that's because the Warriors are still a really good team without him. The Clippers are a top-heavy team that lost their two best players. The Rockets probably also beat a Clippers team missing Paul and Griffin. A Clippers team with only Jordan and a hobbled Redick isn't very good.
Blazers are not beating the Warriors, with or without Curry. They dropped one on the road, it's very hard to sweep teams. Warriors don't need Curry for the Blazers either and they may rest him tonight it sounds like.
But then again, Portland was better defensive team than the Rockets when we supposedly have better defensive players. Which is better for team defense? A player who goes all out all the time or a player who can be a good defender but doesn't try very hard?
