You know the problem is that the stats do not take into account whom Harden is assigned to guard on a nightly basis, usually Chandler takes the tougher assignment. You would really have to drill down to the EXACT man Harden is tasked with guarding to get his true impact, or lack thereof on defense. DD
Synergy sports sadly ranks him 301st overall but even synergy sports is iffy since it ranks Bargnani favorably on d. I can't think of a defensive metric that is foolproof.
Synergy is probably the best in terms of figuring out defensive ability. Harden is raked 301st in the NBA. Opponents shoot 40% from the field & 36% from 3 against him. Harden is particularly poor defending off screens 46% FG 39% 3FG. Spot ups as well 41% FG 39% 3FG. PNR Ball handler 41% FG 24% 3FG. So yes Harden is a very poor defender, his defense is awful.
There really is none unfortunately. Well...maybe there are some that the FO of the Spurs, Rockets, thunder have hidden away for now but most are really unreliable. Harden's defense is not great or good...it's about average. I think people at this point pick on him too much when other guys on our team are getting abused it seems to be knocked to the wayside. Team defense as a whole sucks but Harden takes the entire blame for it it seems.
I admit this thread is unnecessary, but why do people call him LOF? Just because they see he is 2012er? Or that he has an asian screen name? Cut the crap guys.
You can't fool anyone into thinking Harden is an acceptable defender by way of citing opposing SG stats. No comprehensive measure for defense to begin with, but most significantly, anybody with some understanding of basketball can tell you that Harden is the Achilles heel of the team's defense.
Those are 2 very telling signs... Along with the fact that it's an entire thread with nothing in mind but to bash Harden... 3 blatant characteristics of a Lin Only Fan
Harden has a DRAPM of -2. That puts him at a rank of 388 out of 450 players in the NBA. Unfortunately Harden needs to improve significantly in defense.
The thing is screens is a team defense thing. So is PNR. These stats are too cold for it to be foolproof and don't take into considerations all the times a player fails to rotate or switch with Harden if he's caught on a good pick. It's just really hard to put stats into defense, because most of the better defenders...play on teams that play defense as a whole great. If you put a guy like Tony Allen on this team it won't matter that much because when he does get beat will someone help? If he goes for the steal will someone back him up? Well, according to most commentators Harden's defense is at least average. According to some it's good. Magic Johnson has said many times that he's a good defender, I'm not saying his word is all...but he has some understanding of basketball right? I think it's unfair to put the blame of TEAM defense on Harden. When LMA was getting open jumper after jumper whose fault was that? The bigs were being 'lazy' and not coming out to guard him that's whose at fault there. Denvers Bigs were dunking all over the place. Iguodala went wild out there...and neither of that had much to do with Harden because he wasn't guarding Iggy for most of the night...but afterwards the only thing some people will blame is Harden's defense. I remember Harden had missed a 3 point shot short...it was a long rebound right to Faried and people go crazy because he didn't get back...except he was the only guy that even ran back. Yeah Faried beat him down the court but he did make a effort to get back down there. Faried is a fast as a mutha and already had a head of steam going to the rim.
2012er is a telling sign of a LOF. So your join date is also a telling sign that you are a LOF. LOFs by definition are the ones who followed Lin to this team and joined this website. Lin became a Rocket in June 2012. OP joined this forum in Feb2012. How could he have followed Lin to here? Do you even think before you start typing? Or you are just being dumb?
In Feb? And I love how that coward gave me rep in order to talk back to me anonymously instead of saying it publicly in the forum. I need the reps. Keep it coming. LOL.
Is it really so far fetched a "lof" registered after Linsanity began considering the Rockets had cut him just a couple of months earlier?
