Thought I’d get the attention off the tanking Rockets for a bit. This was a HOT debate almost a year ago on twitter. I wasn’t around here to see what people on CF thought about this. At their absolute peak/prime, who was the better player? Factor in everything. Skill, physical tools, scoring, passing, slashing, handling, rebounding, defense, post ups, clutch ability, etc. And before people come in here saying this isn’t a debate, Daryl Morey himself sided with T-Mac on this: T-Mac was also considered *at the time* better than Kobe by many people. Who ya got?
Each of Harden's 4 peak seasons was as good or better than tmacs orlando zenith (in which they finished 42 - 40)
What constitutes a peak? 1 season? 1 quarter? I think Morey was exploiting the ambiguity of the language so he could say something nice about McGrady. In the real world, you take Harden at his peak for a season instead of McGrady at his peak.
Prime Harden's game was just superior to McGrady's. Defensively T-mac was better but Harden is a the most complete offensive player I've ever seen.
Tmac was overrated in terms of his effectiveness. Even with random moments of mental breakdown in the playoffs Harden was more effective at winning games.
This. I will say that TMac was more physically talented than James Harden. He was an uber athlete, something James Harden has never been. However, Harden's mental focus on his game to be hyper focuses on efficiency makes him so much better.
Nit even a question Harden is the way to go. Harden did t have as much God given ability and has worked on his game to where he was ridiculed and now people copy his moves. TMac is one of the biggest underachievers ever - he was so talented but did not care at all. No heart
