The media agenda regarding James Harden's "defense"

hey look, he made an empirical claim of "80-90% of the narratives people try to push on this website are almost entirely emotionally driven." Well, okay--by your eye test, the "Evidence is on here." But the point of this entire exercise is evidence and numbers: what evidence is there that the percentage of posts is between 80 and 90 percent? did he analyze the posts? how? for how long? did he go back one day, one week, one year, or back to Tinman's 1999?

Furthermore, what does "almost" entirely emotionally driven mean? How does one quantify "almost"? If I didn't know any better, this is like people claiming that Harden "almost" plays defense. (see what I did there? :grin What's the breakdown of emotion versus logic? is it 51% emotion to 49% logic, or does "almost" signify 99% emotion and only 1% logic? And does Harden play great defense 51% of the time, or is it closer to 99% of the time?

Seems to me these guys are demanding numbers and yet making their own ambiguous and questionable assertions based on their own eye tests. I have no reason to believe that up to 90% percent of the arguments here are based on emotion. My eye test tells me it's much less. (Except in the Lin thread. In the Lin thread, definitely 90% of the threads are driven by emotion. Pure, unadulterated, Love-Hate.)

So spare me the cap letters and the boldface font and the faux outrage, Mista K . . . or is that Mistake? yes, this time I am picking on you. But in a playful, empirically demanding kind of way.

 

I just don't understand the agenda narrative. Agenda implies motive. What motive does the media in general have to put down Harden?

 

Curry is not nearly as lazy on defense as Harden.

It is ok to be a fan of Harden and recognize he is a terrible defender by choice......he has earned that rep.

DD

 

What motive do they have to put Kobe on the all-defensive team year after year or pursue any storyline?

It fits a recognizable pattern, it's human nature to hammer things into cognizable patterns.

And they, and you, will deploy all matter of cognitive biases to hammer things into this pattern (and then lash out and call everybody else a nut hugger when your applecart is upset).

 

Confirmation bias.

and clicks

 

There's a huge discrepancy in the effort level. That's the major difference. Seems like a lot of people still don't see that. If JH didn't show such a lack thereof then he wouldn't be criticized as much as he does right now.

 

I haven't read all the post in the thread so some of these points have probably been made, but I do think the media have it out for not just Harden, but the Rockets as a whole, and these are the three reasons I believe why.

1. The media hates Dwight Howard, and the fact he chose Houston over LA. So any chance they get to ridicule Dwight, the Rockets, or players on the Rockets they're going to jump on it.

2. Harden had the audacity to say he felt he should win the MVP over the league's current golden boy. Harden would have been better off claiming he was better than Jesus than that he deserved the MVP over Curry.

3. The media and many in the NBA front offices hate Morey. Analytics is a dirty word with many in the NBA, and they view Morey as the poster child for the analytics movement.

If the media doesn't have an agenda then why would they pick one play of bad defense to showcase when Harden had over 40 points and 14 assist in the Toronto game? Also they don't apply the context that Harden was playing with four fouls and couldn't afford to pick up a fifth. If Harden did slide over to stop the drive Patterson would have been wide open in the corner for a three as well. Maybe I'm paranoid, or a homer, or whatever, but I definitely think the media has it out for James, Dwight, and the Rockets.

 

How do you know this, do you monitor Steph Curry's defensive effort level on a consistent basis?

Does anybody? Or do you just assume since he doesn't show up on twitter it must be pretty great.

 

You guys need to stop fixating on your man crush, it is ok to be critical of a player you love.

This is a Rockets board - stop worrying about one single player.

DD

 

I think people are just defending a Rpcket who they feel is being mistreated.

I don't see much difference than the way you treat D-Mo when someone speaks negatively about him.

 

Rocket'

 

I'd say i monitor both pretty consistently especially JH since hes arrived here in houston. And as far as effort level it isn't there for JH. When its more times than not thats when you have this problem

 

Oh ok - well I"m glad we have a bona fide expert - how would you rate Steph's high and low defensive effort games this season - which stand out from your viewing and monitoring?

 

The real question is how does a team with 3 supposed ace defenders (Dwight, Ariza, Bev) be one of the worst defensive team in the NBA?

Is it really Harden's fault?

or is it because Dwight Ariza and Beverely aren't actually good at defense?

 

when you're consistently known to give up back door layups on your own man on a nightly basis and do the patented wrap around reach defense consistently every game, thats not effort. If you stand there and constantly ball watch and get beat easily as result, thats not effort. If you don't know the difference in what real effort is defensively on JH's behalf then I don't know what else to tell you. There are plenty in the league who aren't good defensively but at the very least they put out the effort.

 

If ESPN/Bleacher really wanted to point out our team issues by focusing on fail vines, they should instead show clips of Dwight's stupid fouls, turnovers, and point blank misses. Add to that, Ariza and Brewer bricked threes and TJones trying to rebound.

 

that would make sense if any of those was the rockets biggest problem lol

 

Not sure if you read the post - I'm asking you about your monitoring of Curry's defensive effort and you're changing the subject.

This leads me to believe that you are not reading, or you're maybe not monitoring Curry's defensive effort very closely.

 

If Harden gave consistent effort on defense then there would be no agenda.

Don't want to be laughed at? Then stop acting like a joke.