What is the main reason for this teams struggle this year?

They destroyed the wolves because of that meeting. We need more meetings. GODDAMMIT!!!

 

Yes of course. They both use RAPM data.

By RPM he's fallen quite a bit too

 

This might be the most detailed and accurate data of Harden's D I can find.

According to http://stats.nba.com/playtype/#!/is...n*E*&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular Season

isolation - 0.77ppp - 67.6th percentile
p&r ball handler - 0.72ppp - 78.5th percentile
post up - 1.02ppp - 19.4th percentile
spot up - 1.12ppp - 16.7th percentile
hand off - 0.85ppp - 54.3th percentile
off screen - 1.13ppp - 21.9th percentile

So basically, Harden is above average (average being 50th percentile) in isolation, pick & roll, hand off defense and below average in post up, spot up, off screen defense.


Combined with DRPM, DBPM, DWS and other related defensive stats, Harden seems to be just mediocre bad defender, but def not the worst, which is certainly my impression from watching his games.

 

No, math doesn't work like that especially statistics. How many of those 97 shooting guards have worthwhile sample size? I would say 43rd would be pretty near the damn bottom for shooting guards that receive relevant playing time.

 

lol Jokic > Westbrook? Ginobilli > CP3?

No thanks, but seems quite unreliable at first sight

 

Playing time is not a relevant factor. RPM is not a total or aggregate stat. It is averaged out.

 

I don't see how you have that impression with his constant 'pseudo zone d'.

The only time Harden ever tries on defense is when the opponent is isoing him.

For people who actually played ball, they would know that iso d is considerably less taxing than chasing around a Kyle Korver type guard who always runs around screens.

God forbid Harden actually attempting to chase ball handlers and fight through screeners.

 

Regression by Dwight, poor 3 point shooting, and getting nothing from the PF spot for most of the season IMO are the biggest factors when it comes to the season not going as we all hoped it would.

 

It has nothing to do with summations or aggregates.

A mean is still heavily dependent on sample size. The less of a sample size, the greater effect an outlier performance has on the mean.

Two scenarios:

Scenario 1:
2, 2, 2, 30, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Scenario 2:
2, 2, 30.

In which scenario is the number '30' going to have a greater effect on the mean?

 

Defensive fundamentals / effort.

 

Well, that is my impression and the numbers seem to back up my opinion.

 

Why do you assume small sample size will affect Harden's ranking negatively? What if all the small sample size players have positively skewed numbers? Ever though of that? Your argument doen't make sense.

 

I have a hard time giving you any credibility to your analysis of empirical data when you don't understand the concept of sample size.

 

Youre the one who brought up stats. Any catch all stat will have weird things like that.

This stat has been the best predictor for W-L in apbr two years in a row, BTW.

So back to the eye test then, where Harden looks like he's in a coma half the time? Where he is walking and pointing at teammates half the time, is gassed in the first quarter, and is a vine superstar.

 

That is ironic coming from a person that automatically entertains erroneous assumptions to make false arguments.

 

RPM and BPM rankings align more with common sense than the data you suggest, so the burden is on you to probe why this unorthodox data is the more reliable one.

And if you think Harden is in coma half the time, you might be the one who needs your brain checked.

 

Because simply stating that he is in the 'middle of the pack' based of him being 43rd out of 92 shooting guards when a solid 3rd of the 92 shooting guards do not have a sufficient amount of data to make a conclusion one way or the other is rather premature.

We can inject some common sense into this and assume that those players that have little to no playing time would probably put forth more effort on defense(chasing down opponents, fighting through screens) because they are fighting for their NBA lives. Remember, Harden doesn't suck on D because he is incapable, he sucks at D because he doesn't put effort. So all those shooting guards in the NBA that receive spot minutes here and there, you bet your ass they are putting forth more effort on D.

 

Why do you keep making false arguments when you can see for yourself that the data is not skewed in either way?

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/DRPM/position/2

There are players with positive RPM with small minutes and there are players with negative RPM with small minutes. Let it go man. You lost.

 

Great post. Seems like Harden's a bad defender not the worst defender of all time like Mr. Clutch and his cronies continuously insist he is.

 

Those are completely unprovable statements. It is not common sense at all, and in fact, you can make the exact opposite case that the reason some players who receive little playing time are because of their lack of defensive talent.