What Would You Grade James Harden's 2018 Postseason?

A- (Gave him B+ initially but I am going to change it to A- because he also played defense this postseason.)

Competed.

Gave his all.

Battled through 7 games agianst an All star team.

Could have been better but still very good.

Before you grade him, ask yourself this....

Switch Harden with either Durant, Curry, and Klay, and ask yourself if they would have done any better.

James harden is not the reason we are not going to the Finals this year, so you can shove that idea down your whatever if it ever comes to you.

And if you ever run into a person that claims Harden choked this playoffs then feel free to...

 

There was a play . . .I think we turned if over or missed an Offensive Rebound
Draymond Goes of for the shot and Harden Stuffed the **** out of him

Harden's Defense was GOOD . . . I gave him a solid A
On both ends of the court

Rocket River

 

A

His performance this year improved compared to the ones in previous years. He used to just flat out quit in key games but this year I can see he gave 100%. He worked so hard for his shots and it was 1 against 4 all-stars or even more when you count refs.

He deserved regular season MVP no doubt. But don't compare him to Lebron who is a top 3 all-time in my book. James Harden is not a all-timer but I still appreciate him.

 

yep really helps to have another superstar and solid 3 & D guys instead of pbev, slou, dekker, & harrell

 

A. I'd say the only player at a higher level than Harden in the playoffs this year is James.

 

I went B-
Sorry, you cant miss 22 straight 3 pt attempts and get an A...
Overall defense was good with only intermittent lapses..
He did have some lazy passes and turnovers...
Biggest concern was not knowing when to assert himself vs when to get others involved... like dribbling the air out of the ball in game 1 leaving everyone cold - or deferring to EG when he should have stepped up at times...
that said, I think he outplayed KD - who had horrible shot selection - and he outplayed Stephanie - who totally disappeared for quarters at a time...
Overall it was decent series for him...

 

I’d give him a B+. I think too many 3s and if he had put the team on his back in game 6/7 and carried the Rockets to the finals, I’d have given him an A+

By the way, how is Scott foster not getting more votes?? Come on, people!

 

question: for people who think Harden deserves a below A grade

I know Lebron is A++ for sure but who else deserves an A or A+?

 

I get flak grading anyone substantial on the team so I leave you guys to it.

I agree mostly.

 

B-

Needed him to remember the step daddy step back midrange when the 3’s were not falling.

No luck

 

LOL he did put the team on his back not sure who else could have done better except for Lebron

 

After watching what Bron just did by himself, I think Harden "could've" been better. Refs just cut every bit of momentum off, so I can't blame him. I think the refs were slightly more on Bron's side tho lol..

 

i gave him a B, not that i am greedy, but he is going to be the mvp of the season, you get the praise, you shoulder the responsibility, harden needs to really again get into the gym this summer and improve his stamina, look at lebron, this guys never gets hurt, performs in the big stage again and again, his FG and 3 pointer percentage are even higher than regular season, harden really needs to improve his stamina so he can get more lift on his shots when he is tired, otherwise he will just be a star

 

B+

While he had a couple bad games, he didn't just flat out disappear like he had in previous years. His defense was pretty damn good. There were some of his typical bad turnovers. Overall, he could've done better but I don't have any issues with how he played. It's clear he needs Paul on the court to help take some pressure off. That was the only difference in the series. Losing Paul just made everything too difficult against a team like the warriors.

 

Yeah I mean he did exactly what I thought he would in games 6/7. Yeah, I meant a lebron performance lol. Getting 40-45, hitting clutch shots down the stretch. Carrying his team to the finals. He did pretty well and played some good defense, definitely. I reserve an A for carrying us through, though. But I actually voted for foster haha

 

Lots of guys, right? LeBron is simply the best player. To me that doesn't mean a guy with a lower ceiling like JR Smith cant also get an A+ (I obviously would not have given him an A+, he's been atrocious, just an example).

 

I guess the question is, are you grading him relative to every player, or relative to his regular season self??

In my view, when grading players, it's done relative to their regular season self. Do they underperform or overperform? That type of thing.

In my view, this has to be done because there is so little parity in the NBA. The same guys are going to win or get their every year. I mean you can boil down the NBA finals to like 8-10 players over the last 40 years. Bird, Magic, Jordan, Hakeem, Kobe, Shaq, Lebron, Duncan.

So how else can one judge players?? To me, it's "did they play amazing but come short?" or "did they play below their regular season standards and come short?"

On the basis of the later point, Harden underperformed his regular season MVP performance. But it wasn't like last year or anything.

 

yeah so he's only second to Lebron this POs everyone knows and accepts that

but aside from Lebron, no one else could have single handedly carried the rockets game 6 or 7 and beat the warriors

I for one think Harden deserves an A- at worst. Why would he be given less than A- for not achieving the impossible?

 

B+

His shooting wasn't great, which really hurt us in spots, but overall...he showed up and delivered. His defense was probably as good as its ever been in Houston.

Losing Chris Paul was simply the worst case scenario. He was brought in to help Harden for THIS series. It's not an indictment on Harden that he couldn't beat this Warriors team. Anybody truly criticizing him is just being dense.