Who is better right now James Harden or Lebron James?

Because LeBron have a much higher off ball impact. I am not saying Harden's team is better than LeBrons because its not. I am saying that LeBron can be very impactful off ball and therefor doubling him doesn't have the same effect.

They double Harden because our coach was a failure at overcoming it. If either Westbrook was able to be sufficient in being a decent point guard or Dantoni was prepared for it with counters they wouldn't be doubling Harden at halfcourt. If you replaced Harden with LeBron they would also double him because they know nobody else on the Rockets can handle the ball without doing something really stupid. Lakers are just a better team with a better coach.

 

Harden easily but barely if that makes sense

 

So Westbrook is no longer considered a "playmaker" because he had a bad postseason? Seriously?

 

I honestly was not expecting this answer from you.

Well in the context of our argument, this post season he was not a playmaker....idk what he was, but it was not good. Even this season, we were worse when the ball was in his hands.

 

As an eye test aficionado I would have thought you would have noticed how the Lakers strategically applied their doubles on Harden later in the shot clock to negate our ability to get the ball back to the only guy on the roster who could regularly make a positive play and therefore force our limited playmaking supporting cast to make a play. Keep living in your dream world where Westbrook somehow existed as a positive playmaker, but that’s not what happened. Dude turned the ball over constantly and couldn’t hit a shot.

Just drop it man. There isn’t a team in the nba that wouldn’t utilize Harden as a ball dominant player. None. It’s what every other team in the entire NBA does with an elite playmaker/scorer. When you have a guy that good you let them have the ball the most. You want them to be making the most decisions possible. Hence why LeBron would have the ball just about as much as Harden in our series.

Newsflash.... Harden didn’t lead the league in the regular season or the playoffs in time of possession. So it’s not just some Harden/Houston anomaly.

The anti Harden brigade just refuses to look at things rationally or factually. The so called pro level eye test, denial/avoidance of statistical fact and frustration with a player they don’t particularly like leads to some piss poor analysis of what’s actually happening on the floor.

 

It's not about time of possession, it's about how stationary he is with that time of possession. When you see guys like CP3 or even LeBron dominate the ball, they are constantly moving either attacking the pick and roll or drifting around the mid range and having their teammates move in sync trying to provide a passing angle when LeBron or CP3 probe. With Harden most of the time at least relative to other players he just stands and dribbles in one spot and most of the time a screen is set for him he doesn't attack and rather tries to hunt for the switch.

Just watch CP3 when he dominated the ball with the Clippers. He was constantly probing the defense and moving and using screens to attack rather than just hunt a mismatch which just forces everyone to stand around and watch.

 

The Lakers applied their doubles when Harden called for a screen or began his move.

 

Doubling doesn't have the same effect on Lebron because he can pass out it much easier than Harden can. Harden is limited to passing around or, angle permitting, through defenders. However, because of his height, strength, and court vision, Lebron can also throw accurate passes over the top of defenders.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the stat that is being discussed is time of possession. That's a simple aggregated statistic. There's no extrapolation or interpretation involved. There's 6 Second Spectrum cameras shooting 25 frames/second throughout the game. The camera are tracking the positions of the 10 players on the court, the referees and the ball.

It's very straight-forward. They take over 1 million samples per game and that tells them where the ball and players are at any point in time. For stats such as play type, there's machine learning used to identify the different types though Second Spectrum is suppose to be extremely accurate which is why they displaced SportsVu as the NBA's optical tracking provider. For possession there's little to decide. It's not much different than a toll booth camera tracking how many cars pass through.

You can debate quite a lot of things, but time of possession is too black and white. Go look at the time of possession numbers. What you'll see is that the guys who are running the offenses tend to possess the ball longer. Nothing too surprising. 1. Trae Young 2. Doncic 3. Lillard 4. Harden 5. Graham 6. Lebron.

I'm not clear on your point. Were you questioning the accuracy of the Second Spectrum player tracking? Or were you trying to say that the data was somehow being interpreted incorrectly? Like I said, there's nothing to really interpret. It's binary, the player either has the ball or he doesn't. Nothing has to be classified, identified, extrapolated or interpreted. They simply aggregate the possession time.

Am I missing the point that you were trying to make?

 

Distance traveled in Lakers/Rockets series...

Westbrook : 2.47 miles
Davis : 2.35 miles
Harden : 2.34 miles
LeBron : 2.25 miles

Average speed on offense during Lakers/Rockets series

Harden : 3.80
LeBron : 3.89

Constant movement you say...

 

Lol... Only because I think LeBron has clearly lost a step... It's getting harder for him to get to the basket. He still finishes but only because of his strength. Not because of quickness because it's year 17

 

Some posters are trying to use the stat to determine whether or not players are overly ball-dominant.

 

And you're ignoring the fact that Harden averaged 3 mpg more than Lebron...

 

There are so many confounding factors. It's something you keep on ignoring for someone who touts being a statistical guru which Im sure you believe with your single ap stats class you took in high school.

Harden from watching all his games and watching other guards is extremely stationary on offense. He barely attacks picks any more and just tries to find a mismatch and dribble in a stationary place. That's most of his game today.

how accurate even is that data? How is distance traveled measured? Steps taken? Does it account for average stride of player?

You keep on just regulating these stats at face value with zero intellectual curiosity on their merits.

You watch Rocket games. You know how stationary Harden is.

 

I don't disagree with you. But what do you think is actually happening on the floor that makes people feel that Harden is holding the ball longer than he actually does? That is, other than "hatred." I think it's very lazy to just label whatever criticism as hatred. Why do you think Harden's game is being distorted by the eye test?

 

No one is ignoring anything but you my man.

Average speed on offense doesn’t matter how many minutes played.

Distance traveled in the series even with the minutes difference is not some huge discrepancy where you would point and say one dude is clearly a stationary oaf and one guy is a pristine machine of constant movement.

 

All heliocentric offenses revolve around their best player's holding the ball, Harden takes longer than usual because he needs time to break down his defender, that's it. Luka, Lillard, Lebron whoever. Dantoni also plays a factor in this as well. People act like Harden just refuses to move, but its not part of the game plan.

 

Harden absolutely is a stationary oaf when he doesn't have the ball in his hand. When he does he either dribbles stationary for 5-15 seconds waiting for a switch to a mismatch which he then either proceeds to dribble drive for a pass or lay up or does a step back. That's it. There really isn't much more to his game today.

 

Yes him having to take more time is a detriment. It stagnates the offense and allows defenses to rest.

Motion offenses tire out defenses more. If you ever played any competitive sports primarily basketball, football or soccer you would know that defenses always drains more energy because the offensive player knows where they are going while the defender has to anticipate which means the defender has to do a lot more micro adjustments balancing themselves to keep up. That takes more energy. With the Rockets stationary offense we just allow opposing defenses to rest more relative to teams that run heavy motion offenses. The offensive team always has the advantage in that case because the offensive players know where they are going and aren't having to adjust their balance constantly to keep up like defenders have to. The Rockets pretty much eliminated the advantage. Probably why they flame out so often by the end of the game while the other team seems to always have fresher legs.

 

Harden also played 15 more minutes total in the series. All those distances will be roughly equal since no matter how stagnant you are on offense, you are still running up and down the court.

if you think about it...it’s stunning that Harden only ran a tenth of a mile more than James with 15 more minutes of court time.