[Zach Lowe] Leaves Harden off his All-NBA ballot, thoughts?

Wrong.

 

actually the rockets do. theres a reason why portland was projected to be a lottery team this year. but credit to lillard showing he can make players around him better along w/ CJ and that you can build around him because he impacts winning. Thats going to be a very nice backcourt for many years to come.

 

Why can't people react to individual columns?

We have to uniformly love one writer and dislike another?

 

The double standard between Harden and Curry is hilarious. ESPN had their golden boy, and all other forms of media are falling in line. Screw Lowe.

 

This is ridiculous. I love Lowe but he's gotten too caught up in the narrative. Among guards, Harden is 4th in PER, 2nd in Value Added, 3rd in win shares, and 5th in Real +/-. There is no way he's not a top 6 guard in the league.

 

The reaction I received when I said Lowe USED to be a great writer in another Lowe thread pretty called for me to be burned at the stake. When I said he's caught up in providing more color and witty banter within his writing than to stick with what he was/is great at (which is analyzing games) caused quite a few to defend him like he couldn't be questioned.

And kevC put it best:

You are going to put Klay Thompson ahead of Harden? I appreciate Thompson as a player and as an integral part of the Warriors team but there's no damn way he should make an All-NBA team before Harden.

The only assumption I can conclude is that Lowe watched more Warriors games than Rockets games (and with this year, I can't blame him) but if that was the case, wouldn't that be grounds to call into question the quality of his analysis?

I've said this before: Lowe USED to be excellent when he kept his articles more on the analytical side, breaking down games and educating the reader as to why this could have happened. Then things took a turn when he started adding in more Bill Simmons-esque remarks that really didn't fit in with what he was doing before.

 

Rockets are not a talented team on paper, Trailblazers aside.

We are crying out for talent.

We have Corey Brewer taking four three's a game at 28%, talented our roster ain't.

 

We have virtually the same roster as last year's WCF team.

 

highly doubt you were saying this a year ago and its the exact same. so yes on paper its talented. of course that's a huge key in why this year is extremely disappointing. People were all praising this exact team with 56 wins and its players, now want to slam it when times are tough with the same exact roster.

 

I'm assuming, by your response, you thought our team was talented last year as well?

We took out an old team in the 1st Round and took a miracle comeback to advance to the WCF.

 

Yes. We have a talented team. Unfortunately, all the talent in the world can't overcome poor chemistry and horrible coaching.

 

I'm sorry, our team was not exceptionally talented last year either. Perhaps you were lead to believe they were from Harden's performance last season, which is understandable, but this has never been a talented team on paper. It's full of bits and pieces players which can sort of do a little bit of everything both good and bad, and exceed in absolute nothing.

 

Tis true.

 

I never talked up the team last year, it's part of the reason I truly believed Harden earned that MVP trophy. Mark Cuban even said it himself.

"James Harden is the MVP, because I look over at that team and I think, that's not a very good team."

 

Lowe's argument appears to be the moral argument - the same one that gave Derrick Rose the MVP when LeBron jilted Cleveland for Miami as "punishment" for his disloyalty and the same one that back in the 1990's awarded the MVP to people when it was their "turn" (Barkley's turn, Hakeem's turn).

This is fine and dandy, but the fact of the matter is that statistically Harden had what is either his best season ever or his second best season ever - depending on what metric you want to use. Certainly it's better than his first two years in Houston (in which he aws named All-NBA).

There's also a "who outperformed relative to team expectations" component - OK that's fine but isn't that what "most improved player" is for?

I guess my other question is "does it work both ways?" If the Rockets win 50 games next year and the Warriors "settle" for 70 - does that vault Harden past Thompson and Curry? Logically it shoudl, but I doubt it will, because, he drinks too much or something.

 

Not surprised by Lowe's choices, he chose mostly from players from winning teams. If we had fed the ball more to Howard we might have won more games. The ownership however looks like they want this team more perimeter oriented now so they looked to start phasing Howard out of offensive sets. Then suddenly when you start to include Howard into the offense again (against weaker centers and teams) we start winning again.

The NBA and ESPN will never stop picking on Harden's defense, even if he solely devotes himself to placing more effort on that side to at least be below average. JVG has stated it multiple times in his broadcasting when he's doing a show on TNT as a commentator and he plainly puts it as this, Harden can have as many breath taking plays as he can produce but there'll be that one idiot that posts on YouTube about his one defensive lapses.

To echo what some people have stated already, it's not solely Harden's fault that this team underachieved this year but he definitely didn't do as much as he could have to make the team better. Then again even when Kobe was playing out of his mind in his prime on those terrible Lakers teams, it didn't matter what Kobe did he was ridiculed because his team was losing. He wasn't passing enough was his main critique. But riddle me this, who is Harden suppose to pass it to?

 

I wonder where Lowe had Harden on his All-NBA list last year.

 

Dwight's a year further into his decline, Josh Smith fluked it up in the first couple of rounds of last year's playoffs and Harden's defense has regressed further.

Not to mention, I agree with those who say it wasn't a supremely talented team last year. If they hadn't had a one-in-a-million comeback against the Clippers and were eliminated in 6 in the second round, everyone would have correctly pegged them as a good but far from great team and it would have been far less shocking when they declined from good to average.

 

he damn well should be.
Do I care though? No. Team achievements> individual awards and 41-41 #8th seed facing the Golden State Warriors after a year where we finished #2 and a WCF slot..meh.

 

if so then that's fine. but regardless the original point was on paper it does have talent. Definitely doesn't look that way now because of how the season has gone for various reasons but it is what it is.