AD, Giannis and Leonard haven't done anything so far to be considered as better players than Curry. You might have a debate of Curry vs Durant and based on this and the last two seasons, Curry vs Harden, however, I think that at worst case, Curry is 3rd, and it might be a 50-50 between him and KD. He is the biggest offensive force in the league, and no player bar James makes the team as much better as him.
NBA 2018-2019
- Thread starter altodevil
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Have you seen James Harden in the last 2 months?
(i'm laughing because of james harden, not you)Also, Giannis has been the second best player in the NBA this season
Curry has to share the ball much more than Harden though. Harden is incredible and is averaging almost 35 points per game, but his efficiency is quite lower than Curry's or Durant's. Curry is shooting 46% from threes and 49% in general, Harden is shooting 37.5% from threes and 43.8% in general. The difference is significant, essentially Curry is more precise from threes than Harden from twos and threes combined.Have you seen James Harden in the last 2 months?
Also, Giannis has been the second best player in the NBA this season
Harden is not a better attacking player than Curry, he just takes many more shots, while Steph has to share the shots with Klay and KD.
I think that Steph should be MVP this season, though if Harden wins it, it is totally fair. Giannis is third IMO.
Curry doesnt get marked or planned against like harden or has to carry the offense all by himself. What harden is doing is insane and way more impressive than any player in the league barring giannis or lebron.
Harden is being forced to play 1 on 5 offence, the defences know it, and they still can't do amything to stop him from putting up 40 a night
He's playing at peak MJ/LeBron/Shaq levels of unstoppable
for the love of all that is holy, he single-handedly beat the warriors ar Oracle How can you even try to compare Curry's efficiency with Harden's efficiency? One is playing with two elite offensive players who have to be guarded all the time, the other is playing with total scrubs who would not start at half NBA teams and their only good player does not have to be guarded on offense anyway.
Like what? They've all done mental things at both ends of the court.
There's absolutely zero chance whatsoever Steph should be anywhere near Giannis in MVP vote this season. You cannot ignore how many games he missed.
Kawhi won finals MVP against LeBron. Something Steph has yet to do
Exactly. AD and Giannis are also monsters on both ends of the floor, absolutely elite. They've never been in teams that could win titles, in Giannis case he's in one this year and has done great leading them. AD will have to leave New Orleans.
Not going to get into MVP discussions since I believe it is a popularity contest anyway. As to the games Steph missed the Dubs went 5-6, when he's been on the court they're 26-8. He's also shooting 49/46/92 from the field but those numbers are fairly typical for his career (48/44/91).
The thing about Harden and why he will never win a Championship is that it is all about him. You're right that he is playing one on five this season often with sub-par team mates but it makes no difference who he plays with. You can give him elite team mates and he plays exactly the same and his shooting percentages don't change either. He is shooting 44% from the field this year and is a career 44% shooter. His three point percentage is actually marginally better this year at 37% vs 36% for his career. The big difference for Harden vs everybody else is free throws and the higher his usage the more he gets. Since leaving OKC I read somewhere that he has taken 1,700 more free throws than any other player in the league. Last night was a perfect example of a James Harden game. Thirty four field goal attempts of which he made 16. Pretty good for him at 47%. However he shot 5/19 from three for a pitiful 26% and of course he went to the line 23 times. Eric Gordon on the other hand a pretty good player in his own right was 6/11 from the field and 4/8 from three. If Harden had shared the ball a little more they might have actually won.Harden is being forced to play 1 on 5 offence, the defences know it, and they still can't do anything to stop him from putting up 40 a night
Harden was 1 win away from going into the Finals last year where they would have been huge favourites against Cleveland. If that 0-27 slump did not happen, which was a completely weird occurrence, they would have made it there. If Chris Paul hadn’t gone out with injury after Game 5 I am 90% convinced they would have made it too as they had huge leads in both Games 6 & 7.
And if they weren't up against one of the two or three greatest nba teams ever none of that would have even mattered
Great Minds think alike and all that.
The problem I have with Harden is that he monopolizes the ball. Not to the extent that Russ does it, but still quite a lot, which means that his teammates will be called shit from people and pundits (Oladipo didn't play that well when he was with Russ, while now he is a superstar). It would be very difficult for him to win a championship, I just don't see it happening.
On the other side, Steph makes everyone better and it is never about him, it is all about the team. Not many (if any) superstars are as willing to share the ball at him. Heck, he was the back-to-back MVP, having already won a title, and he didn't mind sharing the ball with KD, allowing him to even be No.1 in the first playoff. He still wants to play with KD despite that means that he probably won't ever get a finals MVP. It is all about the team, not him.
LeBron is in a league of its own, Steph and KD are after him. And then there is the bunch of Leonard, Harden, Giannis and AD (IMO in that order) for me.
On the other side, Steph makes everyone better and it is never about him, it is all about the team. Not many (if any) superstars are as willing to share the ball at him. Heck, he was the back-to-back MVP, having already won a title, and he didn't mind sharing the ball with KD, allowing him to even be No.1 in the first playoff. He still wants to play with KD despite that means that he probably won't ever get a finals MVP. It is all about the team, not him.
LeBron is in a league of its own, Steph and KD are after him. And then there is the bunch of Leonard, Harden, Giannis and AD (IMO in that order) for me.
That's it though it did happen and Harden's 2/13 from three was a big part of the problem. The trouble is there always seems to be something with James in the playoffs. Last year it was 0-27, the year before against the Spurs it was just a complete and utter meltdown from him. Personally, I think he's just knackered by the time we get to May and June, plus as many have already commented the league goes back to calling games in a much tougher fashion leading to far less attempts for him at the free throw line.
It had nothing to do with him being tired or anything last year. They were a game away from knocking the Warriors and extreme bad luck made them lose that series which puts your argument to bed. A player like him can win a title.
In that 0-27 run about 5 or 6 shots were his. There were about 10 open shots he created for his teammates which they missed too, it was not his fault.
Really if Chris Paul plays that series probably don’t even go to game 7. It’s funny how a year later people try to downplay the competitiveness of Rockets in that series and say ‘Warriors were going to win it anyway’.
Both are conjectures. They just weren't good enough to ever be stars in NBA, and sure, while they might have had a long career as bit-part players (at times even as starters), that was their limit (similar to Juan Calderon for example).In a slower league, with much worse spacing and rules that weren't so dramatically skewed towards the offence
Navarro "failed" in the NBA because he didn't like the NBA. Jasikevicius never really was given a fair chance. But the more relevant point is neither guy was as good as Doncic. Doncic last season was the best player seen in Europe since Ginobili edit it seems writing [man*u] auto-corrects to man united
(And btw, Jasikevicius would be a good player in the current NBA)
Another example is Milan Teodosic. From the best player in Europe for a few years, he became a totally average NBA player. And here we are talking for a player who has been playing for 10 years in Europe.
What Doncic is doing is totally unprecedented.
I would easily have Giannis, AD ahead of Curry 100 times out of 100 regardless the situation. Harden depends on the team, would not have him ahead of Curry in the Golden State team with 4 other All-Stars but swap Harden for Houston in current Rockets team and they probably don’t win 40 games with CP3 out.
Kawhi I don’t know what he is right now. Prime Kawhi was destroying Warriors on his own in Game 1 of 2017 conference finals until they sent out Zaza to put a stop to that. He’s been good this season but not sure where I would put him.
Navarro was a good player in the NBA. He just didn't like it. He came back to europe of his own will, not because he couldn't crack it in the NBA. But yes, of course, they were never going to be stars. They also both could have likely been good nba players in different circumstances. I mean, if a guy like Belinelli can do it, so could those two
And wasn't as good as Doncic
What Doncic did in Europe was totally unprecedented too. And again, Doncic was the best player seen in Europe since Ginobili. What's more, his game was always going to translate better to the spacing and athleticism of the current NBA, and the star-driven coaching of the NBA, than European basketball
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What is crazy to me is the amount of 3PM Curry is on after all the games he's missed. He is 2nd behind Harden but he's closed that gap impressively and if he stays healthy, he will overtake him.
As Steve Kerr said, if Iggy doesn't get hurt it's over in 5.
This. Mind, i belong to the group that believes if nobody got injured(Iggy, CP3, Luc), the dubs win in 5. But the narrative that the warriors were always going to win that series or that it was only competitive because the dubs didn't take it seriously until game 6 is hilarious. If the refs don't swallow their whistles in games 6 and 7 the rockets probably win anyways. And if they're not facing a team with Kevin Durant, Curry, Klay and Draymond Green(4 all stars. FOUR) they probably win regardless of everything else
Harden was better than Curry in that WCF series
With LeBron, Lakers were a legitimate home court team in the playoffs. Without him they struggle to make the playoffs. MVP.
That's really re-writing history here. Harden had 28 pts/game vs Curry's 25 pts/game that is true but he did it on 41% shooting, 24% from three and went to the line 52 times. Steph shot 47% from the field had 8 more threes than Harden and shot 14 free throws. Steph was infinitely better than Harden defensively too. The Rockets made a point of deliberately targeting him in games 1 and 2 but went away from it for the rest of the series because it wasn't working.
".....and we expectedly see the Rockets force Curry to switch on to Harden. What we didn’t expect, however, was Curry actually doing a pretty good job.
According to NBA Advanced Stats, Curry played 13 defensive possessions against Harden. In those 13 possessions, Curry held Harden to 2-of-6 shooting from the field (33.3 percent) and 1-of-2 shooting from behind the arc (50.0 percent)."
https://bluemanhoop.com/2018/05/15/...tephen-curry-wins-defensive-battle-vs-harden/
getting free throws is good
wtf
wtf
It certainly is. If you've been following this discussion, it's not going to the line that's the problem, it's the interpretation of the rules these days which sends one player to the line significantly more than others.
It's literally the second-easiest shot after an open dunk/layup. Yes, getting FT is very, very good
Of course Harden wouldn't be as efficient as Steph. Harden was his team's #1 option, Curry was the #2. And after CP3 went down, the Rockets were down to relying on Harden and Gordon(who played out of his mind for most of the series to be fair to him) entirely. Curry still had Kevin freaking Durant and Klay Thompson next to him. And Kevin Durant was and is the best player on the warriors and the second best player in the world afterall
So why was Harden better? He had similar points to Curry, was less efficent and choked (along with rest of his team) in game 7.
Your post reads as a criticism of Harden for scoring via free throws.
Let's get some points per possession stats. Somehow I dont trust Blue Man Group's analysis.
Wizards vs Knicks game at the O2 is £250 a ticket. You're having a laugh.
Not at all. It's a criticism of the league and the refs for allowing him to shoot so many free throws.
Not in that series.
KD has a couple of stinker matches, Steph was clearly the #1 in that series. They were probably both #1.5 in the final (bar in the last game when KD was desperately trying to give the MVP award to Steph and so passing the ball to him all the time). The only important series where KD was the clear #1 was 2017 finals.
And without even Enes Kanter!
Cause people don't like Warriors. It is the only argument.
I actually thought that Chris Paul was the best player in that series until he got injured.
Its easy to play well when you have two other teammates who command equal attention. Its a lot harder to do so for a) a weaker side and b) when you are the teams only attacking option.
Harden is getting overrated on here. He’s as much of a ballhawk as Kobe was but doesn’t have the same mentality. He’ll probably never win a ring, and he’s an awful defender.
Feck Harden.
Feck Harden.
Harden averages 7.8 assists per game on 32% usage with Houston. Kobe averaged 4.7 assists per game on 32% usage.