Is James Harden underrated now?

[Quotatious]

His defense was clearly worse this season compared to the previous one, and his leadership is questionable, but he just averaged 29 points/6 rebounds/7.5 assists/1.7 steals on almost 60% TS and over 25 PER, played all 82 games...Normally, that kind of statline would make you a strong MVP candidate. His raw stats are even slightly better compared to his near-MVP season last year (he played a bit more minutes this year, but to be able to play 38.1 minutes for 82 games is pretty impressive on its own, too).

Is he underrated now?

[Texas Chuck]

His defense was clearly worse this season compared to the previous one, and his leadership is questionable, but he just averaged 29 points/6 rebounds/7.5 assists/1.7 steals on almost 60% TS and over 25 PER, played all 82 games...His raw stats are even slightly better compared to his near-MVP season last year (he played a bit more minutes this year, but to be able to play 38.1 minutes for 82 games is pretty impressive on its own, too).

Is he underrated now?

If all you want to look at is individual stats then sure I guess he could be. But his efficiency is often maintained at his team's expense. He pounds the ball and if he can't get a good shot at the end of the shot clock he passes the buck and low-percentage shot to a lessor teammate many times over the course of a game. He's a walking turnover machine as well. Plus he's just a very moody, difficult guy to be around and combine that with his unwillingness to defend this year and its clear the role players aren't putting forth the effort they did around him last year.

That stuff actually does matter and actually does impact the games. Just because it's not directly measured by box score numbers, I refuse to ignore it. His "leadership" is a strong negative as is his very selfish play. It's not selfish like Westbrook where he is trying to win games and believes so much in himself. It's selfish where he is hyper-aware about his efficiency numbers(and Morey drilling that into the team isn't helping) and playing the games to protect that. I mean you don't have to watch many Rockets games to see this pattern.

I'd say if he played like he did last year where he made an effort to buy into the team concept especially defensively then yeah he's underrated. He's still a top 5 talent in this league and an amazing offensive anchor. But if he's going to be this selfish to the point where guys around him get marginalized and give less effort around him, then if anything he's probably overrated.

I mean anyone who thinks the decline of Dwight Howard has nothing to do with James Harden I think is fooling themselves.

[tsherkin]

Normally, that kind of statline would make you a strong MVP candidate.

Right, and if he were ONLY dealing with Lebron and KD and so forth, then maybe it would make for a more compelling discussion, but I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't really hold a candle to Steph this season, so discussions centering around the MVP race don't make a ton of sense to me.

I don't think he's underrated. He's blowing on D again, which undermines his offense, and his team has stumbled. He also led the league in MPG, which makes it harder to notice that he's only at +0.6 PTS36 compared to last year despite the larger difference in PPG. +0.3 REB36 and AST36. -3 ORTG compared to last year, 4.3% drop-off in draw rate with the increased shooting volume, -1.4 PER, -.061 WS/48, etc etc etc. Statistically, he looks worse than he did last year pretty much all over.


I dunno. Underrated, I don't think so. He's had a pretty strong year, so I still expect him to have a top 10 finish in the MVP vote (circling back to that point) anyway. I don't think that's underrating him relative to Westy, KD, Lebron, Steph, Paul, Lowry, Kawhi and even Dame, really.

[Woodsanity]

He gets underrated a bit by some members here but honestly his box score productions overrates his actual production. His defense is poor. He has no intangibles, whatsoever and I hate that term to be frank. He is also a ball stopper (hate that term too) but in this case it actually applies.

He is a top 10 player in the league but not someone I would want to build a team around.

[mischievous]

He hasn't really impressed me despite his pretty volume stats. Still a top 10 guy imo, so if he's not in your top 10 then you might be underrating him.

[Shock Defeat]

Depends entirely on where you actually rate Harden. There are multiple posters on here who would probably not even put him top 20 because they hate him. That's clearly underrating him. He is an obvious top 10 NBA player. Last year he was top 5 easy.

[Dr Spaceman]

He's probably the worst player to ever put up that type of stat line. Idk maybe Maravich or Dantley have comparable seasons. He's done basically everything wrong from a team chemistry perspective and watching the Rockets is like having your soul drained out through your eyeball.

FWIW I was a big fan of Harden last year. I thought he really turned a corner and had him rated as one of the best offensive seasons of the last 15 or so years. He's been miserable on defense this year and sluggish all around though.

If by overrated you mean people are going to retroactively downgrade his previous work than maybe. He was an elite player last year. But this year I can def see a case for not top 10.

[Krodis]

I think people may be counting the team's struggles against him to much. There's a tendency to look at the Rockets and think "here's a talented team that's wildly underachieving ". And from that perspective maybe laying some of the blame on Harden makes sense. But I have an alternate theory: maybe the team just isn't very good.

I think the names throw people off with the Rockets. They have a lot of names people are familiar with. But looking at the players behind the names, I just don't think they're nearly ad talented as they're made out to be. Dwight is a shadow of himself on both sides of the ball . Beverley and Ariza are basically spot up shooters. Motiejunas has been hurt. And then past that, Capela is serviceable. And then you have a lot of terribly negative players who played significant minutes. Ty Lawson was a disaster. Terrence Jones is abysmal. Corey Brewer runs around like a chicken with his head cut off, and for whatever reason has played a ton of minutes at the 4. The coaching is even worse than it was under McHale, and the defensive scheme is just a mess. Even then, they're 7th in offense, so it's not like Harden is failing to make them competitive on that end of the court. They've regressed horribly defensively, and while that includes Harden, the defensive issues go far beyond him.

[Fundamentals21]

No, he isn't underrated. Most people recognize his strengths and weaknesses just fine. He's a bad defender and for a good portion of the year his offense really wasn't that great outside of his TS%.

Was there ever a non-impact player who shot at this volume and 60 TS%? I can't quite recall. His value as a volume scorer saves him.

He should be on your radar for Top 10. Beyond that, he wasn't going to be discussed this year at all. There's Curry, there's the Spurs, pre-Durant Westbrook, there's Kobe, there's Dirk, etc.

Way too many stories this year in the WC alone, and Harden having a down year meant he wouldn't be discussed much at all.

[Shock Defeat]

He's probably the worst player to ever put up that type of stat line.

There is only 3 players in the HISTORY of the league to have ever put up Harden's statline. Jordan, LeBron, and Oscar. Saying he's the worst player to ever put up that statline is a huge compliment in the grand scheme of things.

[PaulieWal]

I say no. He's been playing good offensive ball since the all-star break and I have seen many around here put the woes of the Rockets at somebody else's feet but I hope people do remember that he came into the season fat and out of shape. He also played like dogcrap the first month, month and a half of the season.

CT and others already touched on it, I am not a huge fan of intangibles but when your leader and best players plays like that I do think it has a negative impact on the rest of your team.

He would be better served next year coming into the season in better shape and at least pretending to give a crap about basketball.

[Colbinii]

No, he isn't underrated. Most people recognize his strengths and weaknesses just fine. He's a bad defender and for a good portion of the year his offense really wasn't that great outside of his TS%.

Was there ever a non-impact player who shot at this volume and 60 TS%? I can't quite recall. His value as a volume scorer saves him.

What about Adrian Dantley?

Say what you will about Dantley, but he had a 9 year stretch of scoring on over 60 TS%, and 7 years of 28+ PPG on over 60 TS%, and he wasn't really an "impact" player.

Here are the SRS of his teams throughout these years.
1980: -5.71
1981: -5.99
1982: -5.63
1983: -4.22
1984: .81
1985: -.33
1986: -.67
1987: 3.51 (Bad Boys Pistons w/ Isiah, Lambeer, Rodman)
1988: 5.46 (Bad Boys Pistons w. Isiah, Lambeer, Dumars, Rodman)

So, when he isn't on a great team, he really isn't very impactful.

All this said about Dantley, and Harden clearly was more impactful than he was.
Here are the Rocket's SRS since he joined

2013: 3.69
2014: 5.06
2015: 3.82
2016: .34

Harden is clearly more impactful than Dantley, and he was a top 10/15 player this season in the NBA.

[theonlyclutch]

In a way, yes:

He hasn't been used very well, but is still
-An elite PnR ball handler (92%ile PPP)
-Elite off spot-ups (95%ile PPP)
-Developed a decent post game (78%ile PPP)

His isolations have declined somewhat from last year (~90%ile -> 73%ile) which has been a problem for HOU, as he leads the league in ISOs...

[Sublime187]

I think he is fairly rated. He is a top offensive threat in the league no doubt but as we all know he is atrocious again defensively. What makes it worse is that he doesn't give a damn about putting any effort on D and as the best player this is contagious. On offense, he may be the only competent offensive player but if we're going to give him credit for being one of the best offensive players of all time, I think those players know how to best use their teammates as well. Is it just coincidence every player looks worse this year playing alongside him? It's just human reaction when teammates know they won't get any shots on offense they tend to lose interest in giving any effort on defense as well (the majority of the time).

As Texas Chuck mentioned above, he tries to always get his own shot and if it is not a high percentage play will give it off to a teammate late in the shot clock to save his efficiency, similar to what Carmelo Anthony used to do a couple years back.

Bottom line from a personal standpoint, I do not believe you can win with a player with a selfish mentality that only gives effort one way. If a player is not putting any effort on the defensive end just saving energy for offense, it shows me that this guy does not care about the team as a whole and winning, he just wants those flashy eye popping stats and you cannot win that way. He is basically (not exactly) giving up as many points on defense as he is putting up. Steve Nash was also a bad defender but I commend him for at least trying his best. Can we really call James Harden a top 5 or 10 player knowing these facts?

[thekdog34]

No.

Agree with what tsherkin said and I'll add this:
By RPM he's fallen from 3rd to 16th
By player tracking plus minus he's fallen from 7th to 30something (last time they released it)
By npi RAPM he's 65
There was an article this year that showed he's benefitting from his box score prior in RPM, so he's probably overrated by RPM right now

His turnovers are often the worst kind, leading to easy buckets, so the harm from them might be understated.

He's came into camp overweight and has been a step slow all year. His percentage of shots at the rim is a career low, only 25% vs 29-30% for his career (31% last year). He's settled for more 3 pointers and is shooting his career 2nd worst percentage.

And of course the defense has regressed badly.

Over the last month he does look better though, quicker and moving more on defense.

This doesn't mean he's a bad player, he's just no MVP candidate anymore and instead a bubble 3rd team all NBA guy, which is what he'll probably get so he's properly rated IMO

[Mutnt]

Texas Chuck made some perfectly valid and reasonable claims that should definitely be considered, but on the flip side, I think people on this board have somewhat comically fallen deeply in love with what the Warriors/Spurs are doing (two extremely outlier teams, for now), so now everything is kinda viewed from that perspective.

I'm all for holding superstars accountable, but at the end of the day, if people don't want to play with each other, and the coaching stuff/FO is not doing much to salvage that, you're gonna suck.

Harden is not playing much differently in style on the offensive end (maybe that's the new problem, who knows, it sure didn't seem like it last year) than he did last season when the Rockets were arguably a Top 5 team in the league, with a cast that wasn't really that talented and clearly flawed. In fact, the Rockets offense (which is clearly heavily Harden-centric) has even improved this year by a decent margin. Granted, I'm not really sure how much of that can be attributed to Harden himself (since he's not really playing better offensively than last year), but mostly to Beverely stepping up, Ariza playing slightly better and Howard just sucking less.

The problems are mainly defensively. Obviously Harden shouldn't be excused from that side, especially since he's clearly been worse this year than last on defense, but the rest of the team should be held accountable, even more so. Terrence Jones fell off massively, Brewer fell off, Jason Terry fell off, Ariza kinda fell off. Ty Lawson basically destroyed the team on both ends when he played... Also, people are acting like Harden is historically bad on defense this year, when you have guys like Lillard and Kyrie, even Isiah Thomas, Reggie Jackson, DeRozan looking far worse. And on the other side, Harden is a candidate for Top 5 off. impact.

It's pretty clear there's something significantly wrong with the team's chemistry to the point that people don't even care of putting effort and no doubt Harden, as the superstar, as the supposed leader, should be scrutinized in this case, but him himself is far from the biggest reason why the Rockets went from winning 57 games to barely making the playoffs this year.

Ultimately, I think he has a good case of being a Top 10 player this year. I have Curry, Kawhi, Westbrook, LeBron, Paul, Durant, Lowry, Draymond ahead of him convincingly, but after that, it would be a hard sell. I'm not sure I wanna have Millsap/Love ahead of him, maybe Paul George?

[Krodis]

I say no. He's been playing good offensive ball since the all-star break and I have seen many around here put the woes of the Rockets at somebody else's feet but I hope people do remember that he came into the season fat and out of shape. He also played like dogcrap the first month, month and a half of the season.

CT and others already touched on it, I am not a huge fan of intangibles but when your leader and best players plays like that I do think it has a negative impact on the rest of your team.

He would be better served next year coming into the season in better shape and at least pretending to give a crap about basketball.

He was out of shape because of an ankle injury.

[thekdog34]

I say no. He's been playing good offensive ball since the all-star break and I have seen many around here put the woes of the Rockets at somebody else's feet but I hope people do remember that he came into the season fat and out of shape. He also played like dogcrap the first month, month and a half of the season.

CT and others already touched on it, I am not a huge fan of intangibles but when your leader and best players plays like that I do think it has a negative impact on the rest of your team.

He would be better served next year coming into the season in better shape and at least pretending to give a crap about basketball.

He was out of shape because of an ankle injury.

Never heard of a player gaining 30 pounds and being out of shape all season because of an ankle injury.

Another thing, Harden is still at an age where he should be getting better, like Curry, Kawhi and Westbrook did. Not taking a step back

[Krodis]

The team is dead last in defensive rebounding. Every lineup that Terrence Jones played in was comically bad. Corey Brewer has played big minutes at the 4. Motiejunas was their second or third best player last year and has barely played. I understand holding superstars accountable but at some point you're giving the rest of the team a pass by blaming Harden. Harden's mood isn't the reason that Corey Brewer can't shoot or that Terrence Jones has zero BBIQ or that Dwight lost his athleticism and turns the ball over or that Ty Lawson is a drunk. Marcus Thornton's inability to be a positive impact player didn't start when he was exposed to the bad mojo of James Harden. J.B. Bickerstaff isn't putting forth a nonsensical defensive scheme because Harden was overweight.

EDIT: Corey Brewer is 6'9" 186 pounds soaking wet and is a worse rebounder than Patrick Beverley. He played a decent amount of minutes at the 4.

[LLJ]

Anthony Davis is probably most underrated right. He practically dropped off the face of the earth in NBA discussions this season, right after a year where he was considered The Next Big Thing.

I feel Harden is polarizing enough and good enough that he'll always be discussed positively or negatively. This year for Harden was kind of like 04-05 Kobe.