Is James Harden More Talented Than Kobe?

[Gil]

He clearly is. Harden's ability to get anywhere he wants to on the court is unparalleled & he's easily the more intelligent player. Harden's arguably the greatest off the dribble scorers to ever play, the fact he scores so many points unassisted yet is still highly efficient is mind-boggling.

Imagine how good he'd be if he was an elite athlete like Kobe.

[pastis]

Harden right now: WS 13.8 // WS 48 .255, BPM 10, VORP 8.0, PER 27.8 on 29.4ppg, 11.2 ass, 8.1 reb and 45% from the field, 35% from three. Is just just insane.
In the 00s, you just hade four, five guys over PER 25 and in todays league you have 13 players (e.g. you had just 4 player in 2008, 2009 and 2010 with PER 25 or more)

[Rerisen]

Harden goes for the efficient score areas, paint, FT, volume 3s.

Kobe took a lot of long tough 2s.

The ranges Kobe has Harden beat % wise, is 3-10, 10-16, and 16-23, and Kobe spent much of each game displaying his arsenal in these areas, which leaves a big mental impression, but ultimately, mid-range shots just aren't that great.

So IDK if its necessarily more talent, as just talent in more meaningful, bigger payoff, areas.

I think the progression of the game, and Houston building a team on the leading edge of that, also helps Harden's numbers. Put him back on some of those LA teams, even him having to dump it into Shaq most of the game, Harden might not put up the same crazy all around numbers.

[AdagioPace]

How can anybody talk about harden' season as goat like when it required major lineup changes and a completely different commander in chief who should be getting most of the credit for this success. Harden is living the dream. Perfect situation and era to showcase his skills. Spacing and complicit referees. Also i like the double standard on on-off and related. When Kobe is involved it suddenly loses credibility, whereas when kg is involved it becomes the holy verb.

[kennygee90]

The hate for Kobe is real lol. How soon people forget how good Kobe looked in 2013 offensively due to the same d'antoni system.

[RightToCensor]

Somehow, people that dislike James Harden will come out this thread (and the other dozen on the PC Board comparing him to greats) hating James even more, even-though these topics have been started by non-Rockets fans.

[microfib4thewin]

I am not convinced that Harden can keep this up, but just talking about a single season, I think this year's Harden is just as good as any peak year of Kobe's. For those who champion Kobe with +/-, are we forgetting that his RAPM was out of the top 20 between 2001-2005, jumped to top 5 from 2006-10, and then fell off the top 50 afterwards? It's not like Kobe was consistently a top performer in that department, so it's weird that people are bashing Harden for being inconsistent from year to year.

[AndriPerdhian93]

I say yes, harden can make a play for his teammate.

[Doctor MJ]

Harden goes for the efficient score areas, paint, FT, volume 3s.

Kobe took a lot of long tough 2s.

The ranges Kobe has Harden beat % wise, is 3-10, 10-16, and 16-23, and Kobe spent much of each game displaying his arsenal in these areas, which leaves a big mental impression, but ultimately, mid-range shots just aren't that great.

So IDK if its necessarily more talent, as just talent in more meaningful, bigger payoff, areas.

I think the progression of the game, and Houston building a team on the leading edge of that, also helps Harden's numbers. Put him back on some of those LA teams, even him having to dump it into Shaq most of the game, Harden might not put up the same crazy all around numbers.

This doesn't make sense. Harden is not simply doing what one does nowadays, he's the FACE of playing like this, and he always has been back to his time at OKC when people thought he couldn't possibly do this while volume scoring. You're essentially saying "I'd like to see Harden put up these numbers if he wasn't consistently outsmarting the defense playing with an approach we've never seen before."

[Doctor MJ]

This is why Kobe is a stats person's worse nightmare (which is the majority of this forum) because you're not supposed to be that influential on 5 title winning teams in 7 tries when all the advanced stats says you shouldnt!

The whole reason a "stats person" uses "advanced stats" is because they recognize how problematic it is to do things like judge players by counting rings. Debating Kobe is sometimes something of a nightmare, but it has little to do with Kobe as a player and everything to do with what Kobe's fans tend to fixate on and how prone they are to belittle other perspectives.

There's a pull that Kobe has on a good chunk of people. Powerful. It's really quite fascinating.

I know a drummer who idolizes Kobe and it's inspired him to have an insane work ethic. That's really something, and I think there's a little of that inspiration in all of Kobe's biggest fans, and I think that makes people vicious when someone comes along that threatens to pop that bubble.

I personally don't want to kill that feeling of inspiration people have, but the conflict tends to be inevitable when I just call things as I see them.

[andrewww]

The whole reason a "stats person" uses "advanced stats" is because they recognize how problematic it is to do things like judge players by counting rings. Debating Kobe is sometimes something of a nightmare, but it has little to do with Kobe as a player and everything to do with what Kobe's fans tend to fixate on and how prone they are to belittle other perspectives.

There's a pull that Kobe has on a good chunk of people. Powerful. It's really quite fascinating.

I know a drummer who idolizes Kobe and it's inspired him to have an insane work ethic. That's really something, and I think there's a little of that inspiration in all of Kobe's biggest fans, and I think that makes people vicious when someone comes along that threatens to pop that bubble.

I personally don't want to kill that feeling of inspiration people have, but the conflict tends to be inevitable when I just call things as I see them.

I understand the skepticism that his critics (not you) have. We have perhaps the most talented bad shot maker in history, a prototype of a player whom even I would say is not who you would typically want to build your team around (volume scoring wing). I think of Kobe in the same way as Lebron, in that if you put either of them on a team like the current Warriors or Spurs, their talents wouldnt be maximized quite as much.

However, we can't always just play the card "oh its because he had all star bigs that others never did". Kobe also never had the 3 point spacing afford to Harden this year, nor did he ever have the consistent coaching from his rookie season all the way to retirement like Duncan did. Results matter.

Its problematic to judge by rings only if we're talking about a fringe player, but Kobe has had a major hand in all 5 of his championships and was at the very least a 1a option on 4 of these teams! Do you remember who closed out game 4 of the 2000 Finals? Game 7 of the 2000 WCF? That Pau disappeared for the majority of games 3-5 of the 2010 Finals on the road?

Do you really believe 2008 Kobe was him at his best? Or just him at the tail end of his prime but the best team he had from 2003-2008? Would we look at him differently if his 2006 self had the supporting cast he had in 2008-2010?

We're watching Westbrook put up historic numbers (similar to 2006 Kobe) on a 45-50 win team, yet Westbrook is being championed at the very least as the co-leader in MVP talk along with Harden?

Was the rest of the league drunk when Kobe was widely regarded as the best player in the world from 2006-2008 at the very least, if not until 2010? Realgm as a whole is going against the grain quite significantly from conventional wisdom. I understand this is the PC board and that is why we're having this discussion, but man some of the threads started by Q and others would make me think we're talking about some ordinary HOF player who got lucky with 7 Finals appearances in a Mickey Mouse conference like the current east is, except Kobe did so in arguably the toughest era of the western conference.

That HAS to count for something right?

[90sgoat]

I'll bump this thread after the playoffs.

Maybe I'll bump the "Is Steph Curry better than MJ" threads too.

[deezerweeze]

Double standards and hypocrisy around here make laugh.

I notice that the biggest Harden stans also happened to be the biggest Nash stans. For a long time they used the impact stats of Nash as proof of his greatness even as his box-score numbers paled in comparison to other stars (and they were right to do so ...) and now they're ignoring Harden's completely disappointing impact numbers across the board (RPM not even top ten, +5.5 on/off ortg, +1.9 on/off overall, team has been better with him on the bench since Dec 1, team offense has been as good with him off the floor since Jan 1, RAPM almost certainly not even top ten in the league, etc etc). Now it's about the box-score...after they spent years stressing how foolish it is judge players on the box-score. Meanwhile the guy they hate lags behind in the box-score but doesn't just beat Harden in all the impact stats across the board...he completely obliterates him, but I guess that don't matter anymore. Do these people not see their blatant hypocrisy. Funny stuff.

All this nonsense about Harden's higher IQ, "feel", "vision" and all the other vague, nebulous, armchair psychologist crap that Harden stans like to go on about (with nothing to back it up) and yet peak Kobe was having more offensive impact. All this nonsense about Harden being better at playing "the team game" and "higher B-Ball IQ" and being a "far" better passer and yet it's Bryant who was the greater history of making teammates better statistically and it' Bryant who has the history of great synergy with other stars and it's Bryant who is ahead in all impact metrics offensively. Oh, and now it's OK to use the eye test. Hilarious.

[Doctor MJ]

The whole reason a "stats person" uses "advanced stats" is because they recognize how problematic it is to do things like judge players by counting rings. Debating Kobe is sometimes something of a nightmare, but it has little to do with Kobe as a player and everything to do with what Kobe's fans tend to fixate on and how prone they are to belittle other perspectives.

There's a pull that Kobe has on a good chunk of people. Powerful. It's really quite fascinating.

I know a drummer who idolizes Kobe and it's inspired him to have an insane work ethic. That's really something, and I think there's a little of that inspiration in all of Kobe's biggest fans, and I think that makes people vicious when someone comes along that threatens to pop that bubble.

I personally don't want to kill that feeling of inspiration people have, but the conflict tends to be inevitable when I just call things as I see them.

I understand the skepticism that his critics (not you) have. We have perhaps the most talented bad shot maker in history, a prototype of a player whom even I would say is not who you would typically want to build your team around (volume scoring wing). I think of Kobe in the same way as Lebron, in that if you put either of them on a team like the current Warriors or Spurs, their talents wouldnt be maximized quite as much.

However, we can't always just play the card "oh its because he had all star bigs that others never did". Kobe also never had the 3 point spacing afford to Harden this year, nor did he ever have the consistent coaching from his rookie season all the way to retirement like Duncan did. Results matter.

Its problematic to judge by rings only if we're talking about a fringe player, but Kobe has had a major hand in all 5 of his championships and was at the very least a 1a option on 4 of these teams! Do you remember who closed out game 4 of the 2000 Finals? Game 7 of the 2000 WCF? That Pau disappeared for the majority of games 3-5 of the 2010 Finals on the road?

Do you really believe 2008 Kobe was him at his best? Or just him at the tail end of his prime but the best team he had from 2003-2008? Would we look at him differently if his 2006 self had the supporting cast he had in 2008-2010?

We're watching Westbrook put up historic numbers (similar to 2006 Kobe) on a 45-50 win team, yet Westbrook is being championed at the very least as the co-leader in MVP talk along with Harden?

Was the rest of the league drunk when Kobe was widely regarded as the best player in the world from 2006-2008 at the very least, if not until 2010? Realgm as a whole is going against the grain quite significantly from conventional wisdom. I understand this is the PC board and that is why we're having this discussion, but man some of the threads started by Q and others would make me think we're talking about some ordinary HOF player who got lucky with 7 Finals appearances in a Mickey Mouse conference like the current east is, except Kobe did so in arguably the toughest era of the western conference.

That HAS to count for something right?

I don't think there's anything weird about suggesting that a player's decrease in volume stats as his team got better might just be about him adapting to his team and I don't think there's anything weird about suggesting that a player's best year might have occurred at age 29 rather than 27, particularly when the player's game is so geared toward making tough shots. I think you can have an argument for either year, but I do think the latter is more how you play if you've got enough talent along side you to seriously contend for a title.

You do have some good insight here, but when you actually try to defend ring counting as focusing on results you lose me. Of course I factor in the success a player contributes to, the point is always that using too coarse a measure at this leads to the issues that painting in broad strokes does in every area of human experience.

The game of basketball requires more nuance than this to be properly understood.

Re: Westbrook, but not Kobe? I think you're misunderstanding the situation. Westbrook is the new Kobe. You're not going to find that many people who have concerns with Kobe that don't also have concerns about Westbrook.

Re: some ordinary HOFer. The hyperbole you expresses matches the frustration you feel because of the emotional investment Kobe induces. Definitely not something an ordinary HOFer can do.

[Doctor MJ]

Double standards and hypocrisy around here make laugh.

I notice that the biggest Harden stans also happened to be the biggest Nash stans. For a long time they used the impact stats of Nash as proof of his greatness even as his box-score numbers paled in comparison to other stars (and they were right to do so ...) and now they're ignoring Harden's completely disappointing impact numbers across the board (RPM not even top ten, +5.5 on/off ortg, +1.9 on/off overall, team has been better with him on the bench since Dec 1, team offense has been as good with him off the floor since Jan 1, RAPM almost certainly not even top ten in the league, etc etc). Now it's about the box-score...after they spent years stressing how foolish it is judge players on the box-score. Meanwhile the guy they hate lags behind in the box-score but doesn't just beat Harden in all the impact stats across the board...he completely obliterates him, but I guess that don't matter anymore. Do these people not see their blatant hypocrisy. Funny stuff.

All this nonsense about Harden's higher IQ, "feel", "vision" and all the other vague, nebulous, armchair psychologist crap that Harden stans like to go on about (with nothing to back it up) and yet peak Kobe was having more offensive impact. All this nonsense about Harden being better at playing "the team game" and "higher B-Ball IQ" and being a "far" better passer and yet it's Bryant who was the greater history of making teammates better statistically and it' Bryant who has the history of great synergy with other stars and it's Bryant who is ahead in all impact metrics offensively. Oh, and now it's OK to use the eye test. Hilarious.

I think you'd gain far more insight if you tried to understand others by the what lies in common between things they value similarly rather than fixating on differences in particular attributes. Even if there is some form of hypocrisy involved in rationalizing these differences, surely the commonalities tell the more noteworthy story.

[deezerweeze]

There is far more than just some hypocrisy involved, and the commonalities aren't really there at all. You certainly want them to be... you and your fellow Harden supporters would certainly look a lot less hypocritical if they were, but they're not.

[andrewww]

I don't think there's anything weird about suggesting that a player's decrease in volume stats as his team got better might just be about him adapting to his team and I don't think there's anything weird about suggesting that a player's best year might have occurred at age 29 rather than 27, particularly when the player's game is so geared toward making tough shots. I think you can have an argument for either year, but I do think the latter is more how you play if you've got enough talent along side you to seriously contend for a title.

You do have some good insight here, but when you actually try to defend ring counting as focusing on results you lose me. Of course I factor in the success a player contributes to, the point is always that using too coarse a measure at this leads to the issues that painting in broad strokes does in every area of human experience.

The game of basketball requires more nuance than this to be properly understood.

Re: Westbrook, but not Kobe? I think you're misunderstanding the situation. Westbrook is the new Kobe. You're not going to find that many people who have concerns with Kobe that don't also have concerns about Westbrook.

Re: some ordinary HOFer. The hyperbole you expresses matches the frustration you feel because of the emotional investment Kobe induces. Definitely not something an ordinary HOFer can do.

At a certain point, understanding the game of basketball is something even advance stats dont capture.

For example, while statistically the former OKC trio of Westbrook/Harden/KD are every bit in the discussion with Kobe, its hard to convince me they're better and I think while I come across as a passionate Kobe fan, shocking as it may seem I genuinely believe I take the bias or emotional side of things out of comparisons moreso than many that post here.

In the playoffs in the halfcourt, none of these 3 are as impactful offensively as Kobe. Make Harden take the midrange 2 since we all know is he either at the rim or shooting 3s. In the RS this can lead to astronomical stats but a one trick pony like Houston against the wrong matchup can and will be majorly exposed imo. This is where diversity in your offensive arsenal shows its value and I'm not sure theres a stat out there that captures this aspect.

There's a lot of more to support Kobe's greatness than there is to refute that. This is where the results part almost acts as an enigma for those arguing down Bean. You point out advance stats, perceived impact stats, etc. But if you look at just scoring, offensive technical ability, rings, scoring binges, offensive gravity... Kobe is one of a select few that are amongst the best ever at these traits.

One can also strongly deduce that if you give someone with as complete skillset as Kobe, that being in his peak 2006 physical condition to sustain carrying the team for the entire RS with a supporting cast like 2008-2010 would also equal a much higher "peak" than where he ranks 23rd on the realgm board. Were there really 22 other players with a higher "peak" than Kobe? Its very difficult to convince me that someone like TMac or Wade in Kobe's shoes would have put up better results, when they both had more obvious weak points in their game to exploit by playoff defenses. And the results support that. Why then would we base our opinion where the only thing holding that general perception back are advance stats?

EDIT: Was TMac really in THAT much of a worse situation than Kobe to never have even made it past the 1st round while the other had more FInals appearances in a tougher conference than TMac had in playoff series wins?

Kobe has his faults just as any other ATG does, but for whatever reason Kobe has this undeserved reputation of a chucker that got lucky and his faults are magnified and exaggerated so much more than most players!

[Rerisen]

Harden goes for the efficient score areas, paint, FT, volume 3s.

Kobe took a lot of long tough 2s.

The ranges Kobe has Harden beat % wise, is 3-10, 10-16, and 16-23, and Kobe spent much of each game displaying his arsenal in these areas, which leaves a big mental impression, but ultimately, mid-range shots just aren't that great.

So IDK if its necessarily more talent, as just talent in more meaningful, bigger payoff, areas.

I think the progression of the game, and Houston building a team on the leading edge of that, also helps Harden's numbers. Put him back on some of those LA teams, even him having to dump it into Shaq most of the game, Harden might not put up the same crazy all around numbers.

This doesn't make sense. Harden is not simply doing what one does nowadays, he's the FACE of playing like this, and he always has been back to his time at OKC when people thought he couldn't possibly do this while volume scoring. You're essentially saying "I'd like to see Harden put up these numbers if he wasn't consistently outsmarting the defense playing with an approach we've never seen before."

No that's not what I'm saying.

The first part was a compliment to Harden, not a criticism. The second was a caveat. It was a nuance position.

I don't think Harden averages 29.4, 11.2 and 8.1 on a team with Shaq do you?

Harden needs the paint area clear to work his magic, that's not going to happen with Shaq camping down there 37 minutes. So yes, he has a unique style and a team that is built in an excellent fashion to maximize it, these factors work in concert.

Let's not get confused that this means Kobe would do what Harden now is if he was only brought forward in his career 5-7 years, nor even if a whole team was built around him. Kobe had a stubborn mentality, and I doubt would play much different today than he did in his prime. (Now what if Kobe didn't force such tough shots, was a more willing passer, and less prone to almost craving the me-against-the-world challenge of hero ball situations. What if in effect, he played with a mindset more like Harden, interesting to think about).

So, the thread question is about who had more talent, not who is better, or more effective. I'm not really sure the talent question has a clear answer, because I don't think Kobe maximally applied his talent. What is clear, is Harden plays a smarter, much more efficient game, at least offensively.

[deezerweeze]

So he supposedly plays a smarter, much more efficient game offensively yet every single offensive impact metric has him lagging behind peak Bryant and his team has been just as good offensively with him on the bench for three months. Good one.

And the Harden guys apparently don't seem to understand that turnovers are part of offensive efficiency. Harden's 118 (about +9 relative to league-average) is very barely better than what Bryant was doing at his offensive peak (about +8)

Much more efficient? Nah.

[deezerweeze]

Also i like the double standard on on-off and related. When Kobe is involved it suddenly loses credibility, whereas when kg is involved it becomes the holy verb.

That's what I'm saying. Doc MJ and others of his ilk having been sprouting this stuff for who knows how long (mainly to prop up guys like Nash and KG), but when Kobe completely obliterates one their one of their favorites across the board in all the impact metrics, well, suddenly they don't matter. It's hilarious.