Who's higher all-time: Kawhi or Harden?

[bovice]

how many playoff series did harden lose than he should have won and how does that compare to other stars in the 2010s

2012 against the Heat.
2014 against the Trailblazers.
2021 against the Bucks.
2022 against the Heat.

2017 he wasn’t supposed to win, but got outplayed by Kawhi.

That’s kind of a lot. That’s more than Lebron, Durant, Curry, or Kawhi, who are players from the 2010s ranked ahead of Harden.

harden was the 3rd option on a young okc team in 2012 vs the heatles who were experienced and favored to win that series lol
#4 vs #5 seed in 2014 vs the trailblazers. blazers had better talent and more chemistry, but sure harden shot 38% and lost so i'll give u this one
2021 dude had an injured hamstring, missed games, and played injured when it came back, cmon...
2022 vs heat i mean that's embiid's team and he was out for 2 games. he willed the team a handful of games to even make it a series.

some of these examples are so disingenuous.

tatum lost the heat twice (embarassingly) when favored and warriors in the finals. kobe lost to the mavericks in 2011 and got swept by utah in 1999 jus off the top of my head.

harden carried a lot of teams to places they had no business being and has had great performances. you can only go so far as the talent you have. look at what curry has done in the last 3 years. he cant even make it past the play-in yet we don't view him as a playoff choker.

[runtmc]

Kawhi had the best scoring, best player playoffs run since MJ and matched only by peak Lebron 2018 playoffs. Those are historical facts. You can't take away his FMVP and give it some dude in Houston. Injuries is the only reason Kawhi can be compared to someone like Harden.

Sorry, what now? Im assuming you're talking about 2019 since you mentioned FMVP, but its not remotely the best scoring or best playoff run since MJ. His 2019 playoffs ranks as the 25th highest ppg in the playoffs -- of the last 10 years, let alone since MJ. He had the 14th best NBA finals ppg average -- again of the last 10 years. Heck, Curry averaged more in those finals than Kawhi, and that was just in the same series. While were at it, Jokic 2 seasons ago had a much better playoff run -- 30/14/10 on 63% TS, 31 PER, .305 WS/48, vs Kawhi's 31/9/4 on 62% TS, 28 PER, .254 WS/48. Jokic also went 16-4 vs Kawhi's 16-8, with a much worse supporting cast than Kawhi (Murray/Gordon/KCP/MPJ vs Lowry/Gasol/Siakam/Ibaka/VanVleet).

As far as a comparison, Harden wins going away in my book. Harden won an MVP, Kawhi never has. Harden finished in the top 3 of MVP voting 5 times, Kawhi 2 times. Harden has as many 1st team All-NBA selections as Kawhi has All-Star selections, and twice as many 1st team selections -- 6 to 3.

If you compare career numbers, its not even remotely close -- Harden has a career VORP of 82, 170.3 WS, and so on, while Kawhi has a career 48.6 VORP and 99.8 WS. Harden's best attribute was his scoring volume + efficiency. People talk about TS%, but actually, TS added is a better representative of a player's value his shooting brings since it incorporates volume *and* efficiency. Harden had 9 straight seasons of 200+ TS added, Kawhi has zero (for comparison Lebron only ever had 3 in a row, MJ had 4, even Kareem only had 8 in a row). Harden is seriously slept on in terms of how good he was, and how valuable his offense was.

But even comparing them by peak, Harden has a higher peak WS, WS/48, PER, VORP, BPM, etc. Harden lead the league in WS 5 times, WS/48 once, VORP 3 times, BPM 2 times, PER once, scoring 3 times, etc etc. Kawhi has lead the league in *any* of those categories... never. And yes, Kawhi was a much better defender, but several of those account for defense and Harden has a higher peak in every single one.

At best -- at best -- you could say Kawhi has an argument to just barely edge out Harden for peak (I still would say the evidence says Harden has a better peak), but theyre not even in the same class on a career level.

[KG Leonard]

Of course career wise, regular season wise Kawhi will look worse. He has missed 2017 season, 2020-2024 he barely played any games. Thats many peak years lost to injuries.

I couldn't careless about advanced stats comparison since most of us who take Kawhi before Harden is saying playoffs, peak wise Kawhi was closer to Lebron and he was never being compared to someone who kept losing with better teams.

It is more tragic fall of injuries that he didn't win another title/go to the finals and he fell down the all-time list to standards of Harden types.....

[NBA_is_cringe]

harden is horrible

[CodeBreaker]

Damn, this thread feels relevant to what the Clippers are doing right now

[Jta444]

Kawhi was the best player in the NBA for a couple of seasons and was the reason the Raptors won a chip. Clearly his peak is above Harden's. As far as career, I still think he has Harden beat since when healthy, Kawhi was considered one of the top 3-5 two-way players in the NBA and he's got multiple rings where Harden has zero and never played defense.

When has Kawhi ever been mentioned as the best player in the NBA? He was the best player in the NBA during that playoff run with Raps.

Never ever heard Kawhi being mentioned as the best player. One of the best sure but he's clearly been overshadowed by a bunch of players.

2019 he was the best for sure. The year he beat Curry. The year Lebron missed the playoffs.

After that it was the Giannis era. Most people would think 2020 was Lebron, but he had a prime Anthony Davis who was a top 3 player that year. If you gave Giannis and Kawhi an AD they would easily win the championship too. 2020 was a giftwrapped championship in bubble packaging the soonest Lebron recruited AD.

2018 - Lebron
2019 - Kawhi
2020-2021 - Giannis
2022 - Curry/Jokic
2023-now - Jokic

[Hobo4President]

Kawhi 100%. He's a better basketball player than Harden AND he has better accolades.

[kaansunman]

On paper it seems Harden because normal season is getting less important ever year in today's NBA. All the statistics, awards, nominations mean something of course. It means you are top 5-10 player of the league. But when you are going for greatness rings matter. 2 Rings, 2 Finals MVPs. 2019 Kawhi is one of the top greatest performances of all time. Harden never reached that point.

[ProcessDoctor]

This is a fun and close comparison. I have them in the same tier with all major regular season and postseason accomplishments considered. For all the things Kawhi has done better in the playoffs, Harden has been consistently available at a high level.

I have Harden 29th and Kawhi 33rd all-time. Some context for reference:

28. Schayes
29. Harden
30. Barkley
31. Wade
32. Barry
33. Kawhi
34. Baylor

Edit: didn't have my list in front of me. Adjusted the guys between Harden/Kawhi.

[MrPainfulTruth]

Harden is a disgusting flopper. Take the calls and free throws away and he is very much a normal player. Kawhi is an absolute machine on both ends. Prime Kawhi was among the best defensive players in the entire league, where was prime Harden?

Its honestly puzzling this is even a question.

[LarsV8]

Obviously Harden.

[scrabbarista]

This is a fun and close comparison. I have them in the same tier with all things considered. For all the things Kawhi has done better in the playoffs, Harden has been consistently available at a high level. I have Harden 29th and Kawhi 33rd all-time. Some context for reference.

28. Schayes
29. Harden
30. Barry
31. Barkley
32. Wade
33. Kawhi
34. Baylor

Yeah, I'm not at home, so I don't have my list, but it's like Harden 27th and Leonard 29th or something like that.