XxIronChainzxX wrote:ken6199 wrote:BNM wrote:Who is more overrated? Kyle Kuzma, by himself, by Laker fans and by casual fans who only look at scoring average and not efficiency, his weak rebounding and non-existent defense.
Aldridge had a great season in 2017-18 (7th in RPM and 5th in RPM/Wins), when Kawhi decided to take a 72 game + playoffs paid vacation. He slipped a little bit last season, but was still solid. He may shoot a lot of mid-range jumpers, but his 2FG% and TS% are still above league average (.528 and .579).
Kuzma is not being overrated, because the majority don't rate him as high as that 3rd star in LA. He is just an average efficiency player who outlasted Ball and Ingram because he is the worst of the three and on a minimum impact contract. Kuzma also started to talk a lot lately which gives the wrong impression of overrating, but it's more him highly rating himself as well as showing an outburst of confidence.
Kawhi on the other hand is really getting overrated here. There are Kawhi vs MJ talks. Talks about him being the best player in the league. The guy was 5-6 spots away from KD a year ago now after an impressive post season run, people forgot all KD did in his career and start saying Kawhi has had a better career than KD so far and he is better than all those MVPs below him who all have 1 or 2 skills better than him with better health and endurance.
The guy was 5-6 spots from KD because people forgot how good he was. In 2016-2017 he was an absolute monster and deserved MVP. Obviously some of the stanning has gotten out of control but I think his peak is right there with KD. His body isn't and that's the difference (well, that and it took him a while to really get there).
It just bugs you there's another guy out there's who's a concensus better player than Harden.
(P.S. that was a joke. I'm aware were debating the merits).
Joke or not it's all cool.
Looking back on 16-17 he was certainly underrated (I got first hand experience in the West semi-finals). If it wasn't for Zaza, maybe he would have gone on to achieve bigger things. MVP wise, its Harden vs Westbrook - gap - Kawhi - gap - Lebron as properly reflected by the voting total. I wouldn't say Kawhi deserved MVP that year.
I firmly believe Harden > Kawhi but that's not the point here. Curry, Giannis, (healthy) KD all better than Kawhi. Being available is a big part of how good a player is, you can look at Kawhi's past 3 years and Harden's, well, entire career so far. I look at Chris Paul right now as a top 40 player, but if we give him health, the guy is easily a top 20 player with his skill level. Durability is a big deal. You throw 40% usage on Kawhi and play him 35mpg, dude's body starts to break down and he can forget about championships and FMVPs. You cannot possibly give that best player title to a guy who has questionable health.
Even a healthy Kawhi has a big hole in his game - passing. You guys accuse Harden for not defending, passing is equally a dominant facet of a player's game. You remove those creators on the Raptors team, or Spurs system, Kawhi's game is going to get ugly. You remove every single creators around Harden, he still takes his team to the playoff with a one man force, in the West. But of course I doubt people take this into the equation of Harden vs Kawhi.
