JimmyFromNz wrote:Pelly24 wrote:JimmyFromNz wrote:
I dont think anyone disagrees with the bolded. It's not the question though.
The question becomes much closer when considering 'starting a team'.
Harden didn't wither away on bad teams, they were purpose built with long perimeter shooters and roll men to complement his skillset. Then in addition Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook (who remained very good players at that point) came and went following cohesion issues. It's the heliocentrism in today's game that we are now starting to resent with players like Trae and Luka.
Yeah I just think this argument is overstated. Harden had a great chance in 2018, but CP3 simply got injured at the worst time, and that was his last truly prime year. He was nearly as unstoppable as he ever was that season but was never the same after. Westbrook in 2019-2020 was a clear shell of 2012-2017 Russ, I never thought he was a threat. But even if he had been, he got injured and never recovered. There's a reason why he hasn't stuck anywhere since leaving OKC. And even then, it's not like they had a legit chance at beating prime LeBron *and* AD in the best run of play he ever had.
Heliocentrism is fine, it's just that you still need a good team. People might resent Luka and Harden, but they're excellent floor-raisers who've also brought teams far without legit All-NBA talent. There's nothing really about Jayson Tatum's game that truly makes him a better lead dog for a championship squad. He's a better defender, but he's a significantly worse scorer and a far worse playmaker. He fits an archetype that's ostensibly great, but then people ignore how loaded his teams have been. Last year he had a DPOY-level defender, a 24-25ppg two-way wing multiple good rim protectors, tertiary scorers and still came up short. The year before he got to the finals and seriously underperformed to a warriors team that wasn't at it's peak. These teams are all a lot better than any Harden had between 2013 and 2017. He would've won a chip or gotten a finals appearance out of these circumstances too. Even 2020-2021 Harden is far better than any Tatum year. Regardless of play style, he gives you a better chance to win. They're just different tiers of player. It's not like LeBron and MJ.
If Tatum had ended up on a bad team or in a bad organization, this wouldn't even be a conversation.
I'm certainly coming at this from a 'less is more perspective'. Mainly because I think its something that should really be considered when we talk about building blocks. Sure on an all time spectrum peak Harden is a higher calibre player, yet on the other hand we are still talking about a two way 1st team all NBA player, not a fringe star.
Heliocentrism unless you have Lebron James, has never translated well, and that's quite a fundamental point for someone whose game has had all the potential to be portable, but clearly has not happened in a meaningful way, barring a very brief run of point play with the Nets which still fizzled rapidly once injured.
2020-21: are you sure that's the year you're thinking? I don't see the debate for post Houston Harden being a better player than the current version of Jayson Tatum. There isn't at least a clear basic or advanced metric argument for it, and the results speak for themselves from a team achievement and personal achievement perspective.
On the final point, Jayson Tatum ended up on a team which recognised it could compete with him and Jaylen Brown i.e. he is what makes that team a contender. They proceeded to build around him in a manner that complements his game, if anything I think that is a positive indication rather than something to be held against him, whilst we have seen Harden across multiple builds and situations and results speak for themselves. Acknowledging the Warriors series was the Houston peak which unfortunately didn't translate due to an untimely injury.
My overarching point throughout the thread is that although I go with peak Harden, when we take a step back there's a good reason the question has been pitched and isn't one to dismiss out of the gate.
I get the idea behind what you're saying, for sure. But I really don't think there's a great argument against heliocentric stuff. Harden and Luka have both been to the conference finals before, and so to me that means there's proof that it can be very successful. It just so happens that they played against substantially better teams. If Luka had had Kyrie Irving instead of Brunson in 2022, maybe they beat the warriors. Or maybe if he had a healthy AD. Brunson was good, but that wasn't a totally maximized squad that capitalized on Luka's abilities, and same with Harden. I think what people miss is that these guys are *so* individually good that they can make any team great to an extent, but still, they'll need to have better teams to win a chip. But they're so good they keep teams good and they maintain the illusion that they have a chance — but they don't. Give Harden a 2023 Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray, an MPJ, a Bruce Brown (the latter he played with in Brooklyn), they probably beat the Heat in 4-6 games (jimmy injured though). Give him Kyrie and Kevin Love and shooters and a Tristan Thompson-like multi positional defender (basically 2017 Cavs roster), they get to the finals pretty easily. But Harden only had one legit All-NBA level guy his time in Houston, and CP3 got injured. Once he was with Brooklyn, we all knew it was pretty much inevitable that they'd win the championship as long as he was healthy. But he just got injured, for once in his career, and Kyrie was being stupid. On that team, he played with two other elite scorers and cutters and good defenders with no problem. I think people just assume heliocentric guys can't play with good talent, but basically every case I've seen of great players teaming up, the result was a big positive and big success. Also from what I've seen, if you don't have one of these transcendent offensive players, you won't win a chip. Just thinking about chips over the years — LeBron, Steph, Giannis, Kobe, Wade, Shaq, Tim Duncan .. if you don't have one of those guys, you're screwed. Harden you could argue isn't one of those guys, but he did win a legit MVP (deservingly) and he had multiple other years that were also MVP caliber. Tatum is great, but he's not one of those guys by any measure, and neither is Jaylen Brown, which I think could be a huge problem; when it's time to look Jokic and Luka, or even Jimmy Butler in the face, they might not have enough because neither of them are singular.
As for 2020-2021 Harden v. Tatum, Tatum is really good, but 2020-2021 was absolutely *dominating* the playoffs before he got injured, and he was dominating in the regular season, too. If he hadn't been so messy, he would have been a viable top 3 candidate for MVP. While sharing the ball quite a bit, he averaged 25 points 8 rebounds and 11 assists on 62 TS% and had a 7.7 bpm and a .22 ws/48. Tatum scored about the same amount of points but on worse efficiency (58 TS%) and had a worse BPM (3.9) and a lower ws/48 (.137), so I don't think he really had a great argument over Tatum that season (I'd actually say the argument flat-out isn't even there). Harden was a top-5 level guy that year, I would have trusted him as much as Giannis or KD that year, and it wasn't clear who was the best player between him and KD.
I've watched Tatum since he was a rookie, and I like his game, but I see him as more of a bottom top 10 in the league type player than a legit MVP type of guy. He's closer to Paul Pierce than he is James Harden, and not coincidentally, Paul Pierce only sniffed a championship/got one once he teamed up with two other top 50 players of all time.
So I think winning basketball, all that is just an outcome-based thing whether people realize it or not. Tatum is no more of a winning player than Harden or Luka. The difference is that Harden and Luka both have finals appearances with the squads Tatum's already had. if you need to put together some crazy elite team with a lot of people that can do a lot of stuff, what's even the point? the chances of you being able to do that are pretty low, so getting one guy that can do a almost everything and get you somewhat close by himself is a big deal.
He always chocked in the Playoffs when the refs let the Players be more physical.