James Harden is a superstar

[Doctor MJ]

harden has such a trash game.... he relies on the refs to send him to the line with all his flopping and flailing and herky jerky crap. which is why in the playoffs he wont be the same... last year against the heat he didnt get those calls and completely disappeared. he is a good player, but not a star, and his success relies too much on the officials

Yes because we never see foul-drawing ability be useful in the playoffs...

[Doctor MJ]

Harden's on/off net is -2.1 this season. Both offense and defense are better with him on the bench. Any explanation?

It's definitely a good question to ask. Not that we should jump on the on/off quickly if there's no explanation, but it definitely warrants analysis. Wish we hadn't suffered a loss of APM data.

I tread very cautiously here in particular because Harden had such good numbers in OKC.

year place (RAPM)
2010 109th (+0.3)
2011 96th (+0.9)
2012 35th (+3.0)

So except of last year he wasn't anything special. And his very good result (but not superstar like) in 2012 was mainly because of unreal efficiency (.660 TS%, including .390 from 3P land).

DS, I feel like I'm so often just perplexed by your use of stats.

If I knew nothing about Harden, I suppose I'd look at this and say "Hmm, maybe 2012 was a fluke?". However I know something about Harden - as do all of us here - and so I know that Harden in his first 2 years was nothing like Harden in his last two years. If you want to just come out and say "Just because he had good +/- last year in a different role doesn't mean we should assume that carries over to this role" I get that, but I'm often feeling like you're trying to put one over on people the way you phrase things.

The efficiency comment is just bizarre. "mainly because of unreal efficiency"? Um, how would you know that? What gives you confidence to assert cause in this correlation statistic? Are you not aware that generally speaking, Harden's efficiency this year is far more noteworthy than last year because of the fact it's done with volume.

[
On the other hand bench is excellent from 3P range (40.1% with 12.4 FGM per 48), less TOV prone and plays better defense.

My thought here is what others have already said:

Houston's offense with Harden is quite good. Your skepticism here are based entirely on the fact that Houston's numbers when Harden leaves the floor are better than you'd expect. It's fine to factor that in - I do to - but do you really think Houston would have the 4th best offense in the league sans Harden?

This is the type of thing you need to watch out for when using +/- stats. I've seen some other people here mention small sample size, and I think you quite rightly pointed out that the sample size really isn't that small, but mentioning sample size shouldn't be something where we either accept the data blindly or dismiss it entirely.

There is enough data here to tell us that Harden's impact on the Rockets is not the night & day stuff we see from the very biggest of impacts. There is not enough data here to tell us with great confidence what the Harden-less Rockets would look like.

Back when I was smacking AI homers a half dozen years ago, the issue wasn't simply that the team didn't actually fall apart without him, it was that the offense AI was leading wasn't actually any good. That combination was what was so lethal, as it meant that I could rightfully say "Hey, I'm not saying Philly's offense would be great without AI, but they aren't good now, and there's no evidence to think they'd be by far the worst in the land without him."

With Harden, quite literally the offense works with him. Fine to talk about how others should share in the credit, but nothing changes the fact that Houston has themselves a quite good offense with Harden doing the heavy lifting. If he were really screwing everyone else up, we'd expect that not to be possible.

[
So for me it looks like Harden is overrated right now. His box score numbers are inflated by pace (Rockets are by far the fastest team in the NBA) and style of play (pro offensive). He struggles with his new role taking a lot of bad shots (especially from long range), turns the ball over a lot and is unable to play good defense and good offense at the same time. Definitely player, who could be superstar in the future, but doesn't play like one right now.

This whole "bad shot" thing with his volume/efficiency is crazy. That's just not anything close to a reasonable statement. Not saying he doesn't ever take bad shots, but his selection of shots is leading to him having a legendary volume/efficiency combo. That in and of itself doesn't make Harden a legendarily good offensive player, but statements relating to his turnovers and defense would be something people would agree with you on if you're weren't combining it with other stuff that leaves people just scratching their heads.

Someone alleged that you have an agenda. I don't think that's really the case, but with some of these statements I wouldn't know how to defend your objectivity. On the whole, I just think you're running with some data prematurely, and then filling the argument around that. So you see Harden take a bad shot, and it becomes part of the evidence for what you see the data saying despite the fact your observation is anecdotal.

[Doctor MJ]

So was Kevin Love a superstar 2 years ago?
He had a much worse supporting cast than Harden has and was putting up arguable better numbers.

I'd say at this point Harden is clearly at the superstar level whereas Love was still questionable, and really still is, and the team results are the difference. Notice I said "questionable", the lack of team results don't make Love clearly unworthy, but there remain doubts until you see a guy keep doing his thing with a team that's actually kicking ass.

That said, one of the most salient features of Love's game has always been his ability to be aggressively one step of ahead of others. My eyebrows arch high whenever anyone implies that a guy who gets his game on with guile is creating empty numbers.

[tsherkin]

Love is a very good player offensively, but when you ask him to actively create, that's where his game noticeably breaks down. He really does most of his work the way people tried to say Dwight does, working his most effective sets out of offensive rebounds and other hustle points. He's been a pretty mediocre iso post scorer, for example, since he started becoming more of a focal player and last year aside, he actually doesn't generate a TON of shots right at the rim.... where he's actually been a poor finisher...

For a guard, let alone a big man.

He also has nothing resembling a quality mid-range shot and a tepid-to-mediocre perimeter 2. He does his business at the line and from three.

Kevin Love isn't a good anchor for an offense, and that's something that we see with his comparatively unimpressive offensive impact numbers (all your standard RAPM, with/without and so forth). He did way, WAY better with Rubio running the show and setting him up because he's really not that great and getting it done on his own, raw TS% aside. You watch him play and that's evident enough. He's a really strong #2.

Harden is the exact opposite of that, all of his major impact comes from on-ball action creating for himself and others, which is part of why he has been a more notably large-impact player. Not the extent of the VERY best outlier offensive players in the league, but LBJ and Durant are freaks, so that's not super-surprising.

Love is a solid player, but he's not a #1, that much is evident. I think it's functionally apparent that Harden HAS been a strong #1, and trying to use a smaller with/without sample to suggest that a lineup of Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin, Omer Asik, Pat Pat and Carlos Delfino would be better without him on that basis strikes me as something that doesn't pass the laugh test and is a good example of noise. It does a good job of dampening any Harden-to-LBJ type comparisons, and gives us food for thought going forward, but it would be inanity of the highest order to suggest that the roster has ANY hope of replicating this top-4 ORTG type performance in his absence over any serious length of time.

[JordansBulls]

You think this Harden is as good as 2007 Mcgrady Rockets version?

[Krodis]

Harden is having the 5th best TS% 25 point 5 assist season in NBA history, which would seem more impressive, except LeBron is just crushing everyone.

[Doctor MJ]

Harden is having the 5th best TS% 25 point 5 assist season in NBA history, which would seem more impressive, except LeBron is just crushing everyone.

It's really something that we're seeing all these all-timer level volume/efficiency seasons. Probably worth asking what all is going on.

With Harden it seems very clear that his game is designed with efficiency principles in mind.

With Durant it's at least clear that he's someone more prone to stick to his strengths and that he is aware of efficiency.

With LeBron, he didn't used to be like this (efficient yes, but not this efficient, and full of bad shots), but on a team with other scorers clearly bought in that he needed to make a change, and Spo & co are clearly aware of the data.

To me all of this is telling us that advanced data is having a huge impact at least on how some individual scoring stars are performing. The question will start becoming whether the huge impact of someone like Durant is a freakish anomaly or something that someone like Harden can come to approach just by developing a really smart game (obviously LeBron versatility is freakish and impossible to emulate at all).

[CKRT]

The question will start becoming whether the huge impact of someone like Durant is a freakish anomaly or something that someone like Harden can come to approach just by developing a really smart game

Would you mind explaining this a little bit?


I honestly don't know much about Aaron Brooks. How is he off ball?

Here's the rest of Houston's schedule:

DAL - 3/3
@DAL - 3/6
@GSW - 3/8
@PHX - 3/9
PHX - 3/13
MIN - 3/15
GSW - 3/17
UTH - 3/20
CLE - 3/22
SAS- 3/24
IND - 3/27
@MEM - 3/29
@LAC - 3/30
ORL - 4/1
@SAC - 4/3
@POR - 4/5
@DEN - 4/6
PHX - 4/9
MEM - 4/12
SAC - 4/12
@PHX - 4/15
@LAL - 4/17

Obviously, not a Houston thread here, but it's related to Harden and playoff chances. It'd be pretty damn cool to end the season with LAL and HOU fighting for the 8th seed on the last game of the season. Season series is 2-1 right now. I'm typically pretty bad about the logistics of these things, but I think it could happen!

I think Houston goes 16-6 in this stretch, but I'm being a little cautionary. Optimistically, I think they win 18 games.

[JordansBulls]

Player A: 28.7 points (on 17.0 shots), 6.8 assists, 6.4 rebounds on 52.9/49.3/83.1 shooting.
Player B: 23.9 points (on 17.2 shots), 6.6 assists, 6.7 rebounds on 48.9/27.0/85.2 shooting.

Player B won POM, Player A is Harden in February.

[E-Balla]

It's really something that we're seeing all these all-timer level volume/efficiency seasons. Probably worth asking what all is going on.

There's no interior defense anymore. The league has never been in need of a great big more than this year (theres no 20-10 bigs anymore). Look at the fg% in the paint for perimeter stars. Everyone but Melo is finishing at a career high level. Wade (75% at rim, 43% 3-9, better than any guard ever), Lebron (79% at rim, 61% 3-9, most efficent finisher since 97 by far), KD (76% at rim, 54% 3-9, higher total percentage than anyone but Lebron. Ever.), Kobe (70% at rim, 47% 3-9, more efficent than any guard prior to this season ever) and it keeps going on. When everyone is 65% in the paint they'll be a lot more efficent. Personally I would love the eliminating of the 3 second rule and the hand check. Let defenses stop baskets anyway they can.

[ardee]

It's really something that we're seeing all these all-timer level volume/efficiency seasons. Probably worth asking what all is going on.

There's no interior defense anymore. The league has never been in need of a great big more than this year (theres no 20-10 bigs anymore). Look at the fg% in the paint for perimeter stars. Everyone but Melo is finishing at a career high level. Wade (75% at rim, 43% 3-9, better than any guard ever), Lebron (79% at rim, 61% 3-9, most efficent finisher since 97 by far), KD (76% at rim, 54% 3-9, higher total percentage than anyone but Lebron. Ever.), Kobe (70% at rim, 47% 3-9, more efficent than any guard prior to this season ever) and it keeps going on. When everyone is 65% in the paint they'll be a lot more efficent. Personally I would love the eliminating of the 3 second rule and the hand check. Let defenses stop baskets anyway they can.

So would you prefer a season like '04?

[E-Balla]

It's really something that we're seeing all these all-timer level volume/efficiency seasons. Probably worth asking what all is going on.

There's no interior defense anymore. The league has never been in need of a great big more than this year (theres no 20-10 bigs anymore). Look at the fg% in the paint for perimeter stars. Everyone but Melo is finishing at a career high level. Wade (75% at rim, 43% 3-9, better than any guard ever), Lebron (79% at rim, 61% 3-9, most efficent finisher since 97 by far), KD (76% at rim, 54% 3-9, higher total percentage than anyone but Lebron. Ever.), Kobe (70% at rim, 47% 3-9, more efficent than any guard prior to this season ever) and it keeps going on. When everyone is 65% in the paint they'll be a lot more efficent. Personally I would love the eliminating of the 3 second rule and the hand check. Let defenses stop baskets anyway they can.

So would you prefer a season like '04?

It'll be hard to replicate the horribleness that was 04 for an extended period of time. It'll probably be more like 01-03. Hell 13 isn't much better than 04. Watching great defense is fun. Watching bad defense makes me scream at my TV.

[CBA]

Player A: 28.7 points (on 17.0 shots), 6.8 assists, 6.4 rebounds on 52.9/49.3/83.1 shooting.
Player B: 23.9 points (on 17.2 shots), 6.6 assists, 6.7 rebounds on 48.9/27.0/85.2 shooting.

Player B won POM, Player A is Harden in February.

I figured it would happen, but that's pretty amazing. You could probably find 5 WC players who had without question a better month than Kobe.

[E-Balla]

Player A: 28.7 points (on 17.0 shots), 6.8 assists, 6.4 rebounds on 52.9/49.3/83.1 shooting.
Player B: 23.9 points (on 17.2 shots), 6.6 assists, 6.7 rebounds on 48.9/27.0/85.2 shooting.

Player B won POM, Player A is Harden in February.

I figured it would happen, but that's pretty amazing. You could probably find 5 WC players who had without question a better month than Kobe.

Tony Parker - 26.1/4.0/8.3 on 54% shooting
KD - 24.4/9.2/5.5 on 48.5% shooting (Kobe might've been better idk)
Westbrook - 25.5/3.9/6.1 on 50.3% shooting (in only 32.5 minutes a night )
Griffin - 18.7/9.4/3.6 on 60.3% shooting (in only 32.1 minutes a night)

I would put Harden, Westbrook, and Parker over Kobe this last month.

[Doctor MJ]

It's really something that we're seeing all these all-timer level volume/efficiency seasons. Probably worth asking what all is going on.

There's no interior defense anymore. The league has never been in need of a great big more than this year (theres no 20-10 bigs anymore). Look at the fg% in the paint for perimeter stars. Everyone but Melo is finishing at a career high level. Wade (75% at rim, 43% 3-9, better than any guard ever), Lebron (79% at rim, 61% 3-9, most efficent finisher since 97 by far), KD (76% at rim, 54% 3-9, higher total percentage than anyone but Lebron. Ever.), Kobe (70% at rim, 47% 3-9, more efficent than any guard prior to this season ever) and it keeps going on. When everyone is 65% in the paint they'll be a lot more efficent. Personally I would love the eliminating of the 3 second rule and the hand check. Let defenses stop baskets anyway they can.

Hold on a second though. The league ORtg this year is 105.5. This is a league with more successful defenses than what a prime Michael Jordan ever had to deal with.

This doesn't make your interpretation incorrect. The landscape has shifted, and with that opens up new opportunities. Players skilled at exploiting those opportunities can at times standout all the more compared to their less with-it contemporaries.

[Doctor MJ]

I'll add in a study from Ian Levy (a sometimes RealGM poster, now better known in the blogosphere) on XPPS, which is basically a measure of how smart the shot taking is. Are people taking shots that an average NBAer would be expected to make?

http://www.hardwoodparoxysm.com/2013/03 ... al-trends/

Below is an image from the articles (which doesn't display that well to be honest). What it says is that teams are taking shots from far smarter locations than they used to, and that if you adjust for this, the edge over the pre-handcheck rule era pretty much goes away.



Granted rules can make it easier to get to those easier shots, but I don't think there's any doubt that there's been a conscientious push from teams to attack defenses with these type of shots in mind in recent years.

As a scorer, no one embodies this more than Harden. His ratio of "good" shots to "bad" shots from a XPPS perspective is so damn good that many assumed he couldn't pull it off as a volume scorer before this year...and many still insist it can't be done in the playoffs.

For me, I'll make a statement in the other direction: If Harden was NOT capable of getting these good shots, clearly he would not be as noteworthy of a scorer as others. The question now becomes how far he can go with it. Can he approach Durant levels of impact? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to seeing what comes.

[Doctor MJ]

The question will start becoming whether the huge impact of someone like Durant is a freakish anomaly or something that someone like Harden can come to approach just by developing a really smart game

Would you mind explaining this a little bit?

I honestly don't know much about Aaron Brooks. How is he off ball?

Let me know if what I've posted in the last two posts doesn't answer the first question here. Be a bit more specific if you could.

I also don't know why you're asking me about Brooks.

[CKRT]

The question will start becoming whether the huge impact of someone like Durant is a freakish anomaly or something that someone like Harden can come to approach just by developing a really smart game

Would you mind explaining this a little bit?

I honestly don't know much about Aaron Brooks. How is he off ball?

Let me know if what I've posted in the last two posts doesn't answer the first question here. Be a bit more specific if you could.

I also don't know why you're asking me about Brooks.

Haha. I wasn't. I tried to put enough space to make it an entirely separate thought.

It was enough! I thought you meant that Harden is only doing what he's doin because he's emulating another player and that any player could do it. It was throwing me off because I felt like it wa a statement that was entirely unlike you.

[JordansBulls]

Player A: 28.7 points (on 17.0 shots), 6.8 assists, 6.4 rebounds on 52.9/49.3/83.1 shooting.
Player B: 23.9 points (on 17.2 shots), 6.6 assists, 6.7 rebounds on 48.9/27.0/85.2 shooting.

Player B won POM, Player A is Harden in February.

I figured it would happen, but that's pretty amazing. You could probably find 5 WC players who had without question a better month than Kobe.

Tony Parker - 26.1/4.0/8.3 on 54% shooting
KD - 24.4/9.2/5.5 on 48.5% shooting (Kobe might've been better idk)
Westbrook - 25.5/3.9/6.1 on 50.3% shooting (in only 32.5 minutes a night )
Griffin - 18.7/9.4/3.6 on 60.3% shooting (in only 32.1 minutes a night)

I would put Harden, Westbrook, and Parker over Kobe this last month.

I wouldn't give it to Griffin but the others are good candidates.

[ardee]

It'll be hard to replicate the horribleness that was 04 for an extended period of time. It'll probably be more like 01-03. Hell 13 isn't much better than 04. Watching great defense is fun. Watching bad defense makes me scream at my TV.

To each their own I suppose. 120-118 is better than 80-78, most people would agree. '01-'02 were great, '03 I felt was an ugly year, every WC series I've seen not involving the Mavs was a slugfest. I think the best years in terms of watchability has been all of '08-'11, any play resembling that is fine with me.