Quotatious wrote:tong po wrote:When it comes to production-related numbers, Harden clearly wins, but production-based stats, even advanced ones, simply do not give a good measure of Nash's impact in Phoenix. +/- related stats from back then always have Nash around the top, which I think is a better representation of his impact. Without Nash, Phoenix would always turn into complete trash in a way I haven't seen shown in any stats other than that and pure wins/losses.
Harden's offensive impact last year actually seems to be higher than Nash's in 2006 based on on/off court differential.
Make no mistake about it, Houston would've been a mediocre team without Harden last season, just like the Suns would've been mediocre without Nash in 2006. Harden's best teammate missed exactly 50% of the 2014-15 regular season, Nash's best teammate (I mean Marion) missed only one game, so Nash's supporting cast was still probably better than Harden's, even with Amare out for a season, yet Harden still led his team to two more wins.
I'd probably take Harden here.
Oh, and Marion was great when he played with Marbury in 2003, too (and Marbury was hardly a pass first, genius level IQ orchestrator like Nash).
This is a really great topic, and part of the reason it's fascinating to discuss is that the version of James Harden we saw in OKC was actually a "pass-first, genius level orchestrator"; when Harden was brought up as a prospect, it was mostly his playmaking that people were excited about. OKC's ORTG with Harden on court in 2012 is literally higher than they've ever reached since, even with peak Durant (2014) peak WB (2015) or slightly inferior versions of both (2013). Harden quite simply made enormously disproportionate impact for his role and usage, and that's IMO one of the marks of a genius-level IQ for me.
Now the thing is Harden is a completely different player now. He relentlessly spams isolations and pick and roll and basically serves as the alpha and omega of his team's offense. It's cool that he can do that, and actually this versatility is a big edge he has over Nash. The problem, for me, is that the ceiling of this approach is exactly what happened: a team that outperforms it's expectations, but is not that serious a threat. Harden still shows glimpses of insane passing vision, and his scoring is so polished at this point that he's able to provide obscene offensive lift as we saw this year (seriously, he was one of the best ever).
So for me the big question is how Harden combines the two versions of himself going forward. Nash found a balance in 2006 where he tilted more heavily toward the scoring side, and he's basically infinitely portable with the ability to scale back his scoring more and more the more talent he plays with. If Harden can do the same, I'll take him as an offensive player over Nash simply due to having more options and styles of play that his superior scoring enables. If he's never able to show true genius-level playmaking again, though, hard not to take Nash.
