MO12msu wrote:E-Balla wrote:MO12msu wrote:How do you know what I see hasn't dictated my opinion? Pretty weak to act like I've come to my conclusions without watching games and doing my own research.
Here's my Harden clearly top of the league argument: He leads the league in all those major boxscore measures that I understand you don't care about in addition to being in the top tier in the league in the on-off metrics as well. The offense that he is the main conductor of is putting up literally GOAT level numbers and it is entirely predicated on him destroying people in iso situations with amazing spacing.
The team that he is leading is proving to be a viable threat to maybe the greatest collection of talent in NBA history.
Harden versus Oladipo: In addition to everything above, Harden is way more efficient. Both are putting up impressive on-off metrics, but I'd argue it's harder to post those kind of on-off numbers when Chris Paul is you're back up point guard and the team is performing at +8-9 SRS level. That's not to say Oladipo is impressive, but it shows that what Harden is doing is more impressive because it's on a greater scale for a team with higher goals which should probably count for something in itself.
I'd argue that Harden is a significantly better playmaker and shooter than Oladipo and the basic numbers bare that out. In addition to the constant pressure that Harden's ability to draw fouls puts on the defense. Offensively I don't think it's all that close really. And I don't think Oladipo makes a big enough defensive impact to close the gap in any way that is substantial.
Still waiting of the Westbrook over Harden argument.
None of that sounded like an argument for Harden over the pack when almost everything you said applies to Chris Paul. That sounded like an argument for why Harden is in contention which is why like I said he's close as hell to Giannis to me.
I want to hear what makes him so much better than everyone else that its a travesty to not have him at 1?
And I care about how the team plays with the player on the floor not off. Oladipo has Indy playing at a +7.5 level with him on the floor and their 104.4 DRTG with Dipo would rate 2nd in the league if they played like that without him and he's their best defender by far (he's in the 91.3rd percentile of iso defenders and the 87.7th percentile of PNR defenders). Westbrook prior to Roberson's injury had OKC playing at a +7.4 level with him on the floor (now its down to +5.4) and OKC was playing great on both ends of the floor. Neither of them have Chris Paul, who is another legitimate top 5 level player. That's a legitimate knock against Harden in comparison to the others. Houston is 11-7 (+4.9) when CP3 is out and Harden has played every game CP3 missed. 18 games isn't a small sample either and his supporting cast is still very good without CP3.
Now he still averaged 33.8/5.3/10.3 on 62.9 TS% without CP3 so it's not like I'm saying he relies on CP3 for his own production. I'm saying that his team is so great because there's another player that's just as good as he is on the team.
Good points.
The thing that separates Harden from Paul for me is the load that Harden carries; more usage, more games played, Paul's minutes as the lead orchestrator are against more bench orientated lineups compared to Harden. CP is my favorite player all time, but at this stage of his career(or really any stage post 08) I don't think Paul could handle the load that Harden carries at all for a season.
I never said it was a travesty to not have Harden #1 but I did want to understand the thought process behind not even naming the consensus #1 in your original post at all.
The Westbrook stuff just tells me how important Roberson was to the team, which doesn't surprise me because I thought he was a legit DPOY candidate this season.
And I don't think it's fair to show Oladipo and Westbrook's net ratings with them on the floor and then compare how Harden's entire team did in an 18 game sample size without CP3. Why not just use Harden's net rating without CP3 for the whole year?
I originally looked those numbers up but NBAWOWY is on the fritz and sending wonky and obviously wrong lineup data for Houston. It puts him at a +9 overall without CP3 but it also puts Houston at a 119.9 ORTG without Harden on the floor (bball ref has them at an estimated 111.3). Those numbers are way too off to be trusted and I know the bball ref numbers are obviously closer to the real ones.
