'17-'18 POY discussion

[therealbig3]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

[Joey Wheeler]

All that said, I seriously considered AD over Lebron. I think it's possible that although Lebron was more flashy/spectacular, AD might have been just as good in his own way. And I certainly think the Pelicans would have also got to the Finals in the East, which was historically weak this year even for recent standards.

Not Harden though, his offense just isn't as effective in high leverage situations. He doesn't have the physical presence of a Lebron, who can get anywhere he wants whenever he wants, and is often reduced to taking low % stepback 3s. At the very highest level, the most impactful players are generally those with the physical presence to dictate play and get whatever they want regardless of the defense.

[Ambrose]

I have a feeling i regret dropping lebron to 3 on my POY list, but that hand thing was the last straw for me. Lebron at his best is neck and neck with curry imo for the best player in the league. Curry was hurt so it was lebron. The thing is over the course of the year harden was the better player on average and he was able to get another super star to come play with him. He showed leadership on the court and off. Lebron created so much drama and was inconsistent as it gets. I 100% follow why people are going with Lebron, but the hand thing is just too much for me after the rest of his mess and him just dogging it for over a month of the season.

Maybe it's wrong that I think there will be vets who take less to go play for the rockets and that I factor that into Harden's value, but at this point I wonder how many players are going to want to play with lebron after the allstar break. I've always somewhat been good with giving lebron a pass on things like "the decision" and then leaving the heat after wade signed a deal for them to give them room for lebron to come back with a max contract.

This is such an absurd take. This just sounds like you love Curry and hate LeBron. How is LeBron not at the least the 2nd best player in the league? Curry is not on that level and he never will be. You're comparing players that are on completely different tiers of individual greatness.

Yeah, agreed that's not a very objective sounding post.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Lebron breaking his hand was an idiotic move but he played better than harden did against the warriors with a broken hand

I don’t really buy the arguements defending hardens offensive performance against the warriors, and even if those arguements were valid lebron essentially did some of those things that people are defending harden for to a greater degree

(Such as the turnover and fast break arguements, I would think that Chris Paul would be the main reason for this considering the teams turnover rate went up with harden on the floor throughout the playoffs and Paul was he player who has a reputation of consistently decreasing the turnover rate his entire career. And it went back up whenever Paul was hurt. Regardless, when it comes to stopping fast breaks the warriors had a lower steals rate against the cavs than the rockets. I think he just missed shots honestly, most were harder than before because they were trying to slow the game down. The only thing that has some merit is the three pointers not leading to fast breaks, but that’s hardly enough of an excuse to salvage his performance imo).

[dhsilv2]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

[clyde21]

All that said, I seriously considered AD over Lebron. I think it's possible that although Lebron was more flashy/spectacular, AD might have been just as good in his own way. And I certainly think the Pelicans would have also got to the Finals in the East, which was historically weak this year even for recent standards.

Not Harden though, his offense just isn't as effective in high leverage situations. He doesn't have the physical presence of a Lebron, who can get anywhere he wants whenever he wants, and is often reduced to taking low % stepback 3s. At the very highest level, the most impactful players are generally those with the physical presence to dictate play and get whatever they want regardless of the defense.

I don't think Davis played that well against us honestly. A 48 FG% going against guys like Kevon Looney and Draymond Green isn't gonna cut it for a guy like Davis.

[MyUniBroDavis]

All that said, I seriously considered AD over Lebron. I think it's possible that although Lebron was more flashy/spectacular, AD might have been just as good in his own way. And I certainly think the Pelicans would have also got to the Finals in the East, which was historically weak this year even for recent standards.

Not Harden though, his offense just isn't as effective in high leverage situations. He doesn't have the physical presence of a Lebron, who can get anywhere he wants whenever he wants, and is often reduced to taking low % stepback 3s. At the very highest level, the most impactful players are generally those with the physical presence to dictate play and get whatever they want regardless of the defense.

I don't think Davis played that well against us honestly. A 48 FG% going against guys like Kevon Looney and Draymond Green isn't gonna cut it for a guy like Davis.

Davis wasn’t amazing against you guys but he was being guarded by the best defender in the league when motivated and Durant whose hella good at 1v1 D when the guy can’t overpower him, and he only had really 1 bad shooting game. And beyond that, they could double him half he time or even triple him because or rondo and hill

Davis’s problem will always be that he just doesent assert himself enough. And yes, I know he was basically a 30-10 guy.

[Joey Wheeler]

All that said, I seriously considered AD over Lebron. I think it's possible that although Lebron was more flashy/spectacular, AD might have been just as good in his own way. And I certainly think the Pelicans would have also got to the Finals in the East, which was historically weak this year even for recent standards.

Not Harden though, his offense just isn't as effective in high leverage situations. He doesn't have the physical presence of a Lebron, who can get anywhere he wants whenever he wants, and is often reduced to taking low % stepback 3s. At the very highest level, the most impactful players are generally those with the physical presence to dictate play and get whatever they want regardless of the defense.

I don't think Davis played that well against us honestly. A 48 FG% going against guys like Kevon Looney and Draymond Green isn't gonna cut it for a guy like Davis.

28/15 with 2 blocks and 2 steals, elite defense. And yet I agree that I expected even better, which further shows how crazy good he is. Still, he led the series (for both teams) in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots despite being very well defended by GSW. He ultimately just got beaten by a team with far more talent, would be a different story out East.

[therealbig3]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

LeBron was just a much more consistent offensive force against GS than Harden was, even beyond game 1.

And I'm just not seeing it defensively. I went back and watched a lot of Harden's defense, and for every good defensive play he makes, I can point to at least one equally bad defensive play, if not more. The guy is just an awful off-ball defender, and he's not good enough/gives enough of an effort to really stay with quicker players 1 on 1 on the perimeter. LeBron was easily better defensively, even though he wasn't all that great himself. Part of it is also LeBron playing with a lot of bad defenders while Harden is protected by a lot of good ones.

[therealbig3]

.

Interested in your thought process on ROY, specifically why Simmons doesn't make your top 3? I feel like I'm in the minority in that I have Simmons 3rd on my ROY list, but it always seemed that pretty much everyone has him, Tatum, and Mitchell as their top 3 in some order. Is it that you think really highly of Kuzma, or are you not that impressed with Simmons?

[MyUniBroDavis]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

LeBron was just a much more consistent offensive force against GS than Harden was, even beyond game 1.

And I'm just not seeing it defensively. I went back and watched a lot of Harden's defense, and for every good defensive play he makes, I can point to at least one equally bad defensive play, if not more. The guy is just an awful off-ball defender, and he's not good enough/gives enough of an effort to really stay with quicker players 1 on 1 on the perimeter. LeBron was easily better defensively, even though he wasn't all that great himself. Part of it is also LeBron playing with a lot of bad defenders while Harden is protected by a lot of good ones.

How do you rewatch games?

[dhsilv2]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

LeBron was just a much more consistent offensive force against GS than Harden was, even beyond game 1.

And I'm just not seeing it defensively. I went back and watched a lot of Harden's defense, and for every good defensive play he makes, I can point to at least one equally bad defensive play, if not more. The guy is just an awful off-ball defender, and he's not good enough/gives enough of an effort to really stay with quicker players 1 on 1 on the perimeter. LeBron was easily better defensively, even though he wasn't all that great himself. Part of it is also LeBron playing with a lot of bad defenders while Harden is protected by a lot of good ones.

Agree that lebron's more consistent. Harden had multiple "WOW" first halfs to kind end in "ok please stop that". Though as I have said I think some of this is on the coaches.

I dunno man, I saw some bone headed harden defense at times, but I saw overall a net positive, and he had a lot of huge steals and even blocks in key moments to offset some of his missed rotations that lead to open shots. I have to give Lebron the rebounding which was very important, but otherwise lebron looked just kinda out there. It's fair that harden had better people around him, but at the same time I also picked up multiple times that harden was actually calling the rotations defensively for others. I didn't see lebron doing that. I'm not sure if Harden as the play caller if really the right thing or not, but it felt that way live.

[clyde21]

.

Interested in your thought process on ROY, specifically why Simmons doesn't make your top 3? I feel like I'm in the minority in that I have Simmons 3rd on my ROY list, but it always seemed that pretty much everyone has him, Tatum, and Mitchell as their top 3 in some order. Is it that you think really highly of Kuzma, or are you not that impressed with Simmons?

He had an unbelievable year but I just can't put him in with the rest of the real rookies on these lists. I think that extra year he had in the NBA, even if he didn't play, matters a lot.

[iggymcfrack]

I was looking over some of the posts in the voting thread and thinking "those are too long, everyone's just going to skim over them because it's too much writing. When I make my posts, I'll make my justifications shorter." 2 hours later, I definitely failed on that. Just had too much to say on each individual. It's just so hard to explain your vote in a sentence or two when there are multiple interesting factors in play.

[iggymcfrack]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

Game 1 was the most important game. I don't see why you'd want to exclude that from your analysis. If anything, you should exclude Game 4 as being completely meaningless and double-weight Game 1. If we just do it the less favorable way to LeBron and weight them evenly though, we get:

LeBron: 34/9/10 on .620 TS%, 28.3 Game Score
Harden: 29/6/6 on .538 TS%, 18.6 Game Score

That's a pretty massive edge for LeBron. If you sort the Cleveland and Houston players by Game Score, Harden's closer to 7th (Tucker) than he is to 1st in LeBron.

[Dr Spaceman]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

Game 1 was the most important game. I don't see why you'd want to exclude that from your analysis. If anything, you should exclude Game 4 as being completely meaningless and double-weight Game 1. If we just do it the less favorable way to LeBron and weight them evenly though, we get:

LeBron: 34/9/10 on .620 TS%, 28.3 Game Score
Harden: 29/6/6 on .538 TS%, 18.6 Game Score

That's a pretty massive edge for LeBron. If you sort the Cleveland and Houston players by Game Score, Harden's closer to 7th (Tucker) than he is to 1st in LeBron.

Okay but the actual basketball that was played in both series was completely different. Houston actually came out with a game plan to stop the Warriors defensively, and were willing to let their offense go to achieve that, while Cleveland basically came out trying to outgun them and gave up like a 130 ORTG. The defensive intensity faced by the two guys could not be more opposite.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Feel like people are trying way too hard to try and convince themselves about Harden, maybe because they were on the Harden bandwagon all year, idk. In the playoffs, Harden got outclassed by LeBron, and it wasn't close whatsoever. LeBron is just the significantly better player.

What's even more evidence is that we saw Harden and LeBron go up against the same team, and while Harden flamed out, LeBron was excellent.

I was really hard on LeBron throughout the season, but it's hard to deny him the top spot after what he did in the PS. He's just on a completely different tier than everyone else.

I don't see Lebron outside of game 1 being meaningfully better than harden. I actually think harden did more defensively. Harden had huge plays on the defensive end, game changing level stuff. Now I am slightly double thinking as lebron's rebounding was huge and harden wasn't doing a lot on that end despite ok numbers. Even if lebron was better, I don't see it as being by a big margin.

Game 1 was the most important game. I don't see why you'd want to exclude that from your analysis. If anything, you should exclude Game 4 as being completely meaningless and double-weight Game 1. If we just do it the less favorable way to LeBron and weight them evenly though, we get:

LeBron: 34/9/10 on .620 TS%, 28.3 Game Score
Harden: 29/6/6 on .538 TS%, 18.6 Game Score

That's a pretty massive edge for LeBron. If you sort the Cleveland and Houston players by Game Score, Harden's closer to 7th (Tucker) than he is to 1st in LeBron.

Lebron averaged 25 potential assists while harden averaged 10.6 potential assists.

No one has ever averaged more than 23 potential assists in a season with the data available (since 2014)

League leader this year was Westbrook with 20.6

He also averaged 1.3 secondary assists to hardens 0.4, and 0.5 free throw assists to hardens 0.2

Harden shared playmaking duties with Paul? When Paul got hurt for the last two games these numbers went up to 13 potential assists 1 secondary assists and 0.5 free throw assists and 7 turnovers a game.

Lebron for the last 3 games

25.7 potential assists 1.7 secondary assists and 0.6 free throw assists

Players also shot -10% when guarded by him and -6% when guarded by harden. He defended one less shot.

They both scored roughly the same amount of points (if we take out lebrons best game and keep hardens best game)

But lebron has a 58.5TS while hardens was at 53TS

So playmaking wise, lebron was far better

Scoring wise, lebron was far better

(Similar scoring volume, but one shot with iverson efficiency the other shot with Jordan level efficiency)

[MyUniBroDavis]

To add on

I’ve heard the arguement that hardens offensive style allowed rockets players to conserve more energy in exchange for worse offense. That’s a valid point, but lebron can do the exact same thing more efficiently more effectively longer.

Ive heard the arguement that hardens stepback threes allow them to get back on defense and stop fast breaks to stop the warriors from getting into rhythm

I get the idea although I don’t agree

Houstan

Game 7 18 points off turnovers, 23 fast break points

Game 6 23 points off turnovers 16 fast break points

Game 5 10 points off turnovers 12 fast break points

Game 4 18 points off turnovers 8 fast break points

Game 3 28 points off turnovers 23 fast break points

Game 2 12 points off turnovers 7 fast break points

Game 1 17 points off turnovers 18 fast break points


Cavs

Game 1 13 points off turnovers 28 fast break points

Game 2 7 points off turnovers 17 fast break points

Game 3 19 points off turnovers 19 fast break points

Game 4 10 points off turnovers 5 fast break points

I agree there’s some truth to it but I don’t think it’s significant enough to excuse his misses, if we are talking about the shot selection rather than live ball turnovers

Steals ratio for houstan wins for the warriors is essentially the same as the last three games for the cavs and warriors series.

I feel as if there’s this idea that houstan showed they are 100% better than the warriors while the cavs showed they were so inferior and pathetically worse.

I’m not denying houstan was vastly more impressive

But it took a mental retardation move by a cavs player in game 1 for the cavs to lose, and Durant dropping 41 in game 3 for them to lose.

Game 1 was an overtime loss and game 3 fts inflated the score. Essentially both of these games were one possession games

Durant was pathetically bad in both of the warriors losses where they lost by 3 and 4.

Obviously the rockets deserve credit, they defended him well and exploited a weakness of his (unwillingness/inability to pass out of doubles) but I doubt this is all due to the difference of how he was guarded.

The rockets defended the warriors with insane off ball pressure, effort and ability to switch (and harden deserves credit for this obviously, he wasn’t able to be taken advantage of by curry) but Aside from letting his teammates rest and lowering on ball turnovers (2 things the cavs basically did better) I don’t think the arguement of long threes lead to less fast break opportunities for the other team is an excuse for his offensive performance. Stopping fastbreak opportunities might have helped but in all honesty it was much more about exploiting Durant’s bad tendencies, ruthless off ball pressure, and ability to switch on defense pretty well. Hardens offensive style may have let this happen but lebrons can do this without sacrificing offense. It’s just that Kevin loves effort ain’t Clint capelas lol

In terms of what they faced defensively, lebron has to face 3 “lebron stoppers” and was able to pass it out for an open 3 point miss whenever curry was switched on to him. The last 2-3 years of playoff lebron has pretty much shown that pretty much no defense can stop lebron (celtics, who I would think have the best defensive coach in the nba with that roster could at least slow him down when rosier was out, but they couldn’t) unless you have 5 Kawhi Leonard’s on the court.

[Doctor MJ]

Lebron breaking his hand was an idiotic move but he played better than harden did against the warriors with a broken hand

I don’t really buy the arguements defending hardens offensive performance against the warriors, and even if those arguements were valid lebron essentially did some of those things that people are defending harden for to a greater degree

(Such as the turnover and fast break arguements, I would think that Chris Paul would be the main reason for this considering the teams turnover rate went up with harden on the floor throughout the playoffs and Paul was he player who has a reputation of consistently decreasing the turnover rate his entire career. And it went back up whenever Paul was hurt. Regardless, when it comes to stopping fast breaks the warriors had a lower steals rate against the cavs than the rockets. I think he just missed shots honestly, most were harder than before because they were trying to slow the game down. The only thing that has some merit is the three pointers not leading to fast breaks, but that’s hardly enough of an excuse to salvage his performance imo).

I think there's a real danger of essentially separating offense from defense like they don't effect each other. The finals were an extremely offensive series while the WCF was much more defensive. The WCF saw everyone on both sides utterly spent and putting up weaker numbers. The finals essentially was a stats bonanza.

If LeBron keeps playing like he did in Game 1 that's different, but LeBron's Game 2-4 performances? That defensive context looks pretty dang large to me there. Then you get into the general idiocy, the damage to vibe, and the fact that this is just a recurrence of what was going on all year with the soap opera that is LeBron now.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay but the actual basketball that was played in both series was completely different. Houston actually came out with a game plan to stop the Warriors defensively, and were willing to let their offense go to achieve that, while Cleveland basically came out trying to outgun them and gave up like a 130 ORTG. The defensive intensity faced by the two guys could not be more opposite.

Right, and it's important to remember that this is in stark contrast to what the Cavs did those first couple years against GS. Not saying the difference is entirely one of thought out strategy, just that I don't think it's rational to say that the capability of the Cavs defensively got 15+ points worse in that timespan.

It almost feels like they've said "If you can beat'em, lose in the way that makes you look glamorous."

The difference between that and the rather brutal WCF is clear.