OhayoKD wrote:OldSchoolNoBull wrote:OhayoKD wrote:
And did any of those detailed arguments actually explain what makes him greater than Harden who actually was on pace to beat the greatest team ever and still got closer with a weaker cast the next year than barkley did vs a much weaker champion in 1993?
This is a ranking. In otherwords you'll have a much better shot at swinging the anti-barkley block if you are making a comparative case. It doesn't really matter what barkley's numbers or skillset is if you can't justify the bit where those number make barkley better than everyone else on the board.
I have yet to see anyone do that bit vs Harden who also is a mvp winner, also lost to an eventual champion, also has impressive slashlines, and actually came closer to a 2nd mvp win multiple times than barkley ever did. In fact when i asked someone who was picking barkley over harden why they favored barkley over harden, their response was, "uh i don't really know why"
I didn't specifically compare him to Harden because Harden wasn't on the board back then.
Well, now he's probably barkley's biggest threat. Seems a good time to make that case.
For starters, I'd take issue with "weaker cast". If you're talking about 2017-18, Harden had CP3, Capela(who was putting 24.8/19.4 per 100 on +9.4 rTS), two elite 3D guys in Ariza and Tucker, and Gordon off the bench with 18ppg on +2.2 rTS. I don't know that that's so much worse than KJ/Majerle/Ceballos/Dumas/West/Chambers/Ainge/etc. If anything, a lot of the coverage of the team for those couple years(16-17 and 17-18) was focused, in addition to Harden's individual offensive accomplishments, on the job Morey had done constructing that team.
was referencing 2019 here they lost by an average of 1.7 points a game to the warriors with 4 and a half games of kd. Am completely open to the idea barkley's help explains the gap in team success and then some, but that case has yet to be made.
I'm just not entirely sure what you're viewing as the gap in team success. Neither guy won a ring, and Harden never even made the Finals as the #1 guy.
It seems like the team success thing for Harden is centered around the fact that he almost beat teams that were better than any Barkley faced(the 18 and 19 Warriors, maybe the 17 Spurs, maybe the 20 Lakers, though that last one was a five game series).
I guess there is merit to that argument, but I am not overly compelled by it. If you compare their overall playoff record as a #1 option, they are close. I'm defining that as Harden's Houston years(12-13 through 19-20 - KD was #1 in OKC and Brooklyn, and Embiid is #1 in Philly), and Barkley's post-Dr.J Philly and Phoenix years(87-88 through 95-96). So that's eight seasons for Harden and nine seasons for Barkley. In that time, their playoff W/L records are:
Harden: 42-43
Barkley: 34-36
So Barkley played fewer playoff games due to being saddled with a crappy Philly team, but Harden is one game under .500 and Barkley is two games under .500.
Anyway - it might surprise you to learn that I don't think the gap between Barkley/Harden is big. They're very similar. Scoring dynamos with other dimensions(Barkley's rebounding, Harden's playmaking/running of offense) who didn't play much defense and who maybe weren't the best locker room guys(though like I said in the last thread, I think that's overblown for Barkley), and who got close but couldn't get the ring.
It doesn't suprise me. Many barkley voters have repeated that line. But you are choosing one over the other even though the other was flatly more successful(something you've referenced before in voting posts.
Again, I am not sure how you're defining success.
Sure this seems fine. But if it's within range what breaks the tie for barkley here. You referenced petit as the era-relative best choice but you didn't vote for him presumably because of league-strength. Harden played in a stronger league. You referenced team success with malone, but harden was more successful.
I'll be honest - in a vacuum I'd rank Pettit higher than Barkley based on era-relativity - in fact I did in an earlier thread. But in that thread, my secondary vote for Barkley went uncounted due to a technicality. So, in the interest of not having that happen again, I am making sure my #1 vote is for Barkley.
And for the third time, I don't know how you're measuring success.
As for how I break the tie....you quoted my explanation below. We'll get to it.
Also seems worth pointing out harden's best years had him staggering with similar players with similar strengths(chris paul, westbrook) which would generally suppress his rapm.
I also think we have a case of conventional box-skew here which becomes apparent iwith your series comparison
First off, that is a massive volume disparity. 6 points. Secondly turnover economy is not just a matter of assists and points. Harden was handling the ball far more than barkley was. And if we go by assist percentage we get 35%:15% and 20:6 for Barkley.
Barkley has a better ast:tov on far lower volume even if wee just go by assist% which is obviously misleading when we are talkign about harden in a system where possessions were run nearly entirely through him. Harden was also taking more difficult shots and naturally drawing more defensive attention. I don't really see how production favors chuck here, and notably Harden would proceed have to have 2 progressingly better performances the next two years, including a performance many engines already voted higher would be proud of vs an all-time great lakers defense where he was his own team's spacing more or less and his teammate was reduced to a non-factor by injury.
From my vantage point, harden flat out did more than barkley on what was a signficiantly more impressive team performance.
You say this like 35:15 is not extremely effecient and harden was not doing more than chuck before assists and points come into play. Harden was ochrestrating everything for his team offensively, chuck was not. I would take harden's "turnover economy" on 35% of his team's assists over chucks's on 20% anyway.
Your point is fair. Harden's offenses were more dependent on him. Harden is one of the most ball-dominant players of his era, maybe ever. It is worth pointing out that people have asked whether it's healthy for so many of a team's points to be generated by one guy - either directly from scoring or from playmaking. People ask the same thing about Doncic now. Wasn't one of the alleged reasons Harden wanted CP3 moved because CP3 took the ball out of his hands too much? This is neither here nor there re: Barkley, just thought it was worth bringing up.
I think i could argue harden is significantly advantaged outside of the box-score though maybe you can counter with rapm and "barkley defends better", but harden did play in the better league(which seems to at least be a factor), and led better teams which were denied by injury against better opponents. I do think offense would be clearly in harden's favor from a production standpoint though. Especially under antoni when harden practically was the offense from the start of the possession to the end of it. In that context, I think you underrate how effecient he was.
"Outside of the box score", but RAPM is comparable(as you alluded to), yes, so where is the significant advantage? Also, I don't really consider "better league", I look at what a player did in the league they were in.
I understand where you're coming from re: overall offensive productivity, but on the other hand, some people consider offensive rebounding part of offense too.
Yep, that's fair, my numbers were wrong. It was close, but it was still vs a much weaker opponent than the kd-warriors though I imagine you are not going to dispute harden has the team-success case.
If you are still referring to the 2019 Warriors...
93 Bulls: 6.19 SRS/+6.8 Net Rtg
19 Warriors: 6.42 SRS/+6.2 Net Rtg
Seems pretty even to me. I suppose you'll point out that the Warriors numbers are suppressed because Steph and Draymond missed some time and the team was coasting, etc, but I could just as easily point out that the 93 Bulls were coasting to a degree too as the two-time champs and because Michael and Scottie had played for the Dream Team the previous summer and had had little break.
For me the edge between these two in particular comes down to A)I just think Barkley was a better playoff performer, as evidenced by some of the stuff above, B)As great of a scorer as Harden is, I think Barkley was better, C)For the moment, has a bit more longevity, and D)He didn't play with as much talent as Harden did(Harden had early-prime KD, early-prime Westbrook, late-prime CP3, prime Kyrie, and prime Embiid; Barkley had late-prime Moses, almost-done Dr. J, late-prime KJ, late-prime-to-almost-done Hakeem, and almost-done Drexler)
a) I mean in the sepcific series you comapred, i think the advantage is clearly harden's for reasons stated above. Not a fan of how you use turnovers here. Barkley was not orchestrating his offense throughout the possession and 35:15 is very good effeciency.
Well, that's one series. Like I said in my original post, for their careers in the playoffs, they are:
Barkley:
.193 WS/48
6.3 BPM
+4.8 TS(relative to the league average over his career)
Harden:
.172 WS/48
6.2 BPM
+3.4 TS(relative to the league average over his career)
Plus the fact their RS+PO RAPMs(via J.E.) are comparable. I am not saying it's a big gap, but that I give a slight edge to Barkley.
b) i think i'd favor harden based on shot-difficulty and volume
I assume by shot-difficulty you're talking about Harden's range and the fact that he's hitting shots from much further away. This is a fair point, but I would argue that Barkley was a 6'4' inside scorer who had to score a ton of points against bigger and taller guys, and he did it extremely efficiently. It's a very different kind of difficulty, but it's there. I know you are not impressed with 'at that height' type arguments, so may we'll just have to disagree.
As far as volume...first, here are their career PP100 for RS and PO:
Barkley: 30.2 RS/30.0 PO
Harden: 35.1 RS/32.0 PO
So Harden has a fairly big sizeable gap in the RS, but smaller in the PO.
But Harden's volume is necessarily going to be bigger because he took(and made) a bunch more threes than Barkley did. If we look at Career Field Goals Made Per 100 for RS and PO, it looks like this:
Barkley: 10.7 RS/10.7 PO
Harden: 10.4 RS/9.6 PO
So Barkley actually scored more baskets(and on higher efficiency) and held steady in the playoffs where Harden dropped a little.
(Harden does have more Free Throws Made Per 100 - 10.4 RS/9.3 PO vs 8.1 RS/7.9 PO for Barkley which is worth considering, I won't bury that.)
c) sure
d) Listing teammates isn't a good way to do this. Harden did not play with westbrook and chris paul simulateously. It doesn't really matter he played with both. What would matter is how long he had that calibre of teammate and even then ultimately, the most important indicator is how good the overall cast is. Harden played with multiple of those teammates once when he wasn't near his best.
Put it this way - 18 CP3 is arguably better than any player Barkley ever played with, depending on how you view 85 and 86 Moses and 97 Hakeem. Same for 13 KD and 23 Embiid.
It is, but was there a player he lost to he should have clearly won against? You're saying barkley was not significantly better than harden, but barkley being near harden was always going to be a dramatic drop
At the very least, I'd have taken both Barkley and Harden over Wade. I think Harden is pretty comfortably ahead of Wade offensively and I don't know that Wade's defense makes up for it. And I'd probably have taken both over Jokic and Giannis just based on longevity.
Okay but should barkley be rated higher because of his height? Shouldn't that be applied in reverse for his weaknesses?
Also, i will point out that everyone you listed was a big-man who did not get as much help as barkley woyld have gotten in terms of teammates boxing out.
Maybe? but i think you might overvalue rebounds in terms of value.
Again, you do not appear to be sympathetic to 'at that height' type arguments, so I think we just disagree on that.
Re: applied in reverse for his weaknesses...are you suggesting that he be penalized for not being as good a playmaker as other guys his height? If so, I'd simply suggest that the number of 6'4' guys who are equally as mediocre in that respect as Barkley would outnumber the number of 6'4' guys who rebound at Barkley's rate. I.E. I think he's much more of an outlier one way than the other.
If all it took for a height-disadvantaged player to rebound like that was for his bigger teammates to box out for him, there'd be more 6'4' guys rebounding like Barkley. I mean, I'm sure it was a factor, but let's give Barkley credit where it's due.
