Peak Harden closer to peak Derozan or Jordan?

GeorgeSears · Post #21 » by **GeorgeSears** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 4:14 pm

Closer to Jordan. His 2018-2019 season is one of the greatest in NBA history. That 3-year stretch he had from 2017-2020 only Michael Jordan has been able to match that.

UcanUwill · Post #22 » by **UcanUwill** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 4:18 pm

Ballings7 wrote:Neither.

How its neither? He has to be closer to one of these two, if you guys do not find answer to be easy, I think OP asked an interesting question.

rate_ · Post #23 » by **rate_** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 4:43 pm

UcanUwill wrote:
Ballings7 wrote:Neither.

How its neither? He has to be closer to one of these two, if you guys do not find answer to be easy, I think OP asked an interesting question.

Equidistance

QingJames · Post #24 » by **QingJames** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 4:45 pm

Well, DeRozan just had his indisputably best season yet. He was spectacular, so I'd say Harden's closer to peak DD for sure.

TravisScott55 · Post #25 » by **TravisScott55** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:04 pm

In the regular season Jordan, in the playoffs definitely DeMar

Johnny Bball · Post #26 » by **Johnny Bball** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:09 pm

Derozan for sure. Both will be hall of famers, both are guys that are not going to will/carry you to a title.

NBA4Lyfe · Post #27 » by **NBA4Lyfe** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:17 pm

UcanUwill wrote:I would say Derozan. I never saw Harden as best player in the league material, He was maybe best offensive player in the league for 1 or 2 years, which is amazing, but his overall impact wasn't top 3 in the league ever IMO.

MJ averaged 35 ppg and won DPOY, i mean, yeah.

but these are the same people who have luka doncic in contention as the best player in the league, when he has yet to have a season better than prime harden

btw for the answer to the ops question: just go to michael jordans basketball reference page and scroll down to the section titled "similarity scores"

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jordami01.html#all_sims

harden has more career win shares, more career vorp, a higher career bpm than any current guard BY A LOT outside of cp3

NBA4Lyfe · Post #28 » by **NBA4Lyfe** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:19 pm

Courtside wrote:Well, he was better than peak DD by a fair margin, but that doesn't put Jordan as the next comparison. If you want to say he was more of a gimmick foul-drawing act than a lethal scorer and finisher, then sure, DD is the comp.

Never put Harden and Jordan in the same sentence tho.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jordami01.html#all_sims

but basketball reference does

NBA4Lyfe · Post #29 » by **NBA4Lyfe** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:22 pm

facothomas22 wrote:I think he's closer to Derozan compared to Jordan,but he's not close to ether of them. Michael Jordan steps up in the playoffs and was a great defender. James Harden has always been known as a poor defender and chokes in the playoffs.The difference between Harden and Derozen is that Derozen doesn't regular season winning near to the same extent as James Harden and has a more limited offensive game. Harden could be a 1st option on a Championship team if he didn't underachive so much during the playoffs,where as Derozan,he would have be the 3rd best player on the team in order for that team to really get over the top. The difference is Jordan is the best player in NBA history. I think Harden is a top 45-55 player of all time. Lets just say Derozan isn't even a top 100 player of all time,so maybe in that way he's slightly closer to Jordan than Derozan.

harden is a top 20-25 player EASY.. his advanced stats in both playoffs and regular season as a starter are all-time great elite

NBA4Lyfe · Post #30 » by **NBA4Lyfe** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:34 pm

Read on Twitter

?s=20&t=mTHWHuqs0fGpRQSxs5XNdg

Read on Twitter

?s=20&t=607QU3s_MVhuNZW9D07sBg

Read on Twitter

?s=20&t=607QU3s_MVhuNZW9D07sBg

Read on Twitter

?s=20&t=607QU3s_MVhuNZW9D07sBg

Read on Twitter

?s=20&t=607QU3s_MVhuNZW9D07sBg

TMac Culloch · Post #31 » by **TMac Culloch** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:41 pm

Neither is a good comparison since Harden gets most points off 3s and the other two off mid range. Jordan's skill level is farther from Harden than Derozen from Harden I think

Ballings7 · Post #32 » by **Ballings7** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:45 pm

UcanUwill wrote:
Ballings7 wrote:Neither.

How its neither? He has to be closer to one of these two, if you guys do not find answer to be easy, I think OP asked an interesting question.

I explained how its Neither. You cut out all of the rest of my post where I explained why I think it is neither Jordan or DeRozan. Below is my full post from page 2 as it remains.

Ballings7 wrote:Neither.

Because Harden never was prominent or consistent in the mid-range or posting up like DeRozan and MJ are/were, respectively in their own natures that they were.

This to me, is a decent part of why Harden has not had notable and consistent playoff success because his game gets broken down more and a bit more limited.

Harden has never gone bonkers offensively or had an amazing run in the playoffs, comparable to any high-output stretch like he has in the regular season.

Now, DeRozan also has not been a proven triple threat scorer over his career (though he has slowly been shooting and hitting more threes in stretches with the Spurs and moreso Bulls) which has been a part of his concluding playoff game/series degraded play. And, also wasn't too efficient of a scorer until he went to the Spurs and Bulls, where he became more balanced offensively and began to make better decisions with the ball.

But, pure style and game-wise - Harden is nothing truly like DeRozan other than that they both are capable of getting to the rim and finishing well, and getting to the line on a regular basis.

I posted an alternative viewpoint based on peak Harden's game and play style, which is neither like peak Jordan or peak DeRozan, as a whole. All three had different games and play styles and levels of success, fairly drastically different indeed.

Harden's basic points, rebounds, and assists per game stats, are closer to Jordan from certain seasons Harden had in his true prime, but thats all. To me, it wasn't truly worth mentioning because it wasn't holistic and would be and remains fraudulent to claim Harden is anything like Michael Jordan as a player, scorer, or consistent performer PAST the regular season. Harden's play more often than not in the playoffs, always has degraded, not stayed the same or been raised.

Then you have defense. Yep.

Harden was a great player and is an all-time great, but he wasn't comparable to Michael Jordan.

Mauro Pedrosa · Post #33 » by **Mauro Pedrosa** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 6:23 pm

For sure DeRozan

NBA4Lyfe · Post #34 » by **NBA4Lyfe** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 7:12 pm

Mauro Pedrosa wrote:For sure DeRozan

you are wrong according to basketball reference

stephen curry is closer to mike bibby( an all star in his prime and a player who gave the kobe/shaq lakers hell in his hey-dey) than he is to magic johnson.

But thats just my opinion

Post #35 » by **tsherkin** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 7:34 pm

eyeatoma wrote:These are poor options. Harden was infinitely better than DeRozan, but he's not the same player as Jordan.

I like this answer, and the others ITT which riff on that same notion.

I'm not a Harden fan. I think he has an aesthetically displeasing game and is a flopping monstrosity, but in terms of effectiveness? He was a much, much better offensive player than DeRozan has been at any point in his career, including in the playoffs. People speak of him as if his postseason play is, well, like DeRozan's, and it simply isn't the case. He has a six-year prime averaging 30.9 ppg and 8.3 apg on 61.3% TS as a .250 WS/48 player, +7.7 OBPM.

DeRozan, who was never a particularly good defender to begin with himself, has maybe three seasons really worthy of note. He topped out at 27.9 ppg (he's scored 24+ ppg only twice. He's averaged 5.7 apg the past five years. He's averaged 59.4% TS over the past three seasons. He's also never had a season better than .170 WS/48 or +4.1 OBPM.

He doesn't carry volume or prop up team offense with playmaking to the same extent as Harden, and whilst Harden loses around 2% TS in the playoffs (61.0% to 58.9%), DeRozan goes from 55.0% to 50.2%. These past 3 seasons (his best by way of efficiency), he's dropped from that 59.4% to 51.7%, bottoming out at 48.1% this past season. He is absolute hot garbage as a scoring threat in the playoffs, with a fair degree of consistency (2019 notwithstanding).

There is a very, very large difference on the offense end and neither stuns on D, so it's clear that Harden is a lot better than DeRozan, ergo closer to MJ than DD, even if Jordan is a little ambitious a comparison.

Pennebaker · Post #36 » by **Pennebaker** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 7:42 pm

Wait, what? Peak DeRozan? Is this a real question?

DeRozan shouldn't even be mentioned with Harden and Jordan. I mean, just look at their honors and awards.

YogurtProducer · Post #37 » by **YogurtProducer** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 11:27 pm

UcanUwill wrote:I would say Derozan. I never saw Harden as best player in the league material, He was maybe best offensive player in the league for 1 or 2 years, which is amazing, but his overall impact wasn't top 3 in the league ever IMO.

MJ averaged 35 ppg and won DPOY, i mean, yeah.

We gonna act like Harden didn’t average 36ppg one year…?

SecondTake · Post #38 » by **SecondTake** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 11:41 pm

If MJ is 99 then peak Harden was about 78 and DeRozan 60. He's closer to DeRozan.

Sent from my SM-S908W using RealGM mobile app

SecondTake · Post #39 » by **SecondTake** » Sun Jul 24, 2022 11:42 pm

YogurtProducer wrote:
UcanUwill wrote:I would say Derozan. I never saw Harden as best player in the league material, He was maybe best offensive player in the league for 1 or 2 years, which is amazing, but his overall impact wasn't top 3 in the league ever IMO.

MJ averaged 35 ppg and won DPOY, i mean, yeah.

We gonna act like Harden didn’t average 36ppg one year…?

That wasn't a real 36 ppg gtfo with that. Convert that to 89 and remove ghost points maybe it's about 25ppg

Sent from my SM-S908W using RealGM mobile app

Post #40 » by **tsherkin** » Mon Jul 25, 2022 12:12 am

SecondTake wrote:
YogurtProducer wrote:
UcanUwill wrote:I would say Derozan. I never saw Harden as best player in the league material, He was maybe best offensive player in the league for 1 or 2 years, which is amazing, but his overall impact wasn't top 3 in the league ever IMO.

MJ averaged 35 ppg and won DPOY, i mean, yeah.

We gonna act like Harden didn’t average 36ppg one year…?
That wasn't a real 36 ppg gtfo with that. Convert that to 89 and remove ghost points maybe it's about 25ppg

Sent from my SM-S908W using RealGM mobile app

That... isnt how that works. What an awful take.

closer to?