f4p wrote:and the only reason you call it a harden "choke" is precisely because smith/brewer went crazy and won the game in a way they could never, ever, ever replicate. if they don't do that, harden probably plays a few 4th quarter minutes, finishes with like 28 points (had 23 after 3 on bad shooting), the rockets lose to a better team and no one ever talks about the series again because it basically played out like you would expect. it's precisely only a choke because of the crazy comeback. basically you are taking something that had nothing to do with harden and retroactively calling it a choke because it happened without harden. again, as if harden was the reason smith/brewer couldn't shooting 71% on 3's. otherwise, it would just be a bad game from harden (bad but hardly some historically awful game) one game after having a triple double in what was also elimination game. you are allowed to have bad games against better teams without it being a "choke."
Nah, when I said it wouldn't happen again I wasn't talking about the benching, I was talking about the hot shooting. The fact that Harden played so apathetic that he had to be benched is precisely the choking Im talking about, it would have been mocked as relentlessly as all his other no shows. Maybe in the grand scheme of things its just another bad game from him but the fact that its become so commonplace is precisely why hes the answer to the thread. CP3 cant be choking harder than the guy who played so bad his team had to bench him in order to win, thats the end point that cant be changed no matter how you wish to frame Hardens performance.
i mean nba history has shown that blowing leads is pretty rare, especially 2-0/3-1.
Thats because its rare for an inferior team to overachieve to that degree.
it basically means you proved you could hang with a team or were even better than they are, and then right as you were there to finish it off, you choked and couldn't handle the pressure of closing them out. it's not like pointing out 2-0/3-1 blown leads is something unique i'm coming up with just for this thread. if a team just manhandles you 4-0, then you probably weren't better than them. and it's not like harden has some history of losing 4-0/4-1 to teams he was way better than, considering i just listed his 3 "upsets" and none of them fit that classification. so if he isn't losing to worse teams and isn't blowing series leads, i'm not sure what the "choke" label is coming from?
Of course your rationale isn't unique, I never said it was, I was explaining just how common of a complaint it is and why its so nonsensical. It doesn't mean/prove any of that. Thats why I gave the Tmac example above, every series is context dependent and not every loss means you choked. Say you lose 4-0 and get clamped down to an inferior or equal team, thats a bigger choke job than a guy willing his clearly overmatched squad to 7 games, even if it came after being up 3-1. Why would I want my star to go ghost rather than rile up the troops and go to war? Why would I want the kind of performance(choke) that wins less games?
i mean they were better options than a lot of people. 29 pts on 80+ TS% in the 4th quarter of an elimination game would be amazing for jordan and pippen. and how dare harden get something from smith and brewer other than unending bricks! he basically has to play the series with one hand tied behind his back because they are sub-replacement level on efficiency and then he sits and they turn into steph and klay. it's like you're punishing harden for his teammates finally making shots. and again, CP3 was on the court and got outscored 40-15 in the 4th in his chance to go to his 1st ever conference finals. i'm not sure how that doesn't fit every bit the label of choker.
Because he was actually on the court when the true choker had to sit down in order to get that kind of performance from those teammates. Thats entirely the point, Harden wasn't even good enough to be on the court. His team just won because they had a coach with the balls to do it.
so he mostly lost to vastly superior teams but you want to call it flameouts.
Yes, because he lost to an inferior team and didn't put up much of a fight even to injured teams that you want to pretend were vastly superior when they were without a key star player.
he had a couple of low efficiency series (production was right in line with regular season in 2013 playoffs) in his early 20's in his first 2 series as a starter. you know who else has had some bad series early in their careers? practically everybody, especially just about anybody outside the all-time top 10. and it was almost a decade ago at this point. must this be held against him forever?
Yes, your career will ALWAYS be held against you, lol thats the entire point of keeping track of his playoff blunders/resume. I cant believe Im having to explain this right now. I dont see where you get your productive claims from feel free to post the numbers and Ill explain the context I see.
you'll notice most of the examples are from early in his career. he admittedly had some pretty big fall-offs back then but was great in the 2015 playoffs, everything but game 6 in 2017 (the one time i think you can truly say anything you want about what he did), and then has been about as good as you can expect since then. again, if i posted his prime (or even just as a starter) playoff numbers and steph's playoff numbers, and the differential from the regular season to the playoffs and told you to pick who was who, you probably wouldn't be able to.
Depends on how deep your analytical dive goes, from all the data I've seen, its not really that hard to differentiate. Are you only showing me PPG and TS% or something?
didn't DameTime have one of the most horrendous first round series ever just a few years later? almost as if sometimes players have bad series? didn't Jimmy Butler come off a finals run and then have maybe an even more horrendous series than the one Dame had? only harden seems to never have any of his bad moments forgotten. and any impressive results and stats are just considered accidents or credited to other people. his overall play in the 2015 playoffs was great and yet literally the only thing people talk about is game 6 against the clippers or "12 turnovers, lol". if none of your good games count (28/11/9, 38/10/9, 45/9/5 just in the first 4 games of the WCF), then of course you will look bad.
I reference DameTime in response to the hollywood quip, but if we want to put Harden in that company then yes, I would agree Harden is a better performer throughout his career than Dame but its debatable who has choked more throughout. Again, better players can choke and still be better players. Everyone has their bad moments, we track every moment and decide in the aggregate.
and the series was 2-2 after RWB got hurt, about what you would expect for a 9+ SRS team that lost it's 2nd best player against an 8th seed. were you expecting the rockets to storm to a 4-2 series victory with 23 year old harden flanked by jeremy lin, chandler parsons, and omer asik?
Kind of hard to win 4-2 when you're down 3-0 lol, but I know what you mean and no, Im not expecting Harden to win, I'm expecting him to do his part. Its not a massive ding but it isn't something we can just ignore, again, we keep track of every performance in every context. I understand its harder for Harden in this spot, thats not in question.
why does harden have to elevate his play to not be a choker?
Elevate, sustain or not crater. These are all acceptable as opposed to outright ghosting. Whichever you attain will determine if you're a choker or a riser. Its entirely possible for a choker to be a better playoff performer than a playoff riser if thats all you're trying to say.
relatively few players ever have done that. if james harden's playoff numbers were as good as his regular season numbers, we'd almost be talking about him with lebron and putting him in top 10 all-time discussions. it's like somehow "james harden isn't as good as in the regular season" is just a license to downplay him all you want, even if his absolute play in the playoffs is still high. it's like you are basically punishing him for being ridiculously good in the regular season. a moderately athletic 6'5 shooting guard putting up otherworldly regular season numbers but then not sustaining them in the playoffs makes sense when everything he does, every trick he has can be focused on and his athleticism and physical limitations catch up to him (not unlike what happens to someone like curry, who is similarly hard to gameplan for in a regular season setting but can be limited with physical play and a strict focus on his style in a 7 game series).
Agreed, thats why comparisons are about nit picking when you're dealing with All-Time greats. Harden isn't a bad playoff performer just because he chokes, hes had moments where he both chokes and plays worse than even basic all stars tho.
i'm sure CP3 has quite a few bad losses to injuries. i'm not claiming otherwise. in fact, i've defended CP3 plenty over the years. but he is lapping the field on blown series leads and losses as a favorite. it's not close. they can't all be injuries. i mean he's probably somewhat a victim of his own regular season success like harden, where they arguably make their teams have better records than you would expect (especially harden with the volume he can take on), and then we expect them to hold up against teams that may have slacked off in the regular season. except harden has largely done that, basically only losing as an underdog or very slight favorite.
CP3 is always injured, thats why alot of players have an argument over him legacy wise. Feel free to name the series, I'll name the injuries, to either himself and/or teammates.
again, how did harden choke? their series stats are pretty much equal. 25/8/6 vs 21/10/4, 20.4 game score for CP3 to 19.0 for harden. it's just a choke if harden doesn't play well in a certain game? is every bad game a choke now? the same game where CP3 blew like a 19 point lead? they kind of seem to equal out.
Basically, because he was benched. You see, with players like Harden, they can post some numbers while not operating well enough for the team, this lack of energy is what McHale saw when he benched Harden. Harden's intangibles are so poor, that a lack of productive value is significant, especially if we're talking about GameScore.
GameScore, like PER, favors high usage players to a higher degree so the fact that Harden was abit lower after a season in which he posted superior RS metrics is quite telling. And again, the additional context behind their cumulative playoff run and injuries sustained is also relevant. I wont rehash that here
i wasn't comparing harden to CP3, just harden to any other generic star. why is it when harden wins as many games against the durant warriors as the rest of the league combined, he's a huge playoff choker? he averaged like 32/7/6 in those 2 series as well. are the 2019 rockets with a clearly injured/past-his-prime CP3 really so absurdly talented that they should put up a way better fight than the 2017 cavs? is the #6 defense 2018 houston rockets what solves all the problems for the rockets, like they were the 2004 pistons? it's what i mean by, even when harden does something good like play well and almost take down an impossibly talented team, he still doesn't get credit for it from basically anybody. only his bad games/series count.
Yes, the 1 run that makes this debatable, I dont think anyone is taking that away from Harden. Almost winning against a superior team whilst showing up big is exactly the kind of **** we want to see from overmatched superstars. But choking isn't about winning, its about how you lose. That single run eliminates the talk of choking for sure, but do that for every year and you will see a guy who has failed to show up in his first round flameouts even losing to an inferior team while posting truly pedestrian numbers(without the defense to alleviate the dropoff). CP3 is always injured whereas Harden usually chokes.
IDK which is worse
