_NoMas wrote:Haldi wrote:UglyBugBall wrote:
Harden is a great player to have in games that don't matter. He'll put up numbers in the regular season and fall off in the playoffs. He's like the anti Luka. Guys like Leonard, Lebron, Luka get better in the playoffs. Harden goes from a top 3 player to a Demar Derozan. Kawhii has had multiple playoff runs more impressive individually (even if we remove the rings argument, which we shouldn't) than Hardens best. Harden is like that kid in class that get straight A's throughout high-school but never amounts to anything after he graduates. Kawhii is the kid that drops out and then goes and builds Microsoft.
Put Kawhi on any of Hardens teams instead of the ones he got to play on and he would have exactly 0 championships as well and would’ve performed worst as well - tends to happen when the defense can just focus on you the entire time cause you’re on the floor with 4 guys like Gordon, Ariza, Tucker and Cappela. Literally only Gordon is an offensive threat in that group lol, the others you can just leave absolutely wide open without a care in the world. Kawhi would’ve done dick all with a group like that in the regular season and even less so in the playoffs. Add Chris Paul to that roster for one more half of basketball, and that roster wouldve beat the Durant Warriors, aka the best team of all time, and Harden would have one of the best rings of all time. Hell, just don’t Scott Foster game 7 and he still wins that without his second best player lol.
The next year in 2019, without Chris Paul for 2 and half months at the start of the season and for most of the middle of the season and without Clint for a month and a half, Kawhi doesn’t even make the playoffs with guys like Gordon, House, Tucker, Macklemore and rookie Hartenstein. That team probably finishes in like 10th or 11th in the West, and Im imagining a world where Leonard actually plays 78 of 82 games like Harden, which we know what a joke that is lol. Meanwhile, Harden had 36, 7.5 and 6 and led that team to 4th place in a stacked west.
This whole “oh but he elevates his game in the playoffs” thing is so dumb and the most casual take ever, completely lacks any understanding of how the game of basketball is played. TEAMS win rings, not any single players and Harden is raising floors, ceilings and skies as much as one man can.
Put harden on the raptors. Do they beat Philly or Milwaukee?
Prime Harden with Kyle, Powell, Siakim, Gasol, Fred and Ibaka… I’d say that Philly series doesn’t go anywhere near a game 7 buzzer prayer to win it. And the Bucks were a very strong regular season team that year but very much lacked playoff experience so although Leonard was very useful for the wall defense they set up against Giannis, Nurse can do the same damn thing with that roster as well. Team defense >>> than individual defense.
The 6 guys listed there are levels and levels above the 2018 or 2019 rockets team that Harden had to work with. Again, Mbah Moute I don’t think ever played NBA basketball again lol. Ariza got a fat 2 year contract the next year which the team realized was a huge mistake and traded him and after never played NBA basketball again. Gordon hasn’t exactly shined in Houston after Harden left and is he still even in the NBA?? Clint seems to be playing less and less minutes every year, cause he has Trae instead of Harden now. Tucker was a decent 20 ish minute role player on that championship Bucks run, but he was playing 40 minutes a game with Harden lol. As for Danual House and Macklemore… yea. And Hartenstein is a solid backup in the NBA but was a rookie at the time. Im never gonna say anything bad about Paul’s play obviously, dude was amazing but missed the most important game and a half in 2018 and most of 2019, and was not himself that playoff run.
