James Harden or Manu Ginobili, for a single year run

[JayMKE]

Manu played a role on a dynasty over many years and had lots of playoff success. James had some good regular season stats for a few years not taking care of his body and has done almost nothing f in the postseason. It’s not mystery who history will remember more. James isn’t taking a run at anything besides the strip club buffet. I’d only answer Harden for who would put up better regular season stats, a Harden led team isn’t going any further than a Manu one would and I know who I’d rather have as a complimentary piece

[f4p]

Better? Manu in the 2005 playoffs on a per 100 possession basis put up 34/10/7 on 65% TS while having usage of 26%. This during an era when teams played 90 possessions a game and league average TS was 53%.

Going with per 100 possession stats in discussions about Manu doesn't make too much sense.

It's true though that Manu in 2005 has a real argument in discussions vs Harden, as it is arguable that he was the most impactful Spurs player in that year's playoffs. It's still a problem of 2nd option usage/minutes vs being the main guy, but there are several arguments to make in favor of Manu.

Harden has probably 7-8 better seasons than any other year of Manu though.

Well, teams played 90 possessions a game then during the dead ball era and in the Finals that year the pace went to 80. The game was a far slower, grind-it-out affair compared to the game 10 years later. Per game counting stats are just gonna look far better in 2015 when that year's WCF had 20 more possessions per game.

But yeah, it's an absolute shame that we didn't see Manu play more minutes because he certainly showed that he was capable of it every summer when he played international ball. I don't think it's that Manu was too fragile (though he became more injury prone in his mid-30s) but rather, I don't think Pop understood what he had with Manu.

But it's not just counting stats. The ones that account for pace don't favor Manu

Harden has a 10 year stretch:

23.6 PER, 0.183 WS48, 7.1 BPM

Even at only 8 years, Manu has:

21.7 PER, 0.188 WS48, 6.3 BPM

And that's 32.3 MPG vs 37.8. the only one where Manu keeps up is the one that rewards being on a good team and definitely having good defensive teammates, win shares. That's what I mean, if Manu was playing less but producing more per minute or hardens playoff impact numbers went down instead of going way up, then this could be a different story, even with the minutes difference. Or if every year was 2005 for Manu. But it was far and away an outlier. And yet people are extrapolating it to his whole career. It was his best playoff PER by over 10%, WS48 by 15%, and BPM by 25%

And even then, 2005 Manu again only outdoes a 4 year peak stretch from harden in win shares thanks to an astronomical outlier TS% of 65% that he never approached again.

2005 Manu: 24.8 PER, 0.260 WS48, 9.2 BPM
2018 to 1st round 2021: 26.8 PER, 0.215 WS48, 9.2 BPM

So it's not like harden hasn't matched the best of manu, and again 10% more minutes.

[The Master]

Well, teams played 90 possessions a game then during the dead ball era and in the Finals that year the pace went to 80. The game was a far slower, grind-it-out affair compared to the game 10 years later. Per game counting stats are just gonna look far better in 2015 when that year's WCF had 20 more possessions per game.

1. Pace is higher nowadays, but players used to play heavier minutes in the past, that's why the number of possessions played differential is lower than difference in pace itself. Dirk playing 42mpg with pace ~91 in the playoffs in 2005 played more possessions than Harden playing 37mpg with pace 101. But Manu even in 2005 played only 33mpg in the playoffs.

So yeah, Manu played 20% less minutes than some superstars of his era, and he played 20% possessions less than some superstars of the next era. Per100 possessions stats don't take that into account, so they're misleading.

2. Manu played 22 MPG at the 2002/2006 World Championship and 29 MPG at the 2004/2008 Olympics: Dirk played 34 MPG at the 2006 World Cup and Pau played 32 MPG at the 2004 Olympics.

As much as I love Manu, it's hard to run a narrative: 'Manu could've played higher minutes, but his coach was dumb'. We're talking about dynasty-level team and dynasty-level coach, come on. Maybe he could, maybe he couldn't - but the fact is his superstar impact was done in 20% lower minutes played than in cases of most superstars. It's like giving Harden benefit of the doubt that he would've been an iron man in elimination games only if he had had opportunity to play under Pop's tutelage with amazing leader such as Duncan. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't.

[Godymas]

holy hell, the overrating is insane. just because Manu happened to have a highlight play on prime James Harden doesn't change that a team with prime James Harden only lost to at worst a top 3 team of all time in NBA history in 7 games.

Like Harden's bag is deeper than Manu, yes Manu is a sick player, but cmon now

the supporting cast of the Spurs gets HEAVILY overrated. Manu was a beast, he deserves his flowers, he deserves his HoF spot

But we're talking about a guy that only had to average 25 mpg for his whole career. His team was putting in a lot of work to help build success. His coach is arguably the greatest of all time, and that's the only person he's ever played under.

Harden's career 35 mpg is very impressive, it's one of the most underrated stats to look at for greatness, imo. It's even more impressive when you consider he had to come in and be the 6th man and win 6moty off the bench.

Harden has had great success under multiple coaches. He made the finals playing under Scott Brooks, he came to Houston and played under Kevin McHale for a few years and brought them to a few 50+ win seasons. Then he had Mike D'Antoni where obviously he continued to succeed, changed his style, and won the MVP while being the most unstoppable offensive machine in the NBA for 3 years straight. Then he transitions to Brooklyn, comes in under Steve Nash and people forget he was playing at an MVP level for that first Brooklyn year as a facilitator, not the scoring machine. He goes to Philadelphia and plays under Doc Rivers few 2 years, his worst years, but he also was helping Joel Embiid win the scoring title while leading the league in assists, which no one gives Harden credit for btw. Finally he comes to Los Angeles and plays under Ty Lue and initially it's slow, but then last year he has a resurgence to form, gets the All Star, and honestly he's a little underrated in LA. It felt like there was a streak where he was getting a 4 point play every game, you saw the flashes of classic James Harden, but you saw the savviness of his veteran game similar to what CP3 was doing with the Suns.

Manu was awesome, I'm sure he'd be great on other teams, he won a gold medal in 2004 with Argentina. He's obviously the GOAT of his country when it comes to Basketball. He is not nearly as dynamic of a guy as Harden.

You can pick and choose from the multiple eras of James Harden and you will find the right form of player to stick on a team for a single year run. With Manu you get one guy and he's a great, high level 6th man, high level role player, bench scorer. He isn't the engine of your team, he isn't the facilitator for a #1 offense, he isn't the guy helping his big man lead the league scoring, there's multiple levels at play here, and I understand that you might want to say "well it's easier to stick Manu on a team" no, I think you're underrating that there are so many versions of James Harden you can pick and choose. If you need a 6th man of the year, which is what Manu traditionally is, you can 100% put up an argument to take Harden instead. Of course Manu as a 6th man is better than Harden as a 6th man, but Harden as a 6th man isn't some impossibility, it's actually really damn good, so good that you can make the finals with Harden playing the role of the 6th man.

So please, think logically, it's easy to hyper focus on the guy that won more because he always had the best coach and best teammates and had less to lift, but Harden is the most dynamic guard in NBA history. The answer is only Harden.

[mrvioletowl]

I am taking a proven winner and intensity guy over a foul merchant and a chucker who folds as soon as there is any kind of pressure and refs stop bailing him out.
Manu was kind of like Bodiroga - stick him on a team and titles follow. The only thing following Harden is strippers.

[Slimjimzv]

If you want to win a playoff series, this isn't even a debate.

[Doctor MJ]

Maybe you've said it elsewhere, but I've yet to hear you explain exactly how you believe the team/system makeup was helping Ginobili specifically.

To be clear: I'm not in denial of the possibility of a secondary scorer having an efficiency boost by playing with a primary scorer, but a blanket assumption of X% is very much over-simplistic.

Not going to type a long explanation here but here's a past summation if interested.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2325859&p=108669037#p108669037


viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2325859&start=60#p108690805

Thank you, I appreciate the links! I'll start here:

He also was too inconsistent game to game to qualify as a superstar, and his minutes/role/the Spurs system were designed to optimize his strengths and disguise any weaknesses. Never the opposing defense's primary focus, never the primary defender for SA, never the team's ironman heavy lifter, never the only creator, etc. An efficient player for sure, but never had to force any offense because there was always at least two other star offensive players on the team to share the burden and draw the focus of the defense away.

For those reasons you can't extrapolate his minutes to "project" him next to other star players. Their playing circumstances weren't the same even outside of the minutes thing. If he had to carry the offense as the opposing defense's focus over an 82 game season, would he have been as efficient? Would he have even lasted the season...? There's no reason to believe so.

Manu was in the perfect scenario to fully optimize a talented and creative guard. And still would have wild game to game fluctuations that you can't have if you want to be called a superstar or one of the best in the league. For example, if we look at the Spurs/Pistons series everyone thought he should have won finals MVP.

Overall averages: 19/4 on 64%TS

Very good numbers. The first two home games, he put up 26/2 on 73%TS and 27/7 on 98%TS (yes, you read that right).

The next three away games (all losses), these are his lines.
Game 3: 7 points on 2/6
Game 4: 12 points on 4/9
Game 5: 15 points on 5/16

Then 21/3 and 23/4 in the final two games. Leadings to the averages above.

First thing: I think it's important to keep in mind that game-to-game consistency isn't all it's cracked up to be in a playoff series. It'd be different if the NBA played single-elimination in the playoffs, but they don't, and so teams and players have a tendency to have their focus wax and wane over the course of a series.

As a tennis fan, I group this with what tennis players do, where a player who is up a set might end up coasting in the next set, particularly if they are down a break, looking to conserve some energy before the next set. Basically whenever "the winner" of a sporting match is determined not by cumulative moments but rather by counting larger chunks of play, the athletes in question should be understood to not actually be optimizing moment-to-moment play.

So for this reason, when considering something like a series MVP for a team, I like to specifically look at who was leading them in their wins.

In the SAS-DET finals, here are the total scoring numbers for the "Big 3" Spurs in their 4 wins:

Duncan: 93 points on 48.1% TS.
Ginobili: 91 points on 70.1% TS.
Parker: 49 points on 45.2% TS.

I'll also note that:
By assists: Ginobili 22, Parker 11, Duncan 8
By BPM: Ginobili 14.3, Duncan 4.1, Parker -6.3
By +/-: Ginobili +60, Duncan +36, Parker +10

Now of course Duncan's going to blow Ginobili away by rebounds and blocks and I'm not looking to talk like that doesn't count, but I just think there's really no doubt that if voters were looking at the Spur numbers in wins only, Ginobili would have won the Finals MVP.

More generally, while Ginobili wasn't always leading the Spurs in playoff +/-, he literally always does in post-seasons in which they win the title. All 4 of the 21st century Spurs chips have Ginobili leading the team in post-season +/-.

Doesn't mean he's more valuable than Duncan in all those years - it's really just the 2005 playoffs where I tend to take a stand on as Duncan just wasn't 100% physically or mentally after coming back from injury - and it doesn't mean we wouldn't knock Ginobili relative to more consistent performers who led their teams to titles more than 4 times - but I would say this stuff is not small stuff.

Second, let's make sure we keep in mind that it wasn't like Ginobili was the only inconsistent performer in the '05 finals.

That finals was known for some of the most extreme inconsistency for both teams through the first 4 games we've ever seen. Literally, it felt like we didn't get a game where both teams brought their A game until Game 5, and then the last 3 games were close.

So, first two games in San Antonio, the Spurs win by an average of 18 points.
The next two games in Detroit, the Pistons win by an average of 24 points.

How did Duncan in the two losses? 14 & 16 points scored respectively.

So while you can say Duncan was the more consistent scorer in these games compared to Ginobili, you can't say he was still doing his thing like normal.

Third, let's remember that when a team's scheme has a player as the primary option, we should expect that they are working to get him shots in a way they aren't with the other guys.

So if we look at the FGA of Duncan & Ginobili in these 4 games:

Game 1: Duncan 22, Ginobili 16
Game 2: Duncan 10, Ginobili 8
Game 3: Duncan 15, Ginobili 6
Game 4: Duncan 17, Ginobili 9

I would say that the Spurs part of what's going on here is that the Spurs are continuing to focus on getting the ball to Duncan to score whenever the going gets tough, and they aren't doing the same for Ginobili.

Fourth, keep in mind that of the two, only Ginobili can actually create for himself. For Duncan to get a shot, other players have to thread the ball in to him against the teeth of the defense, and that causes turnovers.

So the Spurs were using an offensive scheme that insisted on going up against the Pistons' defensive strengths, this was causing them to turn the ball over a ton against great defense (they were north of 17 TO/g in the series which would have been the worst in the entire league that year), and then when they were successful at getting Duncan the shot, he was inefficient against the Wallaces.

This then to say, I don't think Pop's offensive scheme against the Pistons was anything even close to what was the optimal approach - they very clearly won because of their effective defense here and basically always - and yeah, they could have done considerably better with a pace & space model.

And I'll reiterate that I just think it's so important that we don't conclude that schemes must have been near optimal if a team won the title. Stuff from before paradigm shifts are always sub-optimal by definition.

[red96]

This is a silly conversation imo. Put Manu on a team with no Duncan, Parker, Pop, and force him to carry a team as the best player, adding 6-8 mpg more than hes ever averaged, while having to beat the double team on nearly every possession, and watch his efficiency and defense drop. Manu leading an average squad would be play-in at best, but more likely to miss the playoffs.

Manu was blessed to be in one of, if not the best situation for a player of his level and talent in the last 30 years of the league.

Yeah good thing we got to see how bad Manu was as the number one option on a team with Argentina, where all he did was lead them to a gold medal in 2004, the greatest and arguably most important basketball feat of this century imo.
Certainly nothing approaching the lofty heights of “Playoff James Harden”
Harden busted his ass in 2012 though, back when he still had some dawg in him, I’ll give him that. But Manu got him back in 2017.

Those are 2 different animals and you know it. Or at least you should.

[JellosJigglin]

For an entire season? Harden easily. He can carry a team over a longer stretch and win games by himself.

For a single game? Manu no question. You know what you're going to get from him regardless of the situation.

[LarsV8]

This thread and the mental gymnastics performed perfectly encapsulates most of the problems we face as a society.

People lack common sense.

[Quattro]

holy hell, the overrating is insane. just because Manu happened to have a highlight play on prime James Harden doesn't change that a team with prime James Harden only lost to at worst a top 3 team of all time in NBA history in 7 games.

Like Harden's bag is deeper than Manu, yes Manu is a sick player, but cmon now

the supporting cast of the Spurs gets HEAVILY overrated. Manu was a beast, he deserves his flowers, he deserves his HoF spot

But we're talking about a guy that only had to average 25 mpg for his whole career. His team was putting in a lot of work to help build success. His coach is arguably the greatest of all time, and that's the only person he's ever played under.

Harden's career 35 mpg is very impressive, it's one of the most underrated stats to look at for greatness, imo. It's even more impressive when you consider he had to come in and be the 6th man and win 6moty off the bench.

Harden has had great success under multiple coaches. He made the finals playing under Scott Brooks, he came to Houston and played under Kevin McHale for a few years and brought them to a few 50+ win seasons. Then he had Mike D'Antoni where obviously he continued to succeed, changed his style, and won the MVP while being the most unstoppable offensive machine in the NBA for 3 years straight. Then he transitions to Brooklyn, comes in under Steve Nash and people forget he was playing at an MVP level for that first Brooklyn year as a facilitator, not the scoring machine. He goes to Philadelphia and plays under Doc Rivers few 2 years, his worst years, but he also was helping Joel Embiid win the scoring title while leading the league in assists, which no one gives Harden credit for btw. Finally he comes to Los Angeles and plays under Ty Lue and initially it's slow, but then last year he has a resurgence to form, gets the All Star, and honestly he's a little underrated in LA. It felt like there was a streak where he was getting a 4 point play every game, you saw the flashes of classic James Harden, but you saw the savviness of his veteran game similar to what CP3 was doing with the Suns.

Manu was awesome, I'm sure he'd be great on other teams, he won a gold medal in 2004 with Argentina. He's obviously the GOAT of his country when it comes to Basketball. He is not nearly as dynamic of a guy as Harden.

You can pick and choose from the multiple eras of James Harden and you will find the right form of player to stick on a team for a single year run. With Manu you get one guy and he's a great, high level 6th man, high level role player, bench scorer. He isn't the engine of your team, he isn't the facilitator for a #1 offense, he isn't the guy helping his big man lead the league scoring, there's multiple levels at play here, and I understand that you might want to say "well it's easier to stick Manu on a team" no, I think you're underrating that there are so many versions of James Harden you can pick and choose. If you need a 6th man of the year, which is what Manu traditionally is, you can 100% put up an argument to take Harden instead. Of course Manu as a 6th man is better than Harden as a 6th man, but Harden as a 6th man isn't some impossibility, it's actually really damn good, so good that you can make the finals with Harden playing the role of the 6th man.

So please, think logically, it's easy to hyper focus on the guy that won more because he always had the best coach and best teammates and had less to lift, but Harden is the most dynamic guard in NBA history. The answer is only Harden.

Harden is the mkst dynamic guard in NBA history huh? You're absolutely right...the overrating IS insane.

[Mirotic12]

For a single year run? One of the most clutch players ever in Manu (except for that crazy choke job he did against the Mavs in the playoffs), or one of the biggest chokers ever in Harden?

Yeah, I'm definitely taking Manu.

[og15]

Manu played a role on a dynasty over many years and had lots of playoff success. James had some good regular season stats for a few years not taking care of his body and has done almost nothing f in the postseason. It’s not mystery who history will remember more. James isn’t taking a run at anything besides the strip club buffet. I’d only answer Harden for who would put up better regular season stats, a Harden led team isn’t going any further than a Manu one would and I know who I’d rather have as a complimentary piece

Yea, but is the post asking, Manu on a dynasty vs James Harden as a first option?

I mean of course that's not a fair comparison. I'd take James Worthy in a dynasty over Charles Barkley too, but that's not really a direct comparison.

The question is asking Harden vs Manu for a one year run, which means one needs to insert the same role for both players. As first options, Harden's durability, ability to play big minutes and carry a team over a season extremely easily wins, there's really no comparison, and I think we should not try and make up things to act like there is just because Manu is a guy the vast majority of us like more than Harden (and some winning bias).

As a second option (or second best player), okay, who is the first option? That can become more of a debate. We obviously didn't see prime Harden in that role, we saw older Harden, but Embiid is a first option who himself has playoff issues and health issues, so that's not a great comparison to being next to Duncan.

As a third option, obviously we saw young Harden in OKC who was great in that role.

Now, I do know that generally when questions like this are being asked, people are implying that the guy is the best player, and come on guys, let's not let this be an emotional thing, Harden easily wins.

[LarsV8]

Manu could barely stay on the court as a third option. There is virtually no chance he could be the alpha and the workhorse for a team. Again, this is a laughable comparison. In the limited capacity we saw Harden play a Manu role, he absolutely dominated.

[cupcakesnake]

Manu could barely stay on the court as a third option. There is virtually no chance he could be the alpha and the workhorse for a team. Again, this is a laughable comparison. In the limited capacity we saw Harden play a Manu role, he absolutely dominated.

He had a smattering of health issues in his early 30s, but he wasn't especially injury prone.

To assume Manu could or couldn't expand his role, its pure speculation either way. I don't see an obvious reason why he couldn't, but I can't prove he could. I don't get your "virtually no chance" statement though. What could you possibly base that off of?

[Doctor MJ]

All the ones you mentioned and a few others. All the ones where he was neither the primary offensive or defensive player on the team and got to come in and play to all his strengths in shorter bursts while often deferring or sharing significant loads to a bevy of other talented players on both sides throughout the entirety of his Spurs' tenure. Mainly that one.

I have to say, I think it's clear cut that the Spurs "system" just held Ginobili back. Pop was literally getting mad at Ginobili playing pace & space in the time right before the NBA was about to realize that pace & space was literally just better than what NBA thinkers thought they knew.

Why weren't pace and space teams winning then? Don Nelson tried to bring it to the nba and other than punking dirk one time, he was a miserable failure. Are we sure that 130 to 125 games didn't change what worked?

So, the initial question here is just really important to address and discuss, and I thank you for putting it forth. As you might guess, I have a lot to say on this:

I'll start with some data.

I'd argue that if you want to take one traditional box score stat as proxy for "pace & space"-ness, it would be team 3PA/G - which you could say is the produce of pace with 3PAr.

The archetypical - and birthplace of the term - pace & space team was the '04-05 "Seven Seconds or Less" Suns.
They shot 24.7 3PG.

The last team to win a title with less 3-point shooting than that was the '13-14 Spurs at 21.4, which would have been top 5 back in '04-05, while playing at a pace of 95.0, which would have been 2nd only to the Suns in '04-05.

This then to say, it's not a question of whether the pace & space approach - as defined by what it meant when people used it dismiss it as a gimmick that couldn't win titles - is the best approach to win in the NBA for last decade plus, because it clearly is.

The question is thus about WHEN this became a truth, and WHY THEN.

One approach based on the data I'm already using would be to separate the NBA into different eras with '13-14 being the end of the prior era and '14-15 being the start of a new. '14-15 is the moment a champion shot more 3's than the SSOL Suns, and from that point on, 3-point volume in the NBA truly began to skyrocket.

A telling stat imho: In their 5 straight finals from 2015 to 2019, the Warriors lost to two teams ('15-16 Cavs & '18-19 Raptors). Both those teams shot more 3's than the '14-15 Warriors. So when the Warriors changed the NBA's perspective, those who successfully competed with them didn't do so by "zagging" against the 3, but by embracing it.

But key takeaway, this line of reasoning leads to defining the shift based specifically on a copycat league, which while true, leads to another question:

If the paradigm shift came specifically as an immediate counter to a champion, and that counter proved generally successful (which it did a heck of a lot more than that given the aforementioned skyrocketing), then that implies that the paradigm shift could have happened successfully earlier.

Meaning: 3-point shooting skill of the players in the league is critical to success in this way, but if teams can quickly jump on board a paradigm shift requiring a skill successfully, then that means that capacity was latent in the players before it was activated by coaching strategy.

But not all players are to learn to shoot 3's of course, and so it's reasonable to argue that there was a point when not enough players had the latent talent to shoot 3's to justify shifting strategy. The tricky thing though is that we don't get direct access to knowing about unused latent skills, so we'll never have a definitive answer of when that time came.

What we can say is that in the ABA, the lack of immediate proficiency in the 3 by players led to a consensus coaching opinion that it should only be used in desperate moments rather than something that their players should keep practicing until they reached proficiency. And here I think it's quite telling to look at the career of Mr. 3-point shooter in the ABA, Louie Dampier.

In the first year of the ABA, Dampier shoots 2.0 3's per game on a horrendous 26.8%.

From there he practices a lot in the off-season and comes back shooting 7.1 3's per game on 36.1% shooting, and no shooter would top this until they shortened the 3-point line to try to further incentivize 3-point shooting in the '90s.

So quite literally, in '68-69, you've got an example of the future paradigm shift from a guy who basically just started seriously practicing the off-season before.

What happened after that? After two seasons playing in this way, he moved away from it, and by '72-73 he was shooting less than he did in '67-68.

Why did it happen? In a nutshell, because the coaches (plural) thought doing something as was more effective, and if you just look at overall team ORtg, they seem to be right... but I would say that we know not just that it was more complicated than that, but that a point guard volume 3-point shooting at that 3P% would literally still be valuable in today's game, so it clearly wasn't "the problem" back then.

These are the type of things that delayed the paradigm shift until basketball data science reached the minds of NBA decision makers.

Okay, stopping there, reading your quote above to think about what else I haven't responded to yet...

Ah, so, in terms of the "not winning", let's first keep in mind that "not being the #1 team in the NBA" is not the same as "being bad in the NBA". It's fine for all of us to keep the chip as our gold standard, but we shouldn't confuse 2nd place with last place.

Then we should note that pace & space is literally just an offensive strategy, and it's not a question of whether it led to the best offenses in the league in the '00s. It absolutely did, and even thought people think it didn't work in the playoffs, it really did.

But offense alone doesn't make a champion, and so in the 2 healthy years the Nash/Marion/Amar'e team was allowed to contend before the non-basketballman owner Sarver decided to blow it up, they lost to an eventual champion with an outstanding defense.

And I'll on this point by noting that if I had one piece of advise a time traveler for the SSOL Suns, it would simply be shooting 24.7 3PA/G is still below optimal, and that by the 2020s it was simply a known thing that a team had to be shooting 30+ 3's a game if they wanted to win a title.

Re: Don Nelson. So I'll start by just noting that since the '04-05 Suns weren't shooting enough 3's to be optimal, clearly the Dirk-Nash Mavs weren't either.

While it made sense at the time to think that they weren't winning because they were deviating too far from what a champion should be doing, I would suggest that the eras since have told us that they just weren't deviating enough in this was to guarantee that it would overcome their other weaknesses.

And I suppose I'll also note: It also made sense in the '00s to think that in order to get a pace & space offense that worked, you had to bias your lineup with bad defending bigs, but now we know that there's no reason why a guy can't be a defensive anchor and also run fast and shoot.

But on Nelson specifically, I think it's important not to confuse the mindset of Nelson with that of D'Antoni.

I see D'Antoni as a zealot. I'd say he latched on 2 key offensive philosophies when he went to Italy to play, and he carried him through his whole career:

a) Don't micromanage you floor general. If you have a high BBIQ floor general, he should be the one deciding how a specific offensive possession flows, not you, because he's the one with the ball, not you.

b) The 3-point shot works, and is underused. Note that, we would not expect anything to be "underused" forever, but D'Antoni was behaving as if it was underutilized with every new team he went to up through the '10s Rockets, and though out this time, I'd say he was always right.

By contrast, I see Nelson as a mad scientist. Mad creativity, mad courage... but not swimming in any one particular direction. And while this isn't necessarily a problem, it did mean in '03-04 - the year before Nash would leave to go to Phoenix and kickstart the pace & space movement in earnest - the Mavs actually shot less 3's than the previous year.

Now, one can point out that the team's offense was the best it had ever been by ORtg, and so much like in the ABA, easy at the time to think he was recognizing optimality meant moving away from the 3... but we know in retrospect that they were nowhere near some kind of optimal 3PAr.

Of course, Nelson the coach had to work with what the franchise acquired, and that means that father & son Nelsons along with owner Cuban, all play a part in the direction things went, but just generally, I see Nelson as a guy better at trying new things out than a guy who came to believe one path (pace and space) held a major untapped competitive advantage.

Now, you can argue that Pop made the right move in staggering Ginobili's minutes, but this had nothing to do with why, say, Ginobili ran circles around the entirety of Team USA in 2004

Carlos arroyo ran even bigger circles. Team USA. especiallt in 2002 and 2004 was prone tk discombobulation.

Well, let's first note that

a) we were talking about Ginobili's minutes,

and

b) you're bashing Duncan's Olympic team here as part of a perspective that surely sees Duncan as far better than Ginobili.

It's certainly true though that the 2004 Team USA was horrifically put together and coached, and that's why they were vulnerable to losing to international teams much less talent, and also not unrelated to why strategies from international ball would have so much success in the NBA in years to come.

* I think Harden vs Ginobili is quite debatable.
* I don't say that because I consider Harden to be generally overrated.
* I say it because I think Ginobili in his time was just about the most underrated player I can imagine, because of what we thought we knew, that wasn't actually true.

It's debatable if we consider some idealized ginobili who somehow never struggled in the playoffs but somehow had worse numbers than a harden who apparently always struggled. Who somehow didn't struggle but lost lots of series as an SRS favorite. Who, after a rookie year where he wasn't a huge contributor, basically won 2 titles with his whole prime spent with this board's #5 all time and probably #2 by the time the 2032 top 100 rolls around. I mean surely someone better than a 5 time mvp candidate paired with #5 all time for their whole primes should get you more than a weak WCF exit in 2008 and a second round sweep in 2010 or 8th seed loss in 2011.

And that guy probably shouldn't throw the 2006 title in the dumpster with the dumbest foul ever or lose the 2013 title with clutch missed free throws and gads of turnovers. I mean, if you aren't bringing the big things, you can't also mess up the small things in the finals when you've got the game settings on easy mode.

So I think I'm going to try to keep avoiding getting into Harden, because I don't really see him as overrated and I'd rather avoid going negative.

Re: Lost a lot of series as SRS favorites. Hmm, so I don't have that data handy, so please elaborate if you'd like. I'm not sure what I want to see I have to say, but I will note that while I'm all for pointing out suboptimalities of champions, I'm less keen on trying to discredit the playoff credentials of teams that won a bunch of chips.

Re: dumbest foul ever, etc. So here I'll just say that it's natural to fixate on particular moments like this - Robert Horry once said "if Manu Ginobili would have did the things he was supposed to do, I would have had like 10 championships."

But to me this is where the RAPM data trumps the anecdotal. There's more to analyzing a player than RAPM data, but if a guy known for wild improvisation is getting skyhigh RAPM, this is telling us that mostly the player is making a more optimal play than what the coach's scheme would have made.

[Godymas]

holy hell, the overrating is insane. just because Manu happened to have a highlight play on prime James Harden doesn't change that a team with prime James Harden only lost to at worst a top 3 team of all time in NBA history in 7 games.

Like Harden's bag is deeper than Manu, yes Manu is a sick player, but cmon now

the supporting cast of the Spurs gets HEAVILY overrated. Manu was a beast, he deserves his flowers, he deserves his HoF spot

But we're talking about a guy that only had to average 25 mpg for his whole career. His team was putting in a lot of work to help build success. His coach is arguably the greatest of all time, and that's the only person he's ever played under.

Harden's career 35 mpg is very impressive, it's one of the most underrated stats to look at for greatness, imo. It's even more impressive when you consider he had to come in and be the 6th man and win 6moty off the bench.

Harden has had great success under multiple coaches. He made the finals playing under Scott Brooks, he came to Houston and played under Kevin McHale for a few years and brought them to a few 50+ win seasons. Then he had Mike D'Antoni where obviously he continued to succeed, changed his style, and won the MVP while being the most unstoppable offensive machine in the NBA for 3 years straight. Then he transitions to Brooklyn, comes in under Steve Nash and people forget he was playing at an MVP level for that first Brooklyn year as a facilitator, not the scoring machine. He goes to Philadelphia and plays under Doc Rivers few 2 years, his worst years, but he also was helping Joel Embiid win the scoring title while leading the league in assists, which no one gives Harden credit for btw. Finally he comes to Los Angeles and plays under Ty Lue and initially it's slow, but then last year he has a resurgence to form, gets the All Star, and honestly he's a little underrated in LA. It felt like there was a streak where he was getting a 4 point play every game, you saw the flashes of classic James Harden, but you saw the savviness of his veteran game similar to what CP3 was doing with the Suns.

Manu was awesome, I'm sure he'd be great on other teams, he won a gold medal in 2004 with Argentina. He's obviously the GOAT of his country when it comes to Basketball. He is not nearly as dynamic of a guy as Harden.

You can pick and choose from the multiple eras of James Harden and you will find the right form of player to stick on a team for a single year run. With Manu you get one guy and he's a great, high level 6th man, high level role player, bench scorer. He isn't the engine of your team, he isn't the facilitator for a #1 offense, he isn't the guy helping his big man lead the league scoring, there's multiple levels at play here, and I understand that you might want to say "well it's easier to stick Manu on a team" no, I think you're underrating that there are so many versions of James Harden you can pick and choose. If you need a 6th man of the year, which is what Manu traditionally is, you can 100% put up an argument to take Harden instead. Of course Manu as a 6th man is better than Harden as a 6th man, but Harden as a 6th man isn't some impossibility, it's actually really damn good, so good that you can make the finals with Harden playing the role of the 6th man.

So please, think logically, it's easy to hyper focus on the guy that won more because he always had the best coach and best teammates and had less to lift, but Harden is the most dynamic guard in NBA history. The answer is only Harden.

Harden is the mkst dynamic guard in NBA history huh? You're absolutely right...the overrating IS insane.

only one other guard has a career with 2 scoring titles and 2 assist titles, and that would be Russell Westbrook

yes, he is the most dynamic guard in NBA history

his game is so influential that you can name 3 guys in the NBA that derive a good portion of their play from James Harden.

Luka Doncic, Trae Young and Cade Cunningham.

[walk with me]

This thread is insane lol.

Ginobili is a 2 time all star
Harden has won mvp before (could have won multiple times) and been on 11 all star teams. Cmon now lol

[fansse]

This thread is insane lol.

Ginobili is a 2 time all star
Harden has won mvp before (could have won multiple times) and been on 11 all star teams. Cmon now lol

It makes you take a step back and realize the lack of objectivity in all those RealGM takes. I get that Harden is one of the most hated players ever, but this thread is crazy, and the poll result is even more laughable

[red96]

This thread is insane lol.

Ginobili is a 2 time all star
Harden has won mvp before (could have won multiple times) and been on 11 all star teams. Cmon now lol

It makes you take a step back and realize the lack of objectivity in all those RealGM takes. I get that Harden is one of the most hated players ever, but this thread is crazy, and the poll result is even more laughable

The vast majority of Manu's career pt has been off the bench, and under 30mpg. His best playoffs stats are amoung Harden's worst.