Krodis wrote:turk3d wrote:Harden has the huge advantage of playing next to Durant (top 3 and league leading scorer in the NBA) and Westbrook, two of the best players in the league (not to mention legitimate big men in Ibaka and Perkins). Put Monta in that circumstance (and put Harden on the Warriors) and then we'll see who's efficiency goes up and whose goes down.
This is why stats don't tell the whole story and present a pretty weak argument, Can't imagine how much higher Monta's efficiency would be playing next to KD where he wasn't the guy who opposing teams focused all their defensive energy on.
There really aren't many examples of low efficiency players becoming high efficiency players when being moved to better teams. People said the same thing about Al Jefferson, but when he got to Utah with Deron Williams, his efficiency was still very poor.
Also, Win Shares ad Wins Produced are advanced statistics. James Harden doesn't automatically win those stats because he's on a better team. (For example, I believe Kevin Love led the league in Wins Produced last year)
Kevin Love was the best rebounder in the league and I think rebounder is a very important aspect to the game and helps make for winning.
So then does the same hold true for high efficiency guys going down in efficiency (Monta was the highest efficiency shooting guard in the league on the Warriors We Believe team if I'm not mistaken shooting 53% fg%).
Are you saying that the high % drop was not directly proportional from playing with Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, prime Jason Richardson and Andris Biedrins during his best years?
Al Jefferson was a PF being forced to play out of position at Center which is why his efficiency went down. Actually, in checking his advanced stats AJs efficiency did not go down that much (efG% went from 50.2% career to 49.6% and TS% went from 53.4% career to 52.8%).