James Harden is a superstar

[SideshowBob]

Harden With and Without Durant and Westbrook, per36

2011

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With Durant

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
78   1351    11.3    8.9      3.3     3.9     2.5     .486   .546

Without Durant

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
81   838     24.6    15.1     9.5     4.7     3.6     .547   .638

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With Westbrook

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
82   1159    10.4    7.6      3.2     3.8     2.2     .508   .577

Without Westbrook

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
82   1030    23.2    15.3     8.4     4.6     3.6     .530   .611

2012

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With Durant

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   1420    14.9    9.6      4.7     4.7     3.6     .570   .638

Without Durant

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   526     31.2    17.2     12.5    4.7     6.0     .607   .687

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With Westbrook

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   1231    13.7    8.9      4.4     4.5     3.7     .571   .632

Without Westbrook

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   715     29.0    16.3     11.1    4.9     5.2     .600   .684

[Mavericksfan]

Do you have his numbers with/without Perkins/Ibaka/Collison?

[SideshowBob]

Do you have his numbers with/without Perkins/Ibaka/Collison?

Sure, but it'll take some time if you can hang tight

[USA]

What % of those numbers are against other teams bench players?

[SideshowBob]

Harden With and Without Perkins, Ibaka, and Collison, per36

2011

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With Perkins

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
17   122     9.1     8.6      1.5     3.2     1.2     .494   .491

Without Perkins

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
25   588     22.0    14.6     7.2     3.7     3.6     .539   .619

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With Ibaka

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
80   1166    14.4    10.0     5.0     3.7     2.7     .515   .590

Without Ibaka

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
80   1023    18.7    12.6     6.4     4.8     3.1     .521   .607

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With Collison

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
71   1196    19.9    13.0     7.1     4.6     3.3     .533   .617

Without Collison

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
80   992     12.3    9.1      3.8     3.7     2.4     .493   .571

2012

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With Perkins

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
61   747     12.8    8.8      3.8     4.6     3.0     .553   .611

Without Perkins

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   1199    23.4    13.4     8.7     4.7     5.0     .594   .679

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With Ibaka

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   732     13.9    8.6      4.4     4.5     3.3     .581   .660

Without Ibaka

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   1214    22.6    13.5     8.3     4.8     4.8     .580   .659

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With Collison

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
60   1155    23.9    13.8     8.6     4.5     4.7     .600   .680

Without Collison

GP   MIN     PTS     FGA      FTA     TRB     AST     eFG%    TS%
62   791     12.6    8.5      4.3     5.0     3.5     .541   .606

[Mavericksfan]

Sir you are very awesome.

Nice to see that without Collison his TS% isn't godly anymore(still very good of course).

I can't imagine him hitting 20+ ppg while still maintaining a 60ish TS%. He won't have anywhere near the amount of spacing he had in OKC.

[fallacy]

Bob just made me think of something I never thought of, Harden is going to miss Collison. Collison set up Harden in some way almost everytime down the floor

[Mavericksfan]

Yup, that's why I asked.

Going from Collison to Asik / the rest of Houston's bigs is going to hurt Harden a ton.

[SideshowBob]

I'm more concerned with how Harden affects the rest of Houston's roster than the opposite. While we know he's hailed for his uber-efficient production, his claim-to-fame on the PC board has largely been his superstar-level +/- numbers.

What we want to see is how effective he is in the role of a primary playmaker, rather than sharing the responsibility. Can he be more dynamic? How effective is he when he's not running the PnR? Can he open up the floor with his spacing ability? Can he be put into the go-to scorer role occasionally and illustrate that when nothing else is working, and without easy driving lanes, that he can frequently get to the line, as his numbers in OKC suggest he does? Overall, how much is he going to be able to improve the offense? Can he start to show some progression on the defensive side? These are the things I'm going to be looking at

[Rapcity_11]

Yup, that's why I asked.

Going from Collison to Asik / the rest of Houston's bigs is going to hurt Harden a ton.

Dunno, Montiejunas and Terrence Jones could fit nicely with Harden.

[SideshowBob]

Statline aside, I love what I've seen from him tonight. His hot shooting isn't going to sustain, but he's going to continue to play his brand of ball and that's what I wanted to see.

[sixerswillrule]

I'd say about 22 ppg on .58 TS% for the season.

[Dr Positivity]

His shot chart was pretty legit tonight. 8-11 at the rim, 5-6 from the FT line, 4-10 from 3, 2-4 from midrange. It would be more likely to be a fluke if he went 8-11 from midrange and 2-4 from the rim or something, which is how Beasley did it when he got hot for that 2 week stretch in Minnesota.

[tsherkin]

I'd be leery of expecting him to shoot 73% FG at the rim all year. He has shot 47, 61 and 70 percent there on 2.5 to 3.4 attempts per game over the past three years, so he'll do very well for himself, but that's quite high. He's also not going to be taking 10 3PA/g either, he'll take at most half of that.

Remember, he went 10/15 under the arc tonight; that's just flat-out not going to happen on a regular basis.

He'll do well for himself because he's a smart player who can hit the three and is a good free throw shooter with a knack for getting to the line, but I would be leery of calling his shot chart "legit." 11 attempts at the rim isn't something you're going to see every night, especially when he was taking basically 4 FGA36 at the rim this past season.

[Keshavarzi]

I'd be leery of expecting him to shoot 73% FG at the rim all year. He has shot 47, 61 and 70 percent there on 2.5 to 3.4 attempts per game over the past three years, so he'll do very well for himself, but that's quite high. He's also not going to be taking 10 3PA/g either, he'll take at most half of that.

Remember, he went 10/15 under the arc tonight; that's just flat-out not going to happen on a regular basis.

He'll do well for himself because he's a smart player who can hit the three and is a good free throw shooter with a knack for getting to the line, but I would be leery of calling his shot chart "legit." 11 attempts at the rim isn't something you're going to see every night, especially when he was taking basically 4 FGA36 at the rim this past season.

He shot close to 60% from 2 last season, pretty crazy for a SG when you consider a lot of bigs don't do that.

[tsherkin]

He shot close to 60% from 2 last season, pretty crazy for a SG when you consider a lot of bits don't do that.

League average FG% at the rim for shooting guards was 62.9% in 2012, and 63.6% in 2011.



He was phenomenal in 2012 at 70.4%, but I doubt he'll maintain that rate as a primary option over extended minutes and likely increased volume. He'll still likely be above average, but he was actually below average in his first two seasons.

EDIT: Not that his performance in 2011 and 2010 makes me think he'll go BACK to being below average, I just wanted to point out that he had a great year in the compressed season, but because of extra minutes, extra volume and increased defensive attention, I wouldn't expect him to be 7% above league average again, let alone ~ 10%, as he was in this game. And again, 11 FGA/g at the rim isn't going to happen, that would be him nearly quadrupling his volume at the rim and the league-high the past two seasons has been 7.3 (2012, DeMarcus Cousins) and 7.3 (2011, Blake Griffin). See what I mean?

[fatal9]

Harden is a good shooter and has good footwork (for things like stepbacks), lot of guys who can't develop a solid midrange game is because they don't have those qualities to begin with. It's the only question I have about his offensive game, but I think he can easily pick it up because of his skills. Also, given his role with OKC, they didn't really need to iso him for midrange scoring when they had Westbrook and Durant already.

A good midrange game is how he's going to prevent what happened in the finals from happening to him again. Theoretically, around the rim shots and good three point shooting are the way to maximize your efficiency, but teams in the playoffs can adjust their defense to keep you out of the paint. When that happens, you can't just shoot only threes, it'll make you a very erratic scorer where you'll look like a god some nights and completely ineffective other nights (we saw this in the playoffs). That's a dimension of his game he needs to add to really bring himself to superstar level.

Sick game by him tonight. Can't believe OKC decided to keep Westbrook/Ibaka over him.

[Dr Positivity]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAFdBWuNhw[/youtube]

His penetration ability looks insane here. Good early call by bastillion - I think Harden will turn out to be a superstar

[ardee]

Harden is a good shooter and has good footwork (for things like stepbacks), lot of guys who can't develop a solid midrange game is because they don't have those qualities to begin with. It's the only question I have about his offensive game, but I think he can easily pick it up because of his skills. Also, given his role with OKC, they didn't really need to iso him for midrange scoring when they had Westbrook and Durant already.

A good midrange game is how he's going to prevent what happened in the finals from happening to him again. Theoretically, around the rim shots and good three point shooting are the way to maximize your efficiency, but teams in the playoffs can adjust their defense to keep you out of the paint. When that happens, you can't just shoot only threes, it'll make you a very erratic scorer where you'll look like a god some nights and completely ineffective other nights (we saw this in the playoffs). That's a dimension of his game he needs to add to really bring himself to superstar level.

Sick game by him tonight. Can't believe OKC decided to keep Westbrook/Ibaka over him.

Westbrook I think is better, but Ibaka over Harden is a desicion that will really come back to bite them in the ass.

[Dr Positivity]

I think the move was trading Ibaka on draft night. Pick up the #5 pick from the Kings for Ibaka (who'd obviously want him beside Cousins) and take Robinson or Drummond. Replacing Ibaka with Robinson/Drummond playing the super athletic PF on a rookie contract 4th banana role, would've been a very soft landing from this "gotta blow up the big 4 cause of finances" problem. I'm not a Robinson fan but it's easy to see how he'd have been perfect 4th guy for them basically doing a Charles Oakley impression (get 10 rebounds a game, hit wide open 15 foot jumpshots, and be one of the league's biggest thugs/trolls under the basket)