Doctor MJ wrote:bondom34 wrote:1. It's really not though. I don't think Harden is a better decision maker at all, he's more TO prone, he's just better at getting to the line. He's not a terribly better shooter, and to this point turns it over more often.
Points per touch is indicating he's more efficient each time he touches the ball which to me would indicate the opposite.
How Westbrook was "groomed" isn't really relevant to how either is playing currently when our only current goal is to measure just that, not more.
2. Yes. I think Westbrook could do similar. I think Curry could. To be totally honest I think most any offensively skilled PG would look pretty similarly amazing under MDA. He's done this with Jeremy Lin, I'm not counting out a high caliber PG from doing more.
As well, I'm more confused because of your use of plus/minus except when they seem to finally favor Westbrook. RPM is favoring him, and I get the box score portion but BPM alone has been shown to have predictive value as well.
1. Houston is running an offense utterly dominated by Harden's primacy, they are doing it with a far-beyond-reckless approach to scoring where Harden is regularly making ultra-long passes on a level I don't think we've ever seen anyone do before, and this is leading to the #1 offense in the league with a TO% that is pretty normal in the NBA.
I don't think it makes sense to say that Harden is turnover prone simply because in the course of this task he personally commits more turnovers than others.
Re: not really a terribly better shooter. Dude, I thought you were the one trying to excuse Westbrook's decision making based on his weaker shooting. To me though it seems like a distinction without difference though here.
Re: groomed irrelevant. Just making a statement about how I see things.
2. Okay, I really don't understand how you say this and your not going nuts at how amazing D'Antoni is then. You think he can run a 115+ ORtg with basically any skilled point guard. That's an insane coaching ability.
Re: BPM is predictive. It's predictive but it has consistent biases. The biases don't make it useless were there no other metrics to use, but there are other metrics.
Re: "You like +/- except when it favors Westbrook", yeah that's where I feel ya. From my perspective I'm saying the same stuff I always said but I understand why it wouldn't seem that way to others.
Alright, home for the weekend
.1. Except Houston's offense runs fine when Harden sits. His primacy is great but it's not like there's a total ineptitude when he takes a breath on the bench. MDA's run offenses with no talent that have been pretty decent.
And calling Harden TO prone because he commits a lot of TOs seems pretty appropriate. He's always done so, but he's doing it even more this year.
I wasn't excusing decision making based on shooting. Both guys comitt a lot of TOs (Harden relatively more via TO percentage), but claiming Harden is more efficient based on a higher TS isn't representing that they're pretty similar shooting this year. Harden's a better shooter but it's not like he's Curry either.
2. I love what MDA is doing. Never said otherwise. He ran a 111 offense with Ray Felton and half a season of Melo, Harden's a vastly better player and this roster has more offensive talent then that one.
Re: BPM/biases. You could say the same about any metric. So does RAPM, yet it seems they're rarely brought up. When we've got RPM and BPM, it's what I'll use.
Re: The last part, I really feel like there's a big bias here and it's why we both struggle with this topic. I know I'm a bit biased but I think you are too on this topic. There's some "ideal" player that doesn't really exist and it's not what Russ does to you. The thing is, he does nearly everything Harden does except draw fouls and if I'm taking one of the two to start a team it's Westbrook, there's certainly no clear gap as to who's the better of the two.
To this point, OKC's roster is at where it is not because they're faiing when Westbrook is on court, but because they're a -11 when he sits. I posted the bench numbers, where they're literally worse than the Nets bench. His backup PG was in Italy a year ago and taken in the mid 50s in the draft a couple years back. Other than that Kanter and Abrines are solid bench options who have obvious defensive limitations, and the rest of the roster might have 2 2way players at most in Oladipo and Adams, with Gibson just added for maybe a 3rd. To add to it the entire year the starting lineup was suffering because of starting a rookie at the PF. The new starting lineup is around a plus 25 net rating.
Morey campaigning. Harden deserves his credit too but this is corny. Really not a good look to me, and I'd say the same of Presti.
