ShotCreator wrote:Luka is not in Harden’s ballpark.
Harden right now reminds me so much of Chris Paul at the exact same age. And even LeBron. Years of playing is getting him at a mental and skill peak while retaining just enough natural athleticism to have an insane peak.
Years of built up nonsense of narratives are overshadowing an insanely good, complete season.
Harden is playing some of the best basketball for a guard ever. Kobe has never sustained this level of play in his career and it’s obvious to see.
The guy is a two-way monster. Harden is a good help, man, and post defender on bigs.
Is mentally engaged on defense like never before, being accountable and actually defensive-minded. Like he values possessions and really wants to grit out defensive possessions like a Marcus Smart or Lowry.
Getting doubled 30 feet off.
And he’s not in some particularly ideal situation. His best players are corner specialists who compete on defense(Tucker, Covington).
Now that I’m typing this out, LeBron 31 year old season was underrated because the narrative was, he was simply old and done playing defense.
Winds up singlehandedly killing the death lineup. And he really never stopped playing defense at any point that year.
It would be very hard to objectively say any wing was better as a player than Harden at this point. I think Giannis had something of a 2010 LeBron year and is best individually but that’s debatable. Too bad he didn’t get to finish that series.
With Harden being a good defender, and the best offensive player in the world right now, is there enough of a defensive gap for LeBron to make up?
Or for Kawhi to? I don’t believe so, but that’s what it should come down to when judging.
And Luka? Pssh.
Wait are you being sarcastic lol, hardens literally is the best situation for any iso scorer in nba history in terms of his own production. Hardens definately imrpoved defensively but he still has hella lapses on that end too. His d on cp3 for example wasnpretty bad
The houstan offense is designed around harden 1v1 with spacing, and d antoni is a master at getting the defense spaced out in a way that its hella isolated. Hardens probably the best 1v1 player in the league, and a great passer, but the problem is he gets so uninvolved with possessions once he passes it out. Hes not really thaaat good at passing it out of hard doubles, finishing through well positioned help defense, etc. hes a great p and r playmaker too.
But the thing is hes usually more isolated on offense than anyone else in nva history offensively.
That being said he does have clear weaknesses. He becomes really uninvolved if his initial attack doesnt work. If a team is somehow able to get their big man in the paint in good help position without leaving someone open, (which you can do theough good rotations) he becomes passive. If you can help on him hard and have the defensive communication to rotate, he becomes incredibly passive. Its really noticable that if harden makes one pass out he basically just takes the possession off at times.
Essentially his offensive game is strong but limited, and theres definately a reason why it doesnt usually translate as well to the playoffs.
The lakers started running zone a but more in games 2-4 and were generally rotating well. When they executed the rockets offense became completey stagnant, whether thats hardens fault or the rockets fault, is questionable but even though they could definstely adjusted better hardens passiveness and basically being a non factor once he passes it didnt help at all.
The rockets are the best team in the league at functionally spacing the floor, and the best team at the league in generating mismatches. If you notice, on harden drives the defense is almost never in good position to help unless they rotate early.
Contrast this to the lakers trying to score on houstan, or many teams really, where theyre facing almost an exclusively packed paint.
Lebrons kind of got harden beat handily in passing, sure hardens a top 5 passer in the league maybe top 3, but lebrons like, kind of squarely in that number one spot, the only thing he misses are lobs (this series) really, and its a pretty weird situation.
Lebron with the same level of functional spacing as harden would be as dominant on offense. I mean whenever you see lebron drive and no help appears he scores lol.
The main thing is while hardens better at breaking down his man, by nature lebrons better on mismatches if he had more room to operate because physics, hes a good deal better at kicking out even tho hardens good at that too, and hes a better finisher against good help defense.
I dont see how anyones looking at hardens series and saying hes the best wing ever or anything like that.
Also comparing wings in the 2000s and 2020s is difficult, because strong iso wings like kobe and wade would be absurdly dominant today under systems like that as well. I mean, in terms of effeciency no ones effeciency has gone up more than strong iso wings, the 2000s were actually where they were at their lowest for most players.
Offensively i mean, wade is arguably the best slasher ever and kobe is kawhi+1 in everything and a great deal more explosive with less strength but a more diverse pick and roll game.
Hardens a great player and one of the best iso players the game has ever seen
But 2 things are apparent
1. Hes not played well in important games throughout his career
- this is pretty self explanetory. 2017 obv the turnover record, 2018 he forgot how to shoot, 2019 he was fine but those 3 turnovers in 3 minutes at the end hurts, and he wasnt amazing that series, 2020 absent in game 7 and 2/11 in a crucial game 4.
2. He dissapears for stretches
Throughout this lakers series outside of game 1, yeah, he looked amazing and unplayable at times but he gets so passive once the D attavks him hard, and just disspaears for long stretches of the game. His off ball game is non existent, and while that may or may mot be by design there are fully times where a simple cur would have given an open bucket but hes standing like 5 feet from the three pine with his hands kn his hips watching gordan and westbrook iso and giving it back to them when they pass it out to him
3. He is in a system dedicated to create high effeciency iso scoring - self explanetory
That coupled with the current rigidness and lack of versatility in his offensive approach when things arent going right are gonna bring him down in an all time sense
Jts not as if the lakers are doing anything crazy on defense otherthan helping on drives or doubling and rotating well, or playing zone or random coveragesand mixing things up.
If harden has an off ball game hed be able to take advantage of these rotations more will well times cuts but hes so stagnant without the ball and it does hurt their team. Not to mention bron and ad have both been more effecient on a much, much more packed paint
