bondom34 wrote:penbeast0 wrote:bondom34 wrote:...
Honestly, other than Oladipo (he was only there a year) and Lillard think every guy on any of these teams has had some sort of irrational slander at some point.
What do you consider an "irrational" slander? Is Harden not working hard on defense or off ball an "irrational" slander? Is Kawhi Leonard taking a lot of games off "irrational?" I agree that sometimes you get some crazy views and the more takes you get on a player the higher likelihood that some of them will be strange, but sometimes the takes are legit criticism as well . . . "yes, this person is a great player but . . . "
Harden is a playoff choker who can't win under pressure. Only good because he gets foul calls, otherwise he's just a nobody.
Kawhi has been on stacked teams his whole career, only won b/c his teams are always incredibly deep. Only won in 14 because of the Spurs system and in 19 because the Warriors were injured and the Raptors team depth (they had a winning record without him).
Etc.
The Harden takes are definitely really out there, he's been labeled a ton of things that aren't fair (and I'm saying this as someone who's not a fan of his in general). Pretty much all these guys barring those two have had it that I can recall in some form. Kawhi's has been maybe weaker, but still there at times. Generally, if you open the general forum or most forms of social media and anything around most of these players it's pretty prominent. Seemed like it mainly came up here when it went to Curry.
Heck Luka's catching a ton of it now too in his 3rd year. AD's not a winner, Lebron carried him. But Lebron's not a winner and needs stacked teams for a title shot. Jokic had the goalposts shifted so many times from he can't get his team to the playoffs to can't get them out of the first round to now can't get them to a finals. Gobert is played off the court in the playoffs, Embiid injury prone and not a winner, Simmons by some people's accounts may be a fringe starter. And those guys are some of the bunch who take some of the "least" criticism relative.
Edit: And this is before getting to guys like Paul George or Westbrook. I still see stuff about Westbrook that's pretty irrational and has been for years and PG can't say anything without taking heat and despite having overall a decent playoff record both of them get no pass while a more liked star gets one. Most social media isn't rational and acts as if nothing happened before yesterday. Like, heck I'll make a Playoff P joke but he's overall been very good and people act like he's been a poor playoff performer and ignore Westbrook's career.
As I said, it's why I took a little social media break, this subforum is a bit better but on the whole... NBA discourse is kind of bad.
Self quoting myself here, and more a general thought, but looking at the GB and realizing some of it (ie the thread about Shaq trash talking Rudy Gobert) is even coming from guys who are supposed to be promoting the game. Gobert's one of the guys who gets some unfair treatment too (and edited in, but Westbrook though he fell off now, CP3, and George are a few of the worse ones in recent history too).
It's not only social media, but even media in general is a weird problem in ways. Other sports I don't see this in (social media amplifies the bad/hot take nature of it, and is worse, but media promoting it just is bad too).
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