Pelly24 wrote:NZB2323 wrote:Pelly24 wrote:
Honestly, DWade by 2012 really wasn't as good as Harden is now, and I'd argue he was barely better than Kyrie, if at all. The thing about Harden and Kyrie is that they're both elite shooters, and we saw them all put up pretty amazing numbers even when all three of them played. There really wasn't an obvious sacrifice, Harden just played more of a facilitator role and kyrie played more off ball and KD played the way he always did. Wade was never that level of off-ball threat and couldn't seamlessly fit with lebron in the same way. Offensively, he was a little worse playing with Brown.
But Bosh, I just don't get that one other than health. Kyrie is an elite shooter and really just a much better scorer than Bosh. Not as good of a defender, but a far better playmaker. Bosh averaged like 14/7/1.5 on I think decent efficiency in the playoffs w. the heat. Kyrie was putting up like 24/6/5 on like 48/37/93 and about 59 TS% before he went down. There's no situation where Kyrie would average that small of an amount of points. There were times when the Heat needed more, but Bosh simply couldn't do it.
As a whole, I think it's pretty clear the Nets Big 3 was better because all three of those guys can shoot and essentially do everything on or off the ball. Any one of them can initiate the offense, any one of them can drop 30 or 40 points, any one of them can handle the ball in transition, any one of them can hit 5 or 6 threes in a game. DWade was still probably just as good as Harden or KD or even a little better in 2011, but 2k12-2k14 those injuries made him a lot less effective.
If you’re going to hold Wade’s performance from 2012-2014 against him, when he was playing through injuries, then tell me how well Irving and Harden performed in the playoffs this year.
Lebron and Wade were arguably the 2 best players in the NBA when they joined forces.
Harden averaged 20/6/9 on 67 TS% and had a 9.2 BPM and .262 ws/48 these playoffs. And that's taking into account the performances after he was injured and the game he was injured in the first couple of minutes. In the first round, he was probably the best player in the playoffs. Kyrie averaged 23/6/3 on 58 TS% and he had the fourth highest net rating in the playoffs. He would've averaged like 28/6/7 or 8 on 48/39/92 or something like that if Harden weren't there, but he just kicked it during Celtic series, and then he got injured first half of last game against the Bucks. Harden and Kyrie were basically pretty dominant during the playoffs (KD and Kyrie looked like the best players on the court for much of the first three games against the bucks, that series was probably going 5, 6 games tops), even taking injuries into account. KD and Harden are two of the top 5 players in the league, former MVP's. Harden can average 36/8/10 on 62 TS%, KD can average ridiculous numbers. LeBron and Wade were kind of a clunky fit, though they were so good it didn't matter (until wade wasn't healthy).
Wade played through injuries and played poorly.
Irving and Harden got injured and sat on the bench.
I know Harden wasn't 100% when he came back, but it's a different era now in terms of expectations for a star to gut through injuries vs. playing it out, but holding Wade's poor play against him because he played through injuries instead of sitting is silly. Wade missed 1 playoff game out of 178. And we may never see a season where KD, Harden, and Irving are all healthy all the way through.
Harden has never averaged 36/8/10 on 62 TS% in the playoffs.
Last year was his best playoffs statistically, where he put up 30, 7, and 7 on 64 TS%, but are we sure he's a top 5 player in the playoffs when we have Lebron, Durant, Curry, Jokic, Doncic, AD, Giannis, Embiid, Kawhi, and Dame?
