Bucksfan28 wrote:Never will understand the Harden hate. I enjoy watching super talented players.
I'll answer this. I have no issue with him as a person but I don't enjoy watching Harden's style of basketball.
His eFG% is actually quite mediocre. For as high as his reputation of a scorer is, Harden is really not that great at putting the ball in the rim during live play. His great scoring efficiency comes from the fact that he leads the league in free throw attempts every year. This isn't a Shaq or Giannis situation where defenders have no chance to defend him at the rim so they get mauled. Harden will jump into contact like nobody else. His goal is often not to put the ball in the basket but it's to create contact to get to the free throw line. He hooks arms and flails into defenders at the rim and on the perimeter. Plus he's arguably the worst flopper in the league.
It seems like Harden's best skill is at manipulating the rules and the refs rather than the actual basketball skills that fans enjoy watching. I hope we don't have a generation of kids imitating his style because if the league has a bunch of Harden clones ten years from now then the NBA will be unbearable.