James Harden's Potential (127 views)

[eric]

If James Harden wins the MVP and the championship in the same year, he'll be the fifteenth player to do so.
Cousy - Russell - Wilt - Reed
Kareem - Moses - Bird - Magic - Michael
Hakeem - Shaq - Duncan - LeBron - Curry
He will also probably have to go through Curry to do so, as Curry went through LeBron, as LeBron went through Duncan, as Duncan went through Shaq... the king will always die, always long live the king.

He will also be the twelfth to win the scoring title and the MVP in the same year, and while this company is slightly more exclusive it is also somewhat less distinguished.
Shaq Iverson Durant Curry Westbrook
Pettit Wilt Kareem McAdoo Jordan

And he will be only the fifth to be scoring leader and champion:
George Mikan
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Michael Jordan
Shaquile O'Neal

30 PPG and 60 TS% is easy enough that known losers Adrian Dantley and Karl Malone have done it. But to combine it with the championship has happened exactly twice:
1971 Kareem
1991 Michael
Harden would make three.

Let's talk about Curry's 2016 season.
-30.1 PPG (leader)
-67 TS%, by far a record for 30 ppg scorers
-MVP
-73 wins, an all time record
-defending MVP and defending champion
-took a 3-1 lead in the Finals
-a position from which teams were 31-0

Had he won exactly one more game he would have joined all the clubs listed above, as well as the most prestigious club in the NBA: back to back MVPs on back to back champions:
Bill Russell
Michael Jordan
LeBron James

.

.

.

.

.

but he didn't

[TimPig]

Curry is such a failure.

[pedro el guapo]

that 2016 Cavs win is still so shocking in retrospect. Like, every time I think about that season I'm still in disbelief that the Warriors couldn't finish it off

[wee2dee]

thanks, Draymond.

[Deleted]

spent too much time chewing his mouthpiece

[eric]

another fun exercise is to look at top five win shares finishes in the regular and postseasons. here are the players with at least seven each in the NBA:

Bill Russell
Wilt Chamberlain
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Tim Duncan
LeBron James

And here are the other active players with at least three in either category:

Dirk Nowitzki (7 and 3)
Chris Paul (6 and 1)
James Harden (5 and 2)
Kevin Durant (5 and 3)
Russell Westbrook (3 and 1)
Steph Curry (3 and 2)
Dwight Howard (3 and 1)
Dwyane Wade (2 and 3)
Kawhi Leonard (2 and 3)
Draymond Green (0 and 3)

I'd put Harden as having the best chance, he's two regular seasons ahead of Curry and is substantially younger than Durant. But I wouldn't bet on it.

.

Another fun thing is to look at most playoff #1s in win shares:

8 LeBron
7 Jordan
5 Russell
4 Shaq, Mikan

Harden so far is at 0.

[wee2dee]

what were Bird's Top 5 win share finishes?

[eric]

May 2, 2018 18:51:43 GMT wee2dee said:

what were Bird's Top 5 win share finishes?

6 and 5. he only had nine seasons before the injuries knocked him out of contention for those sort of spots which makes it hard. if you for example cut LeBron's career off after season nine, he's only 8 and 4.

[eric]

22 espn writers picked Conference Finals winners, of whom 3 picked the Rockets and 3 picked the Celtics to advance. I'm surprised in both cases. All we've heard for the last week or so is what a genius Brad Stevens is, and while the Cavs are better than the Sixers the Celtics ran the Sixers out of the gym in the last series.

But I'm way more surprised by people showing such little faith in the Rockets.

They were dramatically better in the regular season.
-65 wins to 58
-8.5 margin of victory to 6
-61 pythagorean wins to 56
-And the strength was mostly on the defensive end, which most people forget.

And they've been distinctly better in the playoffs, currently +10 against opponents who averaged +3 in the regular season, compared to the Warriors who are +9 against on average +2. So the 'well the Warriors don't care about the regular season they'll turn it on for the playoffs' doesn't fly either, the Rockets have turned it on just as well.

I'm not saying the Rockets will definitely win. I'm just surprised at how little chance they're being given.

[skrouse]

Warriors in 6

[kn88]

eric

harden's best games in the playoffs came in game 1s and he got worse as the series went on. it could be a combo of teams adjusting and refs swallowing whistles, but could it also be conditioning?

[eric]

Jun 14, 2018 1:45:16 GMT kn88 said:

eric

harden's best games in the playoffs came in game 1s and he got worse as the series went on. it could be a combo of teams adjusting and refs swallowing whistles, but could it also be conditioning?

this year
g1: 42/5/7:3 on 71 TS%
gx: 26/5/7:4 on 51 TS%

last year
g1: 29/4/12:3 on 59 TS%
gx: 28/6/8:6 on 58 TS%

year before was a first round loss, so
2015
g1: 24/6/11:6 on 63 TS%
gx: 28/6/7:4 on 62 TS%

the scoring effects are extremely small if anything in the other years, so my feeling is this year's was a fluke.

the passing effect happened two years but not so much this year. i'd lean towards that being a small sample size fluke too.

one thing i would keep in mind though is that all harden's game 1s this year came at home, so we might be seeing some of that phenomenon too.

[jhb]

This thread title seems a little derivative