LMAO, Greek Freak at 1? Ask the FIBA tournament how that went. The media has such a fetish for Kawhi and Antentokounmpo right now. move them to 5 and 6 and the list becomes a lot better.
Listen to the SI Open floor podcast. One of the hosts, Ben Golliver, is one the the guys who puts this list together. While I don' agree with this list, he has stated his way of thinking and I understand how he came up with this list considering his flawed way of thinking. So... you can't compare MVP to this rnaking because MVP is a regular season award. And these chumps HEAVILY weight playoff performance in these rankings.. as evidenced by how low Harden is, and how high Kawhi is. Now.. they also are inconsistent since Giannis is #1.... but they do say that they don't rank based on last year's performance completely, but also on how they think the player will progress this year. Considering Giannis' age, they are very high on him BECOMING the #1 player this year. Proof of this way of thinking is that both Harden and Westbrook have dropped, and that's because they think that the 2 playing together will bring their stats down.
I thought the ranking was done without consideration of what team they are actually on or who they play with?
Harden at 11th in 2014(And 5th in MVP voting!) is absolutely overrating him actually. He was a scheme breaker on defense. One of the worst defenders in the NBA. And it was very well known. He was like Isaiah Thomas in 2017. The rest seem fair.
That is true but when u see that freaking willie coully-Stein is rated 78, that’s were u draw the line. EG should be an 80. How can EG have the same rating as Wes Matthews?
Eh he finished the year 5th in winshares that season. It was his worst season defensively, but as usual his offense tipped the scales very much in his favor. And I’d have to strongly disagree with any comparison to IT. Harden has had some bad years on defense. IT has had some of the worst ever....truly, truly atrocious.
He also averaged 35 ppg on excellent efficiency against the Warriors in the playoffs, but he’s only the 5th best player in the NBA behind Brick Freak of all people? Lol, gtfoh. Curry had to live Harden’s life for 1 game in the NBA finals. That had the media talking about how Curry was too tired after having to put the team on his back in game 3 to dominate the rest of the series. 1 game! Curry’s situation in game 3 is Harden’s damn near every night! What a joke. KD went down, but I still would’ve taken Klay or Draymond over anyone on last year’s team not named Harden easily and with no hesitation. Curry’s been blessed for a large portion of his career. We’ll see what he’s got this year tho.
In 2014 the fact that he was a houston Rocket hasnt completely settled in to natl medias minds. They still remember him as the guy who go carried okc vs lakers spurs and mavs to the finals. After that they just think of him as the rockets franchise player
It’s weird how they don’t mention that teams have to re-orient their entire defense to contain Harden. That’s how dominant he is. Utah have up 2 games because of that. But then again we’re a bunch of Homers so we know way too much about Hardens value LOL
People have to have a shockingly low Sports IQ to not see this (which seems to be most people). And to make it more impressive, Harden has had to do it against Curry's own stacked dynasty team. The Warriors were the best team in the league. That doesn't mean every player on that roster is better than single players from other rosters. This is why Curry and Klay are so consistently overrated. At least people are fading Draymond a bit. But this is why guys like Ezeli, Speights and Barnes looked so good. There's a halo / synergy / whatever kind of effect you want to call it that comes with being on a good team. Another reason I don't want us to overpay for old Iguodala.
We won two and they tried their damndest. Put a dang soccer player on the cover after the first one. Screw si. I’ve never read their magazine or hit their site since that crap cover showed up in my mailbox.
This POINT right here is severely undersold. It is the one aspect the media NEVER acknowledges. As great a talent as Curry is, he has never been put in the position that carry a team the way Harden does. And has never had the scrutiny. His NBA tenure has been very privileged.
