Not to play devil's advocate, but who's better than Harden, at this moment in time? Even after he just won MVP? In that short clip, SAS is right. imo, LeBron, KD, Brow are all above Harden. A healthy Kawhi would probably surpass Harden, too.
I don’t think I would consider kawhi better than harden. Can kawhi distribute the ball like harden? I don’t think so
People need to get over the AD thing until he actually accomplishes something noteworthy, like staying healthy consistently.
I’m not an AD believer just yet. He can’t carry a team like James. AD had his chance with Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson. He also failed to make the playoffs. James captured the third seed with a similar supporting cast. Kawahi was never better than James. Lebron....KD/Harden for 2
These people are in the entertainment business. They have to create outrageous propaganda to get ratings.
Brow is above Harden? Give Anderson and Gordon to the brow and he struggles to make the playoffs, give them to Harden and they win 55 games. Get outta here with this nonsense, Davis is so overrated.
Agreed, to a point. I think Davis is overrated but I don't think a big man can win in today's NBA. It's all about the ball-handlers & creators. Davis may very well be a top 5 'talent' but he is a #2 player in terms of building a franchise. It's just the way today's NBA is officiated and built.
I don’t get the dick riding some folks have for AD. What exactly has he accomplished that causes people to place him above Harden? The answer is absolutely jack ****. Harden has carried his team further than AD has ever dreamed of. Like seriously, what am I missing here?
If you asked every GM in the league to build their team from scratch and select their top 3 players but they can't pick anyone on their own roster, I think Harden would appear on maybe one list and that's the Golden State one because they can't pick Steph or Durant. The vast majority of GMs and media would go: Lebron Durant Steph then you have Anthony Davis, Kawhi and Harden in the next grouping.
Can't wait to watch this on my break... But the idea that AD is better than Harden is laughable. AD is elite in some areas but his impact on the game is a couple leaps below what Harden has on each game. People place defense on a pedestal and use that as a measure of a complete player. This binary thinking in terms of offense and defense leads to shallow analysis. Kawhi is a defensive stopper and can be an elite scorer, but he's nowhere close to being a playmaker and making his teammates better. Unlike what Max would argue, Kawhi is not a complete player. He's close but not yet. Harden despite his defensive flaws, to end the playoffs, was making strides in the positive direction in terms of effort, timing (blocks), and positioning. He still needs to work on his footwork and stamina. Not complete but close. The subtleties on both offensive and defensive ends are what's being missed in analysis these last few years, and it leads to really bad hot-take player rankings and drives narratives that are just flat-out wrong. Anthony Anderson's jabs at Harden's defense last night is a product of these stupid stupid takes. It's the lack of subtle appreciation for what these players are doing to improve their game that gives these ignorant figureheads the free license to talk down on his game so openly ON HIS AWARD NIGHT. Having a celebrity on mic talking about basketball is entering the territory of sports commentators talking politics. What SAS and Max really need to use as their reference point for greatness is leadership with respect to making teammates better, leading the team thru the regular season grind, setting the tone and attitude for the team to follow from the start of the season, and winning. AD dwarfs Harden in all these measures. You look at the teammates and former teammates of Harden, you can tell by their comments and cheering him on for the MVP that they thought of him as a leader.
Lebron is the only player (clearly) above Harden and everyone else, as for the others, for me, as today, it might be debatable if you speak about Kawhi, Durant and Curry, no one else, but even between those names, i personally don't put them over Harden, on par? I guess i can live with that but, yeah, definitely not above James. Never saw Curry play without at least two all stars, never saw Durant having better results than Harden without playing with two or three all stars, never saw Kawhi having better results than Harden without playing with Duncan, Parker and Ginobili.
He hasn't done a damn thing in the post season. Could't carry Gordon and Ryno to a single playoff game victory and missed the playoffs altogether the other season. Harden lost an MVP because he had "too much help" with AD's former teammates.
