Where does James Harden rate All Time in shooting guards ?

Not going to get too deep on this issue other than to say that Kobe was (and to some extent still is) vastly over rated. He was a good defensive player for 4 years and was average a few more years and was just bad the other 10 years of his career. He was an inefficient scorer and a poor shooter with a bad shot selection. He wasn’t a talented passer. He was a scorer (and a very good one). He was very fortunate to play with Shaq and Gasol and Bynum and in LA.

 

Ah yes, me who has objectively proven my claims is "spewing pure horseshit" while you who has failed to support your baseless claim with anything whatsoever has the high ground. That's solid logic.

It's crazy when you stumble upon closeted Kobe fanboys.

 

Kobe has the accolades and the hardware...Harden does not. Its as simple as that. That's fact. Not opinion.

 

Right, Kobe has the fluff that Harden lacks, and none of the substance Harden has. I'll agree with that.

I've never suggested that Kobe wasn't on championship teams, I just don't think that being on good teams is an argument for the greatness of individual players.

I've never suggested that Kobe wasn't massively overrated by the people who hand out awards and accolades, I just don't see that being a legitimate argument for the greatness of individual players.

I just asked you to substantiate your claim with something concrete and you've consistently failed to do so going so far as to call statistical metrics "dumb" simply because they contradict your Kobe fanboy narrative.

 

It is rational to consider what every player believes, since they presumably know better than any of us what it takes to be a great basketball player.

In your unrealistic example, I wouldn't conclude that Maloney is the best PG in NBA history, but certainly that he must be far, far better than he appeared to be to me or he appears to be based on his numbers.

With Kobe, why is he venerated to such a degree by his peers and the guys who had to coach him or coach against him? I can't dismiss that as a data point, just as I can't dismiss the statistical output.

 

LOL meanwhile I would just laugh at the players for saying something so foolish. I guess that's just where we are different, I require people to substantiate their claims even if they are allegedly experts. If they can't, I ignore their opinion, if they can I accept their opinion.

 

If they are players that played against Jordan and against Kobe... And they put Kobe right behind Jordan as far as difficultly to play against, it's completely valid. Do you think nba players and coaches look at win shares when game planning against each other? The players I'm referring to have won rings, played on championship level teams, and have played many games with and against kobe/Jordan. I've consistently heard them put Kobe at just a level below MJ. You don't fluke your way to that status by your peers.

 

LOL, that's just ridiculous. The opinion of those players is irrelevant when it cannot be substantiated with objective means.

I don't think they look at "win shares", I think they use all manner of metrics.

The opinion of someone who has never even seen a basketball before that is backed by objective metrics is more valid than that of any NBA player that has an opinion that runs counter to all objective metrics.

Essentially, what I'm saying here is that Daryl Morey's opinion supported by whatever metrics he'd use to determine who is a good player is more valid than Charles Barkley even when it comes to players Barkley played against. You continue to argue for Chuck's vision of the NBA.

 

MJ
Kobe
Wade
Beard
Clyde the Glide

Tempted to put Drexler over Harden, however he wasn't in his prime anymore when he won with Hakeem.

A few homers thinking Beard should be #2 or #3 instead of #4, but isn't it already a great accomplishment to be the only top 5 SG without a ring? That says a lot about him as a pure player without looking at the accomplishments.

If he wins only ONE ring in his career and does it without Lebron. He definitely moves up ahead of Wade, 100%. Even if he were to win one with Lebron, he probably still moves up because of his longevity as a top guy over Wade, as well as the fact that Wade after Shaq but before Lebron didn't really take his teams anywhere.

So... where does Don Mitchell rank? jk

 

When an amateur basketball analyst like you or me thinks something is true, and if actual experts and professional in the field all think something radically different, it is mere humility and recognition of one's own limitations to consider that "hey, I might just be missing something here."

What sort of substantiation are you even looking for? There is no perfect, objective measurement for a player's contribution to his team's success. Whether we're going by what some scout says or going by what some formula spits out based on boxscore inputs, it's just a estimate in the end of the day. Personally, I think the more inputs you account for -- based on boxscore stats or plus/minus, or more subjective from people who understand the game -- the closer to the truth that estimate is in the end.

 

Remind me what accolades Morey has won again?

When you actually play in the NBA, coaches don't give a **** about any metrics you've discussed today. That's not how the game works. Baseball is the only sport where metrics matter, because your success at the plate is largely irrelevant to your teammates. That's why win shares or any other stat you want to throw out for the NBA is basically pointless. Kobe's career PER is slightly less than Hardens...the difference is that Kobe was clearly the better defender.

The reason player opinions matter is because those are the guys that game plan to stop you or score on you.... When you've been on the court with someone, you know exactly how difficult or easy it is to face them.

Chuck shouldn't have an opinion on anyone playing today bc he never had to face them. But, if he tells me Karl Malone was more difficult to guard than Shawn Kemp, I wouldn't dismiss that, despite my hate for Malone.

In the same manner, when Robert Horry tells me Kobe is right below Jordan... Or Bobby Sura tells me that outside of MJ, Kobe was the toughest to play against... I tend to believe them. Mix that with the fact that Kobe had a productive 19 year career, won 5 titles, and multiple other accolades, and it's easy to see why all the coaches and players during his era put him on such a pedestal. There is a reason for it... Ignoring that doesn't make you right, it just makes you look foolish.

 

It should be a combination. All-in-one metrics aren't completely useless if we're interested in ranking players (although one could argue that ranking players from different eras is itself a pointless, albeit fun exercise).

Subjective assessments are flawed because of the assorted cognitive biases humans have. Players naturally focus on individual skill-sets because as players that's what they need to do to train themselves. So its understandable that they will idolize a guy like Kobe Bryant who had seemingly superhuman basketball abilities. They don't necessarily have a perfect sense of how players contribute to overall winning, or being able to compare that player X contributed more than player Y. Coaches, scouts, and front-office people probably have a better perspective in this regard. Reputation colors people's perception of players as well, when they aren't thinking about how good a player is in a really systematic manner.

Combining all-in-one metrics with subjective evaluations for filling in gaps is, to me, the best approach to take for ranking players. There's no one way to do it, so it leaves quite a bit of room for people to have different rankings. Which is fine -- because there's really no right answer when it comes to ranking players anyway.

 

Best comment in this thread...good way to cap the convo and move on. Well said.

 

When I think something that is supported by objective metrics it is always more legitimate than the opinion of ANY person that directly goes against all objective metrics.

While you are correct that there is no perfect metric, it says something when absolutely no metric that exists supports your opinion. If the only support for your opinion is the opinion of others, your opinion is baseless and as such it is worthless.....no matter who you are.

Awesome, so you are arguing that Morey's opinion backed by whatever objective metrics he chooses to use is inferior to that of Charles Barkley's opinion.

You couldn't have done a better job of showing why I should just laugh off your opinion and move on.

 

Errr Kobe is overrated by his fanboys that think he’s the 2nd greatest player ever... but he’s still easily the second greatest 2 by a decent margin.

 

Okay, then support that claim. What do you base it on? Ringz? Media opinion? Player opinion?

Or do you have something legitimate to base that opinion on? If you do, you'd be the first in this thread to do so.

 

Just making the point that you shouldnt be using Morey as an example to downplay Chuck. Neither have done much. Morey still has a chance, but it was a weird thing for you to bring up in the first place.

 

Then you failed to understand what I was saying. The point was that people who back their opinion with objective metrics have a superior opinion to those who base their opinion on essentially nothing. The reason I brought up Morey is because he's someone who has his own metrics the he relies on that are superior to what is publicly available and Charles Barkley is full of **** and bases his opinions on nothing at all most of the time.

 

Right...and what have those metrics done for Morey after 8 years or so? That's the point.

 

Well, you mean other than helping him build one of the best teams in the NBA?

Are you actually Charles Barkley? I would have thought basically anyone else in the world would know better.