If you look at hardens stats at age 21 he averaged 12/3/2. At age 20 debuted with KPJ 13/10/5 if u look at it this way he’s ahead of the curve. Anything is possible. Just need to give this kid a lot of love and support.
Harden at 21 joined a team with KD and Westbrook. KPJ made his debut on a team resting half their players to tank for a top 4 seed.
... of unnecessary periods after your thread title. But yeah, kid sees the court well and has the talent to use that skill. I'm excited.
Seriously. People need to temper their expectations. Some players peaked in their rookie season. Not saying KPJ will be the same. But different players have different growth curve.
We may not have a KD or Westbrook but we have a living legend named Victor Oladipo that thinks he's better than both those guys. Arguably James had it easier by not playing with 0 for ladipo
True but that doesn't account for effiency. KPJ at 19 with the Cavs scored more than Harden at 29 and with more effiency. You would expect higher effiency when you are surrounded by elite talent.
Someone said that KPJ benefited with more scoring because of less talent around him but at the same time when you have more talent around you your scoring effiency theoretically should go up also since you will have more open looks. So it can go both ways. We arf comparing rookie KPJ and Harden. Honestly there is too much uncertainty here. No one thought Harden would be at the level he was from his rookie production.
u said KPJ scored more than Harden and with better efficiency, yet rookie year Harden averaged 9.9 ppg on 55.1% TS while rookie year Porter averaged 10 ppg on 53.5% TS Where is the better efficiency? And they pretty much scored the same amount of points. I’d argue that what Harden had to do his rookie year was more difficult than Porter since he was under pressure to not make mistakes and had to fulfill a role on a 50 win playoff team as a rookie while the Cavs were playing for nothing.
Sorry I don't mean to go all English teacher here, but I sometimes do this myself and for clarity, the use of the three periods is known as an ellipsis. More than three is overkill, but I usually feel like that is what people are going for. For those that slept during that lesson because it was boring and I don't blame you, an ellipsis is a series of three dots that usually indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or a section of text without altering its original meaning. In general, you are implying something that you think doesn't actually need to be fully stated or expounded upon because it is already mostly understood.
Nevermind I just looked at efg% which KPJ is higher than Harden was. Harden does have a strength advantage that allows him an easier time to get to the ft line. Again, it works both ways. For someone who emphasizes the importance of spacing, a young KD and Westbrook were far larger threats for NBA defenses than anything the Cavs had around KPJ so he did work with less spacing. Yes Harden had more pressure also so again, it works both ways.
As far as KPJ goes, I thought he was very impressive in his first game with us. I don't care about the points. He had 10 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals. John Wall has had only two double-digit assist games in 25 tries. Two! One more than KPJ.
Actually I appreciate this I did not know the periods should have a distinct number. This is why I love this place I learn new **** everyday.
OKC had terrible spacing...KD and Harden were the only above average shooters on the team, and it’s not like Russ was a star at that point that defenses were going all out to stop...spacing is better in today’s NBA in general just based on how offense is played compared to back then when there was far less emphasis on shooting the three or spreading the court...2 non shooting bigs on the floor at all times was still the standard back then KD and rookie Harden accounted for 55% of OKC’s made threes per game that season KPJr looks good, but when I see people trying to compare his numbers with Harden’s I have to take a step back...Harden was playing his role on an elite team I mean, Harden in his 2nd year is doing this in the WCF it was clear he was way better than his pedestrian box score numbers and just needed more opportunity
I do it on purpose as well. We have many media and editors here on this site. It's like making a little disorderly mess near a compulsive disorder individual. They can't help but want to fix it.
Yup, I think we need to let KPJ be his own thing. Comparing him to Harden is like comparing a talented young big to Wilt Chamberlain. We need to cool it for a little while. That said, I do see AMAZING young players around the league that I think KPJ is more naturally talented than. That is damn exciting and that lob KPJ threw to Patton yesterday has me hyped on the KPJ/Tate/Wood combination. #OperationUnloadAllVets
