Which team is that. The one that is 2nd seed without him right now? Or the team last season that won with Kawhi load managing on the bench?
Who gives a **** what their seed is right now. Does Toronto win the championship last year without Kawhi?
The Bulls got a 3 seed without Jordan when he first retired but similar to last years Raptors and this years Clippers without Kawhi, didn’t win a title without him. Most title teams have great talent around a star. Kawhi has shown that he can play big when it matters most. Harden hasn’t.
Harden, to be frank, has only been a title-worthy franchise player for 3 years now. He lost to the Warriors. That's it. Best team ever. Better than the best team Kawhi has ever faced, which is Lebron's Heat - a joke compared to Durant's Warriors. Durant swept Lebron. Think about it. The talent gap between his Rockets and Durant's Warriors is a canyon compared to the teams Kawhi has had to beat for his 2 titles. Obviously last season's was a fluke because the Warriors were even more injured when they made the Finals. Should we list out some of his spurs teammates and coach? lol Ginobili, Duncan, Parker, Green, Diaw. Kawhi hasn't done a f'ing thing Harden can't do. But he has the titles, so that much of it should be respected.
False. Last year Kawhi was better in the playoffs than he was in the regular season. 31, 9, 4 on 49, 38 and 88% shooting. 55% eFG. 67% TS%. 31.5 PER. All world defense. The ECFs changed when they put him on the MVP. G7 winner. Etc. Harden hasn’t done anything that I just mentioned. When the going got tough you didn’t see him go all lethargic. He wanted the ball and led his team. He impacted the game on both ends and played better.
And Harden was better against the Warriors than Kawhi was against the even lesser Warriors. I can't believe you overlooked that lol. Kawhi has never done a f'ing thing Harden can't do.
Did Kawhi play against a full-strength Warriors as Harden has done? Kawhi has played in stacked teams all his career. Harden has never played with another all-star that's been in their prime. Even this season, Westbrook has been injured or missed quite a few games. Kawhi has only had 2 seasons of where he's played more than 70 games. I should expect him to perform in the playoffs..... he's always rested. He only played 60 games last year. People claiming he carried the Raptors are fools. The Raptors still would have finished top 2 without Leonard. Also, Siakam and Lowry were a big reason why he won that championship. And they played a Warriors team that was missing key players. The Warriors at full strength would have beat the Raptors. Please tell what help Harden has had in his finals or playoffs.... compared to Kawhi's? Harden has pretty much carried an average Rockets team to playoffs pretty much every year.
I’m comparing their supporting cast without Jordan to the Raptors one without Kawhi. A team lost the arguable goat and still managed to get a top seed. The top player was needed for a title though.
False. He’s had Howard and CP3 for 5 seasons. Westbrook this one. That’s 6 seasons with star support. That’s not an average team. And getting to the playoffs ain’t a tremendous feat for a superstar/MVP player, which Harden is. A ring is expected. He caught a bad break with GS but he also keeps going out like a chump so no one feels sorry for him outside of us....because it’s quite apparent that he’s going out like a chump. Conversely, no one is looking at how much help Kawhi had. Again, damn near every player to win a title had tremendous support. What they will remember is him hitting a G7 walk-off to send Philly home. They will remember his team going from 0-2 to 4-2 after they put HIM on the MVP. And they will remember him getting it done in the Finals. Hurt team...ok. He took advantage. Harden has caught hurt teams too. Folks will remember him scoring like 8 points and getting his ish swatted by a geriatric Manu.
GTFOH with this garbage. 20 of the last 22 titles have been won by teams with 3 players who are at least borderline All Stars. The Warriors, Heat and Cavs all had at least 3 All Stars in their prime to win their titles. Don't even start comparing that to Harden getting Chris Paul and Dwight Howard at the end of their careers. Chris Paul f'ed up last season - he gave us garbage offense and showed up overweight and was not able to take advantage of open looks created by Harden. Of those 5 seasons, Paul gave us what we need for 1 season and we brought a team whose 73-win core added Kevin Durant to 3-2 in the Western Finals before Paul's hammy gave out. You think NBA fans share the media's disdain for Harden and you buy into that ish. Who cares if others think Harden went out "like a chump"? We're trying to win a title with a cheap owner. Sad that Harden has to prove anything to a Rockets fan. That he is still here with the ownership we've had makes a historic Rockets fan. Look at this NBA and think about what that means that he would rather win it here than just join a super team? Appreciate this guy, he is the 2nd best player in franchise history.
Never got carried by multiple All Stars. Van Vleet and Lowry both outplayed everyone's favorite superstar Chris Paul and Siakam is better than anything we had by far. 1) Kawhi's first title: even a sophomore James Harden would pick that title up with 3-4 all time greats. 2) Kawhi's second title: Harden outplayed Kawhi vs the Warriors, despite playing against a better Warriors team than Kawhi faced. Again, I respect the title, but he has not done a damn thing Harden couldn't do. He has outplayed Harden badly in a series, but this Harden would destroy that Harden in a head to head. AND BTW they are all still more talented cause our owner shed more salary leaving us with no non-rotation salary to trade. Harden is still gonna win it though, we'll all be celebrating together anyway.
Nothing against this version but there was a Mathloom once upon a time who wasn't just focused on 1 player. That Mathloom had another avatar, was probably wiser.
That's not true. 22 years ago would be 1998. The Spurs did not have 3 borderline all-star players in 99 (Elliott was not at that level at that point of his career) or 03 (they didn't even have two in 03). The Lakers didn't have from 00-02 (Rice was not at that level in 00 and there clearly was no 3rd player like that in 01 or 02). Not Miami in 06. Not Dallas in 11. Not SA in 14. Additionally, Wade was on the decline in Miami and Love never played at a star level in Cle. Now all of those teams had great support, as I've already noted, which is why trying to discredit Kawhi winning on a team with great support is silly. Those teams don't win without the star and his level of play in that playoff run > anything we have ever seen Harden do in the postseason. Howard, CP3 and now Westbrook were all still playing at a level as to where they were max worthy players. A team with them as support players does not have average talent. No, I know NBA fans share the disdain for Harden based on his style of play and his subpar postseason play every year gives them plenty of ammunition to fuel it. If he had a run like Kawhi just had he'd get people off his back. Compare him to Kawhi when he actually has something like that on his resume.
Oh you mean the Kawhi who was constantly guarding the weakest scorer? lol He outplayed Kawhi even when you account for defense. More importantly, Kawhi was nursing his boo boo when Harden was playing the actual dynasty. They would have swept Kawhi like they swept Lebron. We had no business being in a series with those Warriors. Harden/MDA/Morey is the only reason.
Quit freaking deflecting!!!! The title of this thread is "James Harden is the ONE true King" So how did it become a Harden vs Kawhi? Like I said before when you start spewing jibberish out of your piehole about a King there better damn well be a crown. Does Harden have a crown (an NBA title)? The answer to that is NO!! Is he the "one true king"? Get out of here with this bullshit!! It doesn't mean Harden isn't a freaking incredible player, but "the one true king"????
