You clearly haven’t watched prime Harden’s playmaking

Look at all their primes…

If you genuinely think Harden and SGA were similar playmakers, then I don’t even know what to say

can u make it more obvious u don’t actually watch basketball and just read off box score / basketball reference? prime harden clears sga in everything on the offensive end, but playmaking is where the difference is widest.

can’t believe this is even a conversation

And good teams? Forget about it. Every title was won by a single player out there alone on the floor playing 1v5.

This blatant lie is very funny. I respect the dedication to hate truly.

Look at their primes. Harden’s is obviously way lower considering how many years he has played out of his prime.

Come on. No way you’re arguing this disingenuously.

you can use 2024-2026 if u would like

It would also count Harden’s career? When he didn’t even play the point until 2017.

And has heavily declined since 2022.

Seriously what is your point?

Point taken, but let the record show that KD was 0-1 in that series.

In 2013 against the Thunder, his first game facing elimination he scored 15 points on ⁴⁄₁₂ shooting with 3 assists and 10 turnovers. He was good the next game and ok the following game when they were eliminated.

In 2014 against Portland, in his first game facing elimination he scored 17 points on ⁵⁄₁₅ shooting. He did have 7 assists to only 2 turnovers. He was good in the next game when they were eliminated.

In 2015 when facing the clippers down 3-0, he did have a good game. 26 point triple double. I don’t think we should give him flowers when the Clippers let off the gas. In the next game he was bad, scoring 23 on 5-20 scoring with only a few rebounds and assists. Somehow they won. He was, decent I guess in the next game when they lost. He scored 31 and had 7 and 8, but shot ⁷⁄₂₀ and also had 7 turnovers. Altogether I wouldn’t say this was a bad showing.

In 2016 the warriors eliminated him, and Curry only played 2 games. His elimination game was good, 35/6/6 on 50% shooting. 7 turnovers though. And he shot pretty bad the whole series, 41% FG and 31% from 3.

2017 is a historic one. 10 points on ²⁄₁₁ and 6 turnovers.

2018 is a complicated one. His overall numbers are decent enough, 32/6/6 on ¹²⁄₂₉ with 4 turnovers. Not horrible, but the fourth quarter collapse is part of the legacy for Harden. One of the reasons he has failed in the playoffs is his efficiency goes down and in the fourth he often stops shooting, especially if he’s playing poorly.

2019 is another solid one. 35/8/5 shooting ¹¹⁄₂₅ and turning it over 6 times.

2020 he was bad against OKC but still won. 17/3/9 shooting ⁴⁄₁₅ with 4 turnovers. Against the Lakers down 3-1 he was solid. 30/6/5 on ¹²⁄₂₀ shooting and 6 turnovers. As a lakers fan I remember absolutely cooking him on defense though and some of those buckets came at the end of the game.

So that’s the prime Harden elimination results. A few good games, a lot of “I guess it’s ok” games of inefficient scoring and increased turnovers but good overall production. And some absolutely terrible games, including some bad elimination games that his team actually won.

I think there are a couple more important things to consider. One is that while still in Houston people were talking about him being a payoff choker. Not just redditors but a lot of prominent writers and media. At the end of the day Star players are supposed to help get their team over the hump, and time and time again Harden would fail. Sometimes he would put up good numbers early and fail in the fourth. Sometimes he would have an outright bad game. Sometimes it was less about elimination game failures but not helping his team in those 1-1 games or 2-2 games.

Also, none of these stats show defense. Harden has always been a poor defender even in his prime. Not Trae Young disastrous, but bad. And while Harden can knock down spot up threes, he also does basically nothing off ball. So in a lot of these games he’s scoring an inefficient 25-30 with increased turnovers and not doing anything when he doesn’t have the ball. His play style was part of the problem in the playoffs.

Lastly, it’s not like he was suddenly a bum and out of his prime or pseudo-prime as soon as he left Houston. And on other teams with other star players to help take the load off (helpful if you aren’t in your true prime anymore) he’s had a bad or disastrous elimination game in every game except one of the two against Denver (and their defense was pretty butt).

For almost a decade people have been criticizing Harden for failing in the playoffs and really bad performances. And despite almost a decade after that of even worse playoff failures people still look at the box score averages and think Harden is actually playing well in the playoffs relative to expectations and his role on the team. It’s…bizarre. He has some awesome games too, sure. He has some clutch games as well. But no star player has as many truly bad games in the playoffs, especially in big moments, than Harden. I’m not sure why we should just hand wave that because the overall numbers are good relatively.

If it makes you feel better I was making the same argument on behalf of SGA to another user. People can’t stand hate but they need to at least make good points.

Blake Griffin+Deandre Jordan+JJ Reddick

This is a fucking great set of players at that time, what the fuck are you talking about

You don’t get to games 5-7 without games 1-4

Like what’re we talking about rn

This is what I’m talking about. Of course you pick one game out of a 7 game series and then go like “SEE WHEN IT MATTERS MOST” all playoff games matter dude. This is like judging a move/tv show based off the last 20 minutes of it.

He actually plays pretty well in game 5s. Game 6s and 7s I will give you but again, they arent the only games that matter. They are just games you use to call him a chocker without caring about the rest.

It has been meaningful, every year he’s been a star he’s dropped more than the average player has.

This years it’s over 3x more.

And to be clear, I’m not saying he’s a bad playoff player. I’m saying he’s dropping substantially.

yep about 10. from 2005-2019 lebron averaged 8fta. from 1999-2007 tim duncan averaged 8fta, and his scoring dropped off afterwards. from 2005-2011 dwade averaged 10fta, and his scoring dropped off afterwards. curry is literally the #1 outlier in nba history to lead a team to a championship shooting jumpshots and not creating consistent rim pressure.