It would honestly not surprise me if every team's blurb had something trivial about player X on that team being better than Harden at something, and then sneaking in a subtle jab about how Harden doesn't deserve over another candidate. "Despite being the worst player on the worst team in the league, player X makes more midrange 2s than Harden does when their respective teams are playing when there's a full moon. However, Kyrie is shooting 60% on the season, in the same conditions." Or something like that.
Hard to get points and assists in the clutch when it's garbage time and Bobby Brown is in the game. I wonder if people brought up this dumb point when Curry was sitting out 4th quarters during the 16-17 season. The MVP is now about triple doubles and clutch time baskets.
Actually, a lot of people on here brought up the point that Curry’s per game counting stats didn’t look as good as Harden’s. Your argument here dismisses that point just the same — he didn’t have to play as many minutes because his team was regularly up double digits in the fourth quarter.
In fairness, those people at the Ringer know little about basketball(Celtics homer Bill Simmons aside) - they are more interested in NBA player twitter beefs than what happens on the court from night to night so their banter tends to be based on tired and outdated narratives and citing stats they don't fully understand...and that's why opposing fan bases get so pissy with them. ...they aren't totally useless though - but you really should only listen to them about NBA pop culture and not much else.
In 2015 Harden lead the NBA in clutch points with great shooting percentages. A big ESPN narrative was "Curry is so good he doesn't even need to play in 4th quarters"
I run a bit contrary to the rest of the Rockets fanbase on that MVP race. Curry putting up the stats he did in only 32.7 mpg and winning and winning 67 games made me give him the edge over Harden. I refuse to knock a guy for blowing teams out before the 4th quarter even starts. But I gave credit to Harden for carrying a team when Dwight missed half the season. That season was a very close race. Similarly, if the Cavs are close to our record by season's end and Lebron is as efficient as he is I don't have a problem with him winning MVP either. He's having arguably the best season of his career and that includes 4 MVP years. Harden is playing better at the moment, though and my MVP currently.
Meh, the EC is still the EC; despite the parity now, all the talent is still in the WC. In your scenario, by season's end, I'm sure the media will be "Look! LeBron did all that without Kyrie! They'd be nowhere without LeBron!" while Houston's will be "Look! Harden had CP3 on his team! Of course they'd be successful!" The narrative will shift, overnight. As if lampooning the decision to get CP3 might as well not even have happened.
NBA POWER RANKINGS POWER RANKINGS Week 9. There's a New Number 1 in town This week's HIGH RISER: nola.com This week's DRAIN CIRCLER: ESPN the Panel 1. USA Today (Last week: 1) A strong week for the USA Today panel - not only do they have the he Rockets in the right spot, but they have CONFIRMED the fait accompli lebron to Houston move 1. NBA.com (last week 1) Another solid week for Schuerman but the Spurs pivot this week is worrying 1. CBS (last week 1) Barnewell brings home another solid showing by leaving the Rockets at 1 for 3rd week in a row 1. ESPN.com (last week 1) Solid ranking but the neg snub of harden for not playing in any clutch games has been LOGGED 1. Nola.com/times picayune (last week 5) They do the right thing for a change and elevate the right team to #1 30. Si.com (last week 5) Boston 1? Folks, I just can't even can't anymore.
OTMax said: supposedly we've had the easiest schedule so far. Sure it's not been the hardest, but the easiest?? It's the unfortunate truth, we do have the easiest schedule in the league.
Shout out to si.com for keeping the 1 loss per week Celtics #1 over an undefeated Houston for the third straight week This was promptly rewarded with the Celts getting clowned by the Mirotic Portis Stepbrothers bulls act - the #30 team - by 23. This is a special kind of conspiracy ****ery.
He must have just about caught up that 27 point gap in the last 2 games?? How many did he score/ assist on 'in the clutch' tonight alone?
Anything less than #1 a travesty. Yes nba said we had the easiest schedule last week in all nba ..... Spurs and fear the deer b2b aints easy at all even with an ailing minutes restriction kawhi.
I will say, the Rockets schedule has been pretty relaxing in comparison to past seasons. Not so much that the competition is any tougher, just that they're not going through multiple back to backs or incredibly long road trips. I mean, they just recently went through 2 games in one week. I honestly can't recall the Rockets having such a light schedule before. It's kind of nice.
I think part of that is the early start to the NBA season, which was suppose to eliminate a lot of those back to back's, 4 games in five nights scenarios. Crazy thing is we've played a slate of playoff teams including the Spurs, Blazers, NOP, and Bucks in our current streak! This is a dope team.
Rockets play the schedule just like every team. For publications to sugar pick any narrative that continues their charade is disingenuous. When the schedule gets harder, will the Rockets get a pass too, or will the pundits jump at the chance to say how the Rockets weren’t that good to begin with.
The 1 game in 8 days anomaly aside, the schedule should be easier this season. Teams started playing in mid-October in order to spread the games out more.
