All I know is Harden would have dragged that Mavs team to the playoffs in his younger days. Luka has some growing up to do.
Carmelo ANthony?????????? melo couldnt pass like luka it kills the media to bring up james harden and the influence his playstyle has had on the younger generation of nba players.. trae young, anthony edwards and luka to name a few
I mean, Luka is already turning in better numbers than Melo ever did. Granted, offense has increased across the league. It's true they both seem like divas who don't play defense though.
Jazz 'Keeping Very Interested Eye On' Luka Doncic The Dallas Mavericks have concerns within their franchise that Luka Doncic could request a trade as early as the 2024 offseason, which would alter the league given his age and status as one of the top-5 players in the NBA. The Utah Jazz have accumulated a surplus of draft picks over the past year with their trades of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, which could put them in position to assemble one of the more compelling offers to the Mavericks while also leaving enough of a supporting cast around Doncic to remain competitive. The Jazz could likely outbid almost any team for Doncic. "With my spies telling me that Utah in particular is keeping a very interested eye on Doncic’s situation, even the Nets’ kitchen-sink offer for Doncic — the four firsts from Phoenix and one from Philly, plus whatever matching salary not named Bridges is needed to make the deal work — likely falls massively short," wrote John Hollinger at The Athletic. If Doncic were to seek an exit from the Mavericks, it has yet to be seen which teams he would prefer a trade to.
They were actually in the playoffs before the Irving trade so yeah Luka would have dragged his team to the playoffs. After the Irving trade it would take a defensive MVP caliber player to take that team to the playoffs ala prime Lebron, KD, Kawhi or Giannis since they had 0 defensive presence, zero bench and Kidd was the coach. While Harden was already a good player at 23/24, let's not pretend he is better than 23/24 yr old Luka Doncic putting up 32/8/7 at 60%TS lol c'mon man. When Harden won MVP pretty sure he put up similar stats at this kind of efficiency.
Fact: Harden has never missed the playoffs. Also fact: Luka has missed the playoffs this year. Luka is great, but at the same age Harden would have dragged the Mavs into the playoffs as he did with Lin, Asik, rookie Parsons and nobody Greg Smith as his starters. Mind you, Luka dit not get in even with the extended format of the playoffs.
My spies are telling me that every team is keeping a very interested eye on Doncic's situation. They agree with Hollinger's spies, though, that Utah is among those every team.
Fact: Harden averaged 25/5/5 as a 23 yr old. Luka averaged 32/8/7 as a 23 yr old. Omer Asik was really competent starter for the rockets, and rookie Parsons only averaged 15/5/5 while playing great defense. You also forgot Patrick Beverly, Patrick Patterson and Jeremy Lin. Why you painting like Harden played with scrubs? He played with role players but those role players were good defensively and at hitting 3s. For example Asik then is a lot better than CWood now. If you give that team to Luka he'd probably make it to the WCF because he already did that last season with a similar roster. Luka>Harden this fact should be clear to everyone.
All I know is Luka missed the playoffs, Harden never has. Harden would have dragged that team to at the very least the play-in. Luka is great and his stats are amazing, but clearly he lacks something to not be able to drag his team to the playoffs this season, not even the play-in, with Kyrie as a running mate.
All I know is Adam Morrison has 2 rings and Harden has 0. So based on your logic Adam Morrison would not only drag Harden's team to the playoffs, he'd win a ring as well. Clearly Harden lacks the heart of a champion and needs to learn from Adam Morrison.
Mavs team this season was far superior to the 2012-13 Rockets team Harden had, with an actual star player like Kyrie. At one point they were 4th in the west halfway through the season. Yet, they choked and Luka couldn't carry them even to the play-in. Meanwhile, Harden shows up a couple days before the regular season started and carried a bunch of scrubs you tried to prop up as being actually good (hilarious by the way, great humor), and carried them to 6 games against the monster OKC had become. You're right, context does matter.