James harden = most underrated player ever

[Rocketswin2013]

he can be underrated, yes.

[Father Prime]

You mean James Haren is unerrated

[Nick Young]

more like overrated. He's the kind of empty scoring and assist numbers. Gilbert Arenas on crack.

[SCdac]

Harden seems like a regular season warrior.. when teams clamp down on him in the playoffs and the pressure is high, his FG% drops and he starts chucking 3's and flailing for FTs. I agree he's like a rich mans gilbert arenas or michael redd.. I'd say awesome players hit hard by injuries like Grant Hill are more underrated overall, if we're talking most underrated "ever"

[UK2K]

Harden would more highly regarded if he actually played defense and didn't have games where he's completely ineffective.

He'll go unbelievably cold or turn into a turnover machine for the entire game. It's hard to watch when this happens, but otherwise he's a fantastic offensive player. Kinda like the Steve Nash of SG's except with Corey Maggette's skills at getting to the FT line.

Was it last year's playoffs....

When Harden went like 8-10 from the floor in the first quarter and had 17 points, and the rest of the team went 0-11 or something crazy?

Yeah, I get that's the line used to diminish what he does on the court, but in all honesty if I was far and away the best player on that team, I'd do the same thing.

He's not God. Sure he falls asleep on defense sometimes, everyone does. You can make a montage of PG getting back door cut and losing his man if you really wanted to.

But the thing I think most people overlook is how frustrating it must be to be one of the greatest players on the planet (he showed that when he led team USA to gold) but be stuck with mediocre players. I've been on plenty of teams where I was the best player, by far, and it becomes a drain to try and do everything.

Even in 2014 (or 15, whatever) when his DRPM was sky high and he was top 5 in the league in steals, people still gave him shit over the myth that he doesn't play defense. But you could make a montage of him on the low block beating Draymond's shit and shutting down driving lanes if you wanted. But nobody ever does.

[aj1987]

Was it last year's playoffs....

When Harden went like 8-10 from the floor in the first quarter and had 17 points, and the rest of the team went 0-11 or something crazy?

Yeah, I get that's the line used to diminish what he does on the court, but in all honesty if I was far and away the best player on that team, I'd do the same thing.

He's not God. Sure he falls asleep on defense sometimes, everyone does. You can make a montage of PG getting back door cut and losing his man if you really wanted to.

But the thing I think most people overlook is how frustrating it must be to be one of the greatest players on the planet (he showed that when he led team USA to gold) but be stuck with mediocre players. I've been on plenty of teams where I was the best player, by far, and it becomes a drain to try and do everything.

Even in 2014 (or 15, whatever) when his DRPM was sky high and he was top 5 in the league in steals, people still gave him shit over the myth that he doesn't play defense. But you could make a montage of him on the low block beating Draymond's shit and shutting down driving lanes if you wanted. But nobody ever does.

Sometimes? Let me put it this way. You can probably pick a 100 plays for PG from last season and that works out to about 1 play per game. With Harden, you can do that from a 10 game sample.

Also, he was never a net positive in DRPM.

2014: -2.84
2015: -0.16
2016: -0.98

[Prometheus]

I don't respect players who play literally no defense. It would be one thing if he was a bad defender... he's probably the worst defensive player I've ever seen.