With regard to the OP, Harden is definitely top 10. But really he is #1. The #1 flopper of ALL TIME. He took the crown from Divac and his teammate is still challenging for the lead.
No, Harden shouldn’t even be in the conversation (not that comparing players from different eras isn’t an exercise in futility). IMHO, what puts a player in the conversation is an evaluation of their entire game. Harden is pretty much one dimensional. All the players he’s compared to in this thread had much more complete games/more rounded skills. Every player noted either had good to above average defensive skills or at least made an effort to play defense. Harden can obviously play defense if he chooses, but most games he seems to be a disinterested bystander. Too, West, Kobe, Clyde and Wade all wear rings. Unless and until Harden wins one he’s just another poser.....
Yeah, he denied it but I'm telling you at one point during the interview he admitted raping her and he used the word rape. The report was difficult to get and I doubt I could find it again but I read it myself. I think the other stuff was in a vain attempt to save his marriage. I also heard that the other wives of his teammates told her that they knew of frequent cheating by Kobe when they traveled. Kind of like Marv Albert, I lost respect for him.
They actually had the ability to elevate their teammates........or to overcome their shortcomings when the elevator got stuck between floors. I havent seen Harden do that yet. And while I don’t know that I would anoint Stockton as an all time defensive player, he knew the tricks (dirty or otherwise) to overcome being shorter and slower than so many of his counterparts. I’d go to war with a Stockton or Nash. Harden not so much.....
I guess I count the flopping as a part of what my bitch with Harden is. In Harden’s case, I think that the intent to draw a foul call, even if by flopping, is number one in his mindset. Instead of just trying to make a basketball play, he stands on the perimeter trying to bait guys into fouling him. All of the good players, including Dame, do that to some extent, but with Harden it seems like it’s his main intention. He’s a master at the rip-through move. I’d love to see the league change the way that’s called, similar to how they dumped the leg kick that gave Reggie Miller endless trips to the foul line. It gives the offensive player too much of an advantage in these no hand checking days.
He did the same thing here in Portland to a woman who worked at the Benson Hotel and paid her off too. And those are who we know about.
In terms of talent? Yes he is top 5. SG is probably the most top heavy position of all time in GOAT talks. 1. MJ 2. Kobe 3. Wade 4/5. Harden/Drexler No disrespect to Jerry West but different era and I don’t know about his on court play compared to the guys I listed.
Oscar Robertson is classified as a PG, but he's the same size as Harden and I'd take him in his prime over Harden any day of the week.
You truly need to stop spreading ignorance.... This is HER account.... And answer me this: Where is this payoff you just randomly came up with out of the blue?? http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=128019&page=1 Portland Hotel Employee: Kobe Kissed Me Tara Vilhauer, a young Portland, Ore., hotel employee, says she struck up a friendly rapport with returning guest Kobe Bryant over the last few years, but she says their pleasant hotel room chats stopped when things got a little too close for comfort. Vilhauer said the basketball star, who is now facing sexual assault charges, asked her to come to his room to remove his food tray when he was a guest there in October 2002. The 24-year-old room service attendant says she and Byrant talked about his family before he leaned in and kissed her. "I engaged in the kiss and I then I had about a million and a half things go through my mind," Vilhauer said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "I said 'this can't happen.' I said 'I have a boyfriend. You have a wife. This is not going to happen.' He [Bryant] said 'that's cool,' and I left after that." Kiss Story Gets Out Vilhauer, 24, says she put the Bryant incident behind her until prosecutors from the Eagle County Colorado District Attorney's Office somehow found out about her story after a 19-year-old hotel employee from Eagle, Colo., accused Bryant of rape in June 2003. Vilhauer says prosecutors in the Bryant case showed up at the posh Portland hotel where she works late last year, wanting to hear her story. When she refused to provide them with details, Vilhauer says the prosecutors didn't leave her alone. Vilhauer said they stayed in the hotel overnight and happened to get on the same elevator with her the next morning. "They said 'we really want to talk you. We want to maybe get together with you after work,'" Vilhauer said. The young room service attendant said she told them she had nothing to say. "What happened between him [Bryant] and I, happened between him and I," she said. When Good Morning America contacted the Eagle County Colorado District Attorney's Office with Vilhauer's claims, the office offered the following statement. "We tried to speak with Tara Vilhauer twice. She refused us, and we left. No information was exchanged." Vilhauer says she felt as if the prosecutors interpreted the alleged kiss as something different to what it actually was. "I think they're trying to make this a dirty thing, a scandal, and it wasn't that," Vilhauer said. Vilhauer says Byrant was consistently respectful with her and that she had no comment on his sexual assault case. "He [Bryant] was always a gentleman towards me, as much as you can be when you're married and you kiss somebody," Vilhauer said. Vilhauer says Bryant and his Los Angeles Lakers teammates stayed at her hotel about twice a year. She says Bryant began requesting that she serve him after the first few times they met. Vilhauer says such requests are not unusual with regular guests.
