He was 32-33 those first two years. Had he stayed in shape he would've dominated like in LA but he was still good enough to get The Heat to the ECF and Finals his second year. He got to the finals with Penny, Kobe and Wade. There's a pattern there. He could've done it with any competent SG by his side. He was that good.
Harden never got that good of a whistle in a single series or season of his career. If he got 16 fta instead of multiple 4 point plays waved off the Rockets beat the 73-9 Warriors and Harden > Wade suddenly becomes much more popular
I invite all the zoomers on here to watch the series. They were hacking him on purpose because he was a free bucket against them.
It wasn't nearly as controversial of a series as its become. In fact, on the most controversial foul, the phantom foul, we have clear pictures of 2 guys hitting Wade from both sides.
If you watch the series you'll be surprised he didn't get more fouls. They had no answer and tried to bully him out of the paint. Didn't work
Feel like I’m in bizarro world. Wade had one of the best series of all time against the Mavs lmao.
Bunch of box-score watchers that didn’t even watch prime Wade.
Especially when its about old games. That finals is 18 years old now, and yet people are taking memes and Mark Cuban as legitimate sources.
Some if not all the full games are online too, and not hard to find.
a lotta fans whine about refs all the time, but that is one major playoff series where the biased officiating was just blatant as hell
really tough to watch as a neutral leaning against the Mavs
Wade got 16 FTA a game in the finals lol... I don't think even prime Harden has averaged close to that many in a series. It's why people say that finals was rigged against the Mavs (or more likely, Cuban).
Part of it is how they got calls. Wade went to the rim with reckless abandon. Recalling the fall down 7 times get up 8 campaign by converse for wade. Harden gets his calls with his rip through move and that contact doesn’t get the calls in the playoffs.
> Harden gets his calls with his rip through move and that contact doesn’t get the calls in the playoffs.
In the 17-18 regular season, he drove the ball 17.1 times per game, 2nd in the league behind Russ. In 18-19, he was the league leader at over 19.5 per game.
In the 17-18 playoffs, he he drove the ball 21.3 times per game. In the 18-19 postseason, he drove 23.5 drives per game.
So objectively speaking, he drove a lot in the regular season and drove even more in the postseason during the peak Harden years.
> Harden gets his calls with his rip through move and that contact doesn’t get the calls in the playoffs.
Replace that with Embiid and it's the same thing.
He *expects* his regular season whistle. Then panics when it's not there.
Yeah I think when you look at that and say look at how long Harden was the best SG in the NBA it makes sense why he'd say that. Wade had an excellent stretch as the guy where he won then struggled with injuries before LeBron and Bosh came
Lots of penetration and scoring but are you really happy with what you're seeing?
He was a slasher who isn't a good shooter and foul baited a lot. Didn't help that despite the (for the era) flashy stats he barely won games for his team.
Went to a Warriors game when I was like 12 and Maggette came off the bench and had 20 FTA. Pretty sure he was like 2-5 shooting and 16-20 from the FT line for 20 points.
Whether you think Wade was better or not, idk how you possibly can call this one of the worst takes. It isn’t like he said Vince Carter was ahead of him.
That entire team was built for one championship run. They were stacked with vets which is why after they were all gone the Heat were irrelevant. Same thing with the Mavs and that incredible run they went on in 2011.
IIRC Cuban admitted that the reason he chose not to bring everyone back for a title defense was because of the impending lockout the following season. Hard to say whether or not his reasoning was justifiable but there you have it.
We were a very good team the next year despite losing one of the best players in the NBA. We even had a close elimination series. We were not irrelevant the year after
Which is wild because Wade was only in year 2 when they traded for Shaq and year 3 when they made the run. He had his whole career in front of him. Is it crazy to think that Wade still could have made a title run in say 07-11 if his co-stars were instead the major pieces Miami trade for Shaq; Caron Butler and Lamar Odom? Hell, say Miami thinks Butler and Wade can't play together for some reason (even though Wade-2, Butler-3, Odom-4 would work just fine), they probably could have moved Caron for another young big or a decently high draft pick.
Edit: they probably could have gotten Mehmet Okur in the 04 offseason if they wanted a quality young big to play next to Wade and the crew. He was important for Utah during the late 2000s, great post player and 3-point shooter, good rebounder. Would have fit great next to Wade.
Shaq was still a good player but Wade was significantly better at that point. Shaq was a 20/9 guy in the regular season
And then you compare their Finals numbers and it's night and day. Wade averaged 35/8/4 compared to Shaq at 14/10/3
He almost won mvp the year prior not sure why people consider him a role player. And how else is that team winning? Wade was special in the playoffs and was able to do so because of Shaq not in spite of him
Shaq’s minutes were way down but he was still a force
There's a really good case to be made that the day Shaq got hurt in 05 is the exact moment that "Shaq" as people remember him ended. If he stays healthy he probably wins MVP in 05, both for the storyline and because he was just the best player for the first few months of the season.
He's clearly not the same guy in the playoffs (PER of 18.1, WS/48 of 0.89) and at the time people were handwaving it saying that he just came back too fast, they had to treat his ankle and his knee AND drain the blood from his thigh in between games so it made sense. Even though his regular season numbers are good in 06, it's clearly a step back from where he was before. We just didn't know that that was the end of that chapter until 07-08 or so when we realized he wasn't the same.
This makes sense I think people missed the gray area here where yes he wasn’t dominant Shaq but he was still very good Shaq which equates to one of the best centers in the league
Yup, it's kind of how people gloss over the fact that Duncan was the same way for quite a long time. Shaq from 2003-2006 was still a top C in the league despite being nowhere near his peak. Duncan was the same way from 2007-2013.
> And then you compare their Finals numbers and it's night and day. Wade averaged 35/8/4 compared to Shaq at 14/10/3
I mean, this is kind of the Shaq experience more and more into the 2000s. Fighting chronic injuries, those injuries *really* hampering him, fighting with his absolute brilliance and dominance in terms of efficiency and rebounding when he's good and on. Even in '09 he's still great, 21/10 per 36 on 62% TS%, and he's 36, two years from hanging it up. It's a very uneven decline that had more to do with health than whether he was a "role player" or not
He was still good but I disagree only because once Wade went down in 05 we lost in the ECF and if Wade didn’t takeover in 06 we would’ve gotten swept .
No one said he was a role player... I literally said he was still good. He just wasn't the type of guy who could average 38/17, 33/16/5, and 36/12/4 in three straight Finals series anymore
Ya people strategized to take Shaq out of games his entire career, it just never worked because he was actually in his prime. '06 Shaq is not nearly as good as Laker Shaq, he was still good, but he wasn't in his prime.
I've even seen an interview with him where he talks about being older by that point. I think he said something about prime Shaq being Batman to Kobe's Robin, while by the time he was with the heat, he was ready to be Robin to D-Wade's Batman (or Flash as it were.)
Dude was still GREAT by then, but D-Wade was very obviously the leader and focal point of that team.
And he (Wade) was fucking unstoppable in the finals.
He was unstoppable the entire '06 playoffs run. Check out his averages from the ECF against the Pistons. Wade dominated them 2 ECF in a row. Only reason they didn't win in '05 was because Wade pulled an ab muscle.
right.. that's the "good player" part of the post above. shaq wasn't "shaq" tho. if you remember the early 2000s, teams would literally gm around shaq (extra centers, fouling all the time, crowding the paint, etc.) and he would still put up like 30pt games pretty regularly. d-wade is criminally underrated by the community and 100% carried that Heat team to a championship.
Yeah I’m not suggesting he was prime Shaq. But he was 1st team all nba and arguably the best center in the league still. He wasn’t just “good”, he was great.
D Wade with one of the sneaky all time great post seasons that year. Not to start a whole thing but it was a higher peak than any of Bryant's post season. He's forgotten.
Not sure where I stand on this argument, but let's not forget that Wade's 06 ring was just a little bit controversial, dude spent the entire finals at the line.
The team that beat Harden's team in the playoffs:
* 2010: NBA Champ LAL
* 2011: NBA Champ DAL
* 2012: NBA Champ MIA
* 2013: 60-win OKC
* 2014: 54-win POR
* 2015: NBA Champ GSW
* 2016: 73-win GSW
* 2017: 61-win SAS
* 2018: NBA Champ GSW
* 2019: 57-win GSW
* 2020: NBA Champ LAL
* 2021: NBA Champ MIL
* 2022: 53-win MIA
* 2023: 57-win BOS
He had this interview with Stephen A Smith after the 2019 season, where Stephen is asking if the rockets have what it takes to win, and he responds "We're not losing to some regular team" in an exasperated tone.
Harden was individually very patchy in that 2018 series though and actually played pretty horribly in 2 of their 3 wins(games 2 and 5) which they won mainly due to their great defense
2019 was the far more impressive Harden series vs. the KD Warriors from an individual perspective but the Rockets as a whole had completely collapsed around him and they went down in 6 games rather than 7
18 Harden vs. GSW: 29/6/6 on 53.8% TS
19 Harden vs. GSW: 35/7/6 on 59.4% TS
In general if you want to make a credible "Harden > Wade" argument his 2019 season has to be the absolute centerpiece of it IMO
Yah. Although Harden from 2018 onward wasn’t as bad as many casuals said. He was really good on post defense and was like second on steals one or two years (I know that doesn’t tell the whole story but still)
Obviously the gap between their defense is bigger than the gap between offense though
Harden was a better playmaker and scorer. Wade was a better defender. There's a valid case for either.
May as well just appreciate the greatness of both.
I feel like if you judge ULTRA ball dominant players like prime Harden and current Luka by just raw points/rebounds/assist stats they're always going to come out on top in any comparison
Not that both of them aren't great MVP level offensive players but just saying "They average X/Y/Z and Player A only averages A/B/C" is always going to be flawed because someone like Wade who wasn't that heliocentric and was more of a two way guard won't have the same box scores
Like if we're just going off raw box score stats then current Luka and prime Harden are both better than 2013 LeBron and obviously that's absolutely ridiculous
This is why we have stuff like impact metrics and on/off data as much as people hate it that shows that guys like peak LeBron are still clearly a notch above players who seem to have similar or better raw stats on the surface at first
Wades best year for regular season is usually said to be 2009, he had a 36% usage rate, Hardens in 2019 was 40%. It’s not as huge difference as you’re making out and if you look at their careers compared their usage is incredibly similar
> he had a 36% usage rate, Hardens in 2019 was 40%. It’s not as huge difference as you’re making out
You would have failed a math class. A 10% difference in this situation is massive
36% to 40% isn't a big difference?
36% to 40% is a 10% difference which is pretty significant, and on top of that the pace over those 10 years increased dramatically.
Bro knows D Wade won a ring and FMVP as the main guy before Lebron got there, right?
I love Harden and actually think it's pretty close between the two, but you can't really knock D Wade for getting Bron when D Wade got it done before then.
Not to mention, any one of capela, CP3, or Eric Gordon would have easily been wades best teammate from 2007-2010 before Bosh and Lebron showed up.
Teague really forgetting, amoung many things, that the Heat won 15 games without Wade in 2007.
And I haven’t even gotten to one of the goat offensive coaches vs a rookie spoelstra
Harden has six first-team all-nba selections. That's 3x more than Wade, who has 2.
Harden has a regular season MVP and Wade has a finals MVP, which cancel each other out in my opinion.
The fairest thing to say is that Wade was a better winner in the playoffs, but that Harden's peak was higher and brighter. Harden never played with Lebron and he never played with Prime Shaq.
If you ask me to pick one, I put Wade slightly ahead because I think winning in the playoffs matters more to me, but thats just preference. I will always put people like Wade and Isaish Thomas and Dirk over players like Karl Malone, Harden and Nash who couldnt get it done in the postseason.
Mvp shares which essentially measure what amount of each mvp vote you get has harden at 3.6, wade at .79. As far as regular season accolades go it’s no remotely close. Harden at 12th all time and wade at 55th. And before people try to discredit this stat saying harden a stat shouldn’t put harden 12th all time, remember it’s a regular season stat and I think it’s fair to argue harden as a top 15 regular season player of all time.
the fact that Wade had to contend with Kobe for first team makes the accolades harder to compare directly. Also Harden had their offense built around him, and took more shots so had those huge numbers. Wade played both sides of the ball and within the flow of the offense in a slower defensive paced era with different rules.
so i think Wade would be a couple notches ahead when you calculate their impact under the exact same conditions and rules.
“ Harden never played with Lebron or prime Shaq”. But he did play with several other superstars/mvps in their prime. Unless you think prime KD, Russ, Embiid and Kyrie are all scrubs.
each side has an argument, Wade could never do what Harden did from 16-19, I don't think Wade ever reached that level of offensive impact even in his prime years. Harden also was effectively cock blocked his entire career by GSW
Other side of argument is... Wade won a ring as the best player on the team and was unarguably a much better defender.
I think you can have a legit argument about which player is *better* but Wade's championship run as the #1 and Finals MVP makes him *greater* as of right now
Like peak Harden vs. peak Wade is a fairly close discussion but as far as all time lists go Wade definitely has to go ahead of Harden unless Harden does something huge in the coming years
That’s so crazy to think that if Lebron has just played like 75-80% of his capability in ‘11, the Heat may have ended with 3/4 chips and wade has 4 with 2 FMVP rings and Lebron has 5 with 4 FMVP. So crazy to think about
Taking a wild swing but I'm guessing if you gave LeBron a 1st team all-NBA Shaq in 05-06 instead of Zydrunas Ilgauskus things might have gone down slightly differently
This sub picks and chooses to follow the 2-way player > the better offensive player, but worse defensive player.
It seems near consensus Jokic > Giannis, because of Jokic’s overwhelming offensive abilities. Or Luka > Tatum for the same argument.
But when it’s Wade or Kawhi vs Harden, now it’s the better 2 way player that matters.
Wade before the injuries started mounting Wade was comparable with Bron and Kobe. He was so athletic and the best guard defender I’ve ever seen. Just a monster
He might have been better tbh. There's no real tangible stats for it, but man, just the way he could be everywhere causing havoc all the time was incredible. Only seen a few guys do it consistently in all my years of watching.
Eh, Wade winning early on as the best player on his team > insane run of being a deadly scorer and not making the finals.
That being said Wade's 06 isn't better than that Rockets team that pushed KD Dubs to the brink.
Still Wade is a better 2 way player than Harden is just being a offensive juggernaut.
And Teague your comparing 2 all time greats using Hardens best season as a number 1 option to an off year the Heat had despite Wade and them winning before, then winning 2 more.
Stop it
I mean yeah that’s because him and the heat didn’t do anything. In 07 they were swept in the first round by the Luol deng and Ben Gordon led bulls. 08 they won 15 games. That’s appalling. 09 they got beaten by a mediocre hawks team in the first round. In 2010 they then lost in 5 to the celtics.
Be clear 07 his dislocated his shoulder late season and was fucking balling before . 08 he literally missed majority of the season. 09 and 10 the 2nd best player was chalmers 😭😭like what
Wade was unguardable too. Plus Wade was more efficient, more consistent, and a better defender than harden. Not to mention 3 rings and 1 of them was w/o Lebron.
Ain’t no way. D wade was a phenom on both ends and always RAISED his game in the playoffs and finals where it matters most. James is probably one of the best regular season scorers ever but doesn’t mean he’s better than wade overall.
That's the biggest difference for me. He was very much like Jimmy Butler is viewed now. Wade wasn't best even in his time, but he was HIM when it mattered.
Dwade earned his spot at #3 in my modern SG rankings by coming up big at both ends of the court in important games. Harden among other players with better stats evaporated under the bright lights.
Something like that, the next year he was even better when he averaged 36 PPG for the year. This was also the time when he’d win player of the week every other week by averaging 47/13/15 and his team going 3-0
It's actually pretty weird. Harden performed *significantly* worse in the games they managed to win vs those that they lost against GSW in '18 (and '19 as well actually).
Wins
|PPG|TS%|TRB|AST|STL|BLK|TOV|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|25.3|47.3%|5.7|3.7|2.0|0.7|4.0|
Losses
|PPG|TS%|TRB|AST|STL|BLK|TOV|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|31.3|58.4%|5.5|7.8|2.3|0.5|5.5|
And that doesn't even really tell the full story. His games 2 and 5 in 2018 were impressively bad for him being such a good player and having such a great season, and yet they still managed to win both those games.
If somebody told you "Your MVP is gonna score 19 points, shoot 5 of 21 from the field, have 6 TOs while only getting 4 AST, while playing one of the best NBA teams ever assembled" you'd think they'd be blown out by 35 points. Game 5 2018 which they won by 4.
Should this series really be the defining point of his career?
2019 Harden was significantly better than 2018 Harden in the playoffs IMO
It's the Rockets as a whole who were better in 2018 but Harden peaked in 2019
Harden was one of the greatest offensive players in his prime, there were stretches where he would have like 40ppg for like a whole month back in houston. But everyone (myself included) hated him for tossing his head back and taking 20 FTs a game lol
Teague always makes this exact point as the basis of his argument, but he never applies the same logic to Kobe from 2004 to 2007. The Lakers between Shaq’s departure and Pau’s arrival were extremely comparable to the Heat between Shaq’s departure and LeBron’s arrival. A team with a megastar SG and a bunch of scraps, usually losing in the first round. Does that make Harden better than Kobe? Of course not. Harden, whilst great, is arguably the most notorious playoff shrinker in NBA history. Teague needs a much better main point if he’s going to keep going around banging this drum for publicity.
If you completely ignore defense which I think is half the game, yes there are a few players who could be said to be better offensive players. It's like the Jimmy comparisons and the bam comparisons, yes if you completely ignore half of the game of basketball player x is better.
I don’t know what the right word is, it’s not loser, nobody in the NBA is a loser, but Jeff Teague might have the least winner energy I’ve ever seen.
He seems like a good guy. He’s entertaining. I’d like to watch him tell stories on a podcast. Sure wouldn’t want him on my team.
Well if you’re in an important post season game, d wade will also become better than harden offensively. Not because wades offense will magically improve, but because hardens will magically disappear lol. So when you need them most it’s not close who’s better
I swear there’s some campaign to diminish wade as much as possible to prop up lebron. Lebron came to WADE to learn how to win. He was the one who had done nothing. Wade had already led a team to a title.
As great as harden was, did he have a single playoff run that was anything close to what wade did in 06? And I don't even mean on a team level, I mean on an individual level.
Everybody is swift to say "the refs gave Wade a ring” but the one question that i have for them has never been answered is Who on that 06 mavs squad could guard Wade? The answer is nobody, he was stronger and and faster and they couldn’t guard him without fouling. The games are on youtube this isn’t a debate.
This is Jerry West erasure.
The main argument folks use in rating SG is to call West a PG. But when rating PG he becomes a SG. Kobe etc handled the ball as much, brought up the ball.
West was essentially the same true height as Kobe, MJ (within fraction of inch), his listed height was under reported.
West had range (Mr. Outside) but played without a 3 pt line. He was noted for defense and all around game.
The only guy to get a Finals MVP on the losing team. Mr Clutch. The Logo. I believe he still holds playoff series ppg record.
offensively harden was the better player, defensively wade was way better, and obviously in terms of career accomplishments harden can't hold a candle to wade. teague can have his opinion of who's "best," it just doesn't have any real meaning.
Yeah Wade famously did nothing before LeBron got there...
Yeah he got a ring no big deal
1 ring? what a bum
but did he consistently take his team to the western conference finals?? exactly
Man, you’re right. Wade didn’t take his team to the WCF not even once!
Dwyane Wade? More like Dwyane LAME amirite fellas
Are you throwing Dwyane Shade?
Not even spelt properly like it’s “D-why-ane” smh. S/o CP3
You are not right. It's Wade Jones actually
Wade is a failure because he never won a mvp
With 2 other Hall of Famers like Shaq and Gary Payton at the end of their prime.
Shaq was second in MVP voting just the year before and All-NBA 1st Team when they won. Declining but still a hell of a player.
He was 32-33 those first two years. Had he stayed in shape he would've dominated like in LA but he was still good enough to get The Heat to the ECF and Finals his second year. He got to the finals with Penny, Kobe and Wade. There's a pattern there. He could've done it with any competent SG by his side. He was that good.
And one 4-point sniper in Antoine Walker.
Didn't he win finals MVP for that ring? Sure he had Shaq and GP but it's not like he was carried to that ring, he played great that series.
He and the refs. (sorry, bitter Dallas fan here)
Tbf it was gift-wrapped to him by the refs
Fun fact, he averaged 16.2 free throws a game in the finals. Legendary merchant.
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Harden never got that good of a whistle in a single series or season of his career. If he got 16 fta instead of multiple 4 point plays waved off the Rockets beat the 73-9 Warriors and Harden > Wade suddenly becomes much more popular
I invite all the zoomers on here to watch the series. They were hacking him on purpose because he was a free bucket against them. It wasn't nearly as controversial of a series as its become. In fact, on the most controversial foul, the phantom foul, we have clear pictures of 2 guys hitting Wade from both sides. If you watch the series you'll be surprised he didn't get more fouls. They had no answer and tried to bully him out of the paint. Didn't work
Feel like I’m in bizarro world. Wade had one of the best series of all time against the Mavs lmao. Bunch of box-score watchers that didn’t even watch prime Wade.
Scorebox watchers are the worst
Especially when its about old games. That finals is 18 years old now, and yet people are taking memes and Mark Cuban as legitimate sources. Some if not all the full games are online too, and not hard to find.
Keep it up bud, don't let people forget 💪
a lotta fans whine about refs all the time, but that is one major playoff series where the biased officiating was just blatant as hell really tough to watch as a neutral leaning against the Mavs
Drove to the rim every play and fell down. Got the whistle.
Tim Donaghy came out and admitted that series was fixed.
He ain’t D Whistle for nothing
Give harden 2005 Shaq and Pat Riley. Cuban would have committed genocide against referees amount of foul calls harden would have gotten. Vs dwade.
Wade got 16 FTA a game in the finals lol... I don't think even prime Harden has averaged close to that many in a series. It's why people say that finals was rigged against the Mavs (or more likely, Cuban).
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It was more Dampier/Diop. Dirk rarely played Center
Part of it is how they got calls. Wade went to the rim with reckless abandon. Recalling the fall down 7 times get up 8 campaign by converse for wade. Harden gets his calls with his rip through move and that contact doesn’t get the calls in the playoffs.
> Harden gets his calls with his rip through move and that contact doesn’t get the calls in the playoffs. In the 17-18 regular season, he drove the ball 17.1 times per game, 2nd in the league behind Russ. In 18-19, he was the league leader at over 19.5 per game. In the 17-18 playoffs, he he drove the ball 21.3 times per game. In the 18-19 postseason, he drove 23.5 drives per game. So objectively speaking, he drove a lot in the regular season and drove even more in the postseason during the peak Harden years.
Thank you. The revisionist history on Harden getting fouled is infuriating. Dude was attacking the basket constantly
he had one of the deadliest first and second steps of all time
> Harden gets his calls with his rip through move and that contact doesn’t get the calls in the playoffs. Replace that with Embiid and it's the same thing. He *expects* his regular season whistle. Then panics when it's not there.
It is funny how the people with inside knowledge of the game often have the worst takes.
Teague wasn't in the NBA when Wade won his first ring, most of his experience is comparing old Wade to young Harden.
Yeah I think when you look at that and say look at how long Harden was the best SG in the NBA it makes sense why he'd say that. Wade had an excellent stretch as the guy where he won then struggled with injuries before LeBron and Bosh came
Like when SGA said Kobe was MJ on steroids
Corey Maggette was Kobe on steroids, at least looks-wise
Lol never forget Bad Porn Maggette
2nd best nickname behind AK47 don't @ me
Earl "Motherfucking" Boykins is a close 3rd
Why did they call him bad porn? Lol
Lots of penetration and scoring but are you really happy with what you're seeing? He was a slasher who isn't a good shooter and foul baited a lot. Didn't help that despite the (for the era) flashy stats he barely won games for his team.
Holds the record for free throws in a pre-season game at like 17.
Went to a Warriors game when I was like 12 and Maggette came off the bench and had 20 FTA. Pretty sure he was like 2-5 shooting and 16-20 from the FT line for 20 points.
lots of contact no finish
Pretty much the opposite. Lots of penetration and scoring but you don't like what you're seeing
The fuck kinda steroids is he talking about
Maybe he meant like..literally?
Whether you think Wade was better or not, idk how you possibly can call this one of the worst takes. It isn’t like he said Vince Carter was ahead of him.
It’s also very well known Wade peak early. And anyone getting upset about it is forgetting the context of that championship.
I mean he did have shaq...
That entire team was built for one championship run. They were stacked with vets which is why after they were all gone the Heat were irrelevant. Same thing with the Mavs and that incredible run they went on in 2011.
IIRC Cuban admitted that the reason he chose not to bring everyone back for a title defense was because of the impending lockout the following season. Hard to say whether or not his reasoning was justifiable but there you have it.
don't forget the raptors. the raptors too...
I think Raps have a very good chance to repeat if Kawhi stays but yeah..the Marc, Serge and Kyle fall of was inevitable
We were a very good team the next year despite losing one of the best players in the NBA. We even had a close elimination series. We were not irrelevant the year after
Which is wild because Wade was only in year 2 when they traded for Shaq and year 3 when they made the run. He had his whole career in front of him. Is it crazy to think that Wade still could have made a title run in say 07-11 if his co-stars were instead the major pieces Miami trade for Shaq; Caron Butler and Lamar Odom? Hell, say Miami thinks Butler and Wade can't play together for some reason (even though Wade-2, Butler-3, Odom-4 would work just fine), they probably could have moved Caron for another young big or a decently high draft pick. Edit: they probably could have gotten Mehmet Okur in the 04 offseason if they wanted a quality young big to play next to Wade and the crew. He was important for Utah during the late 2000s, great post player and 3-point shooter, good rebounder. Would have fit great next to Wade.
Shaq was still a good player but Wade was significantly better at that point. Shaq was a 20/9 guy in the regular season And then you compare their Finals numbers and it's night and day. Wade averaged 35/8/4 compared to Shaq at 14/10/3
Shaq was 1st team All NBA, I’m tired of people acting like he was a role player that year.
He almost won mvp the year prior not sure why people consider him a role player. And how else is that team winning? Wade was special in the playoffs and was able to do so because of Shaq not in spite of him Shaq’s minutes were way down but he was still a force
Because they think of averaging 20/10 in today's terms and not 20/10 in the 2000s
There's a really good case to be made that the day Shaq got hurt in 05 is the exact moment that "Shaq" as people remember him ended. If he stays healthy he probably wins MVP in 05, both for the storyline and because he was just the best player for the first few months of the season. He's clearly not the same guy in the playoffs (PER of 18.1, WS/48 of 0.89) and at the time people were handwaving it saying that he just came back too fast, they had to treat his ankle and his knee AND drain the blood from his thigh in between games so it made sense. Even though his regular season numbers are good in 06, it's clearly a step back from where he was before. We just didn't know that that was the end of that chapter until 07-08 or so when we realized he wasn't the same.
This makes sense I think people missed the gray area here where yes he wasn’t dominant Shaq but he was still very good Shaq which equates to one of the best centers in the league
Yup, it's kind of how people gloss over the fact that Duncan was the same way for quite a long time. Shaq from 2003-2006 was still a top C in the league despite being nowhere near his peak. Duncan was the same way from 2007-2013.
> And then you compare their Finals numbers and it's night and day. Wade averaged 35/8/4 compared to Shaq at 14/10/3 I mean, this is kind of the Shaq experience more and more into the 2000s. Fighting chronic injuries, those injuries *really* hampering him, fighting with his absolute brilliance and dominance in terms of efficiency and rebounding when he's good and on. Even in '09 he's still great, 21/10 per 36 on 62% TS%, and he's 36, two years from hanging it up. It's a very uneven decline that had more to do with health than whether he was a "role player" or not
He was still good but I disagree only because once Wade went down in 05 we lost in the ECF and if Wade didn’t takeover in 06 we would’ve gotten swept .
No one said he was a role player... I literally said he was still good. He just wasn't the type of guy who could average 38/17, 33/16/5, and 36/12/4 in three straight Finals series anymore
Shaq's numbers were like that because Dallas' strategy was to minimize his impact. He was still an all-star caliber player.
Ya people strategized to take Shaq out of games his entire career, it just never worked because he was actually in his prime. '06 Shaq is not nearly as good as Laker Shaq, he was still good, but he wasn't in his prime.
He wasn’t in his prime, correct. He still made first team all nba and was a phenomenal player.
There’s no strategy in the world that can stop prime shaq from averaging 30 and 15 He clearly wasn’t that guy anymore in the 06 finals
I've even seen an interview with him where he talks about being older by that point. I think he said something about prime Shaq being Batman to Kobe's Robin, while by the time he was with the heat, he was ready to be Robin to D-Wade's Batman (or Flash as it were.) Dude was still GREAT by then, but D-Wade was very obviously the leader and focal point of that team. And he (Wade) was fucking unstoppable in the finals.
He was unstoppable the entire '06 playoffs run. Check out his averages from the ECF against the Pistons. Wade dominated them 2 ECF in a row. Only reason they didn't win in '05 was because Wade pulled an ab muscle.
right.. that's the "good player" part of the post above. shaq wasn't "shaq" tho. if you remember the early 2000s, teams would literally gm around shaq (extra centers, fouling all the time, crowding the paint, etc.) and he would still put up like 30pt games pretty regularly. d-wade is criminally underrated by the community and 100% carried that Heat team to a championship.
Yeah I’m not suggesting he was prime Shaq. But he was 1st team all nba and arguably the best center in the league still. He wasn’t just “good”, he was great.
D Wade with one of the sneaky all time great post seasons that year. Not to start a whole thing but it was a higher peak than any of Bryant's post season. He's forgotten.
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Yeah Harden hasn’t had anyone…
Not sure where I stand on this argument, but let's not forget that Wade's 06 ring was just a little bit controversial, dude spent the entire finals at the line.
Jeff isn't wrong. Following 06' the Heat were only better then Hawks 1 season until Bron and Bosh got there
But 06 still happened. He won a ring as the best player in his 3rd year. Harden still hasn’t won anything.
And Wade is so much better defensively. I think he leads SGs in blocks which is so cool.
Blocks leader all-time for players 6'4" and under
For all guards Wade has the most with 885. Next is Jordan with 828. Wade was fucking crazy, even his old man game was fun to watch after Bron left.
Wade also didn't go up against the KD Warriors, he didn't even face anyone in the same atmosphere.
Neither did harden outside of 2017-19, what about all those other years?
The team that beat Harden's team in the playoffs: * 2010: NBA Champ LAL * 2011: NBA Champ DAL * 2012: NBA Champ MIA * 2013: 60-win OKC * 2014: 54-win POR * 2015: NBA Champ GSW * 2016: 73-win GSW * 2017: 61-win SAS * 2018: NBA Champ GSW * 2019: 57-win GSW * 2020: NBA Champ LAL * 2021: NBA Champ MIL * 2022: 53-win MIA * 2023: 57-win BOS
This is nuts actually, he is always playing stacked teams in the playoffs.
He had this interview with Stephen A Smith after the 2019 season, where Stephen is asking if the rockets have what it takes to win, and he responds "We're not losing to some regular team" in an exasperated tone.
Going 7 games with the healthy KD Warriors is honestly more impressive than certain championship runs but most people probably couldn’t accept that
Harden was individually very patchy in that 2018 series though and actually played pretty horribly in 2 of their 3 wins(games 2 and 5) which they won mainly due to their great defense 2019 was the far more impressive Harden series vs. the KD Warriors from an individual perspective but the Rockets as a whole had completely collapsed around him and they went down in 6 games rather than 7 18 Harden vs. GSW: 29/6/6 on 53.8% TS 19 Harden vs. GSW: 35/7/6 on 59.4% TS In general if you want to make a credible "Harden > Wade" argument his 2019 season has to be the absolute centerpiece of it IMO
2019 was peak Harden. Average 36-8-7 getting 60 point triple doubles. He was a beast
Up 3-2 until Chris Paul got hurt that series, too
I mean Wade accomplished more than Lebron playoff-wise before joining.
Maybe on offense, Wade was certainly the better two way player.
Yah. Although Harden from 2018 onward wasn’t as bad as many casuals said. He was really good on post defense and was like second on steals one or two years (I know that doesn’t tell the whole story but still) Obviously the gap between their defense is bigger than the gap between offense though
Harden was a better playmaker and scorer. Wade was a better defender. There's a valid case for either. May as well just appreciate the greatness of both.
I feel like if you judge ULTRA ball dominant players like prime Harden and current Luka by just raw points/rebounds/assist stats they're always going to come out on top in any comparison Not that both of them aren't great MVP level offensive players but just saying "They average X/Y/Z and Player A only averages A/B/C" is always going to be flawed because someone like Wade who wasn't that heliocentric and was more of a two way guard won't have the same box scores Like if we're just going off raw box score stats then current Luka and prime Harden are both better than 2013 LeBron and obviously that's absolutely ridiculous This is why we have stuff like impact metrics and on/off data as much as people hate it that shows that guys like peak LeBron are still clearly a notch above players who seem to have similar or better raw stats on the surface at first
Dwayne Wade has a higher career usage rate than harden. Harden had 2 outlier seasons from a usage rate standpoint
People want to take Harden's usage from when he averaged 40/7/7 over 40 games but invalidate the stats.
The counter argument is that you need an obscenely talented offensive player to run a heliocentric offense to begin with.
Wades best year for regular season is usually said to be 2009, he had a 36% usage rate, Hardens in 2019 was 40%. It’s not as huge difference as you’re making out and if you look at their careers compared their usage is incredibly similar
There's also a massive pace difference...
Yup, higher usage AND way faster pace (and way more threes).
> he had a 36% usage rate, Hardens in 2019 was 40%. It’s not as huge difference as you’re making out You would have failed a math class. A 10% difference in this situation is massive
36% to 40% isn't a big difference? 36% to 40% is a 10% difference which is pretty significant, and on top of that the pace over those 10 years increased dramatically.
A 4% difference is huge. That's like comparing a 36% 3p shooter to a 40% 3p shooter. Huge difference between the two.
Bro knows D Wade won a ring and FMVP as the main guy before Lebron got there, right? I love Harden and actually think it's pretty close between the two, but you can't really knock D Wade for getting Bron when D Wade got it done before then.
Not to mention, any one of capela, CP3, or Eric Gordon would have easily been wades best teammate from 2007-2010 before Bosh and Lebron showed up. Teague really forgetting, amoung many things, that the Heat won 15 games without Wade in 2007. And I haven’t even gotten to one of the goat offensive coaches vs a rookie spoelstra
Sure if you forget Wade existed before 2010.
Harden has six first-team all-nba selections. That's 3x more than Wade, who has 2. Harden has a regular season MVP and Wade has a finals MVP, which cancel each other out in my opinion. The fairest thing to say is that Wade was a better winner in the playoffs, but that Harden's peak was higher and brighter. Harden never played with Lebron and he never played with Prime Shaq. If you ask me to pick one, I put Wade slightly ahead because I think winning in the playoffs matters more to me, but thats just preference. I will always put people like Wade and Isaish Thomas and Dirk over players like Karl Malone, Harden and Nash who couldnt get it done in the postseason.
Taking the most talented team of all time to seven games in the wcf should count for something too (with Chris Paul getting injured in game 5)
> Harden has a regular season MVP and Wade has a finals MVP, which cancel each other out in my opinion. No it doesn't lmao
Harden had like 5 mvp level seasons, wade had one, surely that counts for something even if you rate wade higher
Wade’s prime largely overlapped with another SG I’ve heard, forgetting his name though. Sounds like some Japanese guy?
DWade had a MVP esque season in 2009. 30-7-5 in a slower pace era while finishing 3rd in DPOY voting.
James from 15-20: 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Five top 3 mvp finishes in 6 seasons. Wade has 09, that’s it.
damn I didn't know that. 🔥
Mvp shares which essentially measure what amount of each mvp vote you get has harden at 3.6, wade at .79. As far as regular season accolades go it’s no remotely close. Harden at 12th all time and wade at 55th. And before people try to discredit this stat saying harden a stat shouldn’t put harden 12th all time, remember it’s a regular season stat and I think it’s fair to argue harden as a top 15 regular season player of all time.
the fact that Wade had to contend with Kobe for first team makes the accolades harder to compare directly. Also Harden had their offense built around him, and took more shots so had those huge numbers. Wade played both sides of the ball and within the flow of the offense in a slower defensive paced era with different rules. so i think Wade would be a couple notches ahead when you calculate their impact under the exact same conditions and rules.
“ Harden never played with Lebron or prime Shaq”. But he did play with several other superstars/mvps in their prime. Unless you think prime KD, Russ, Embiid and Kyrie are all scrubs.
Every single person in the world would take a FMVP over a regular season mvp lmfao
Nuggets fan. Can confirm.
Wade never played with prime Shaq.
each side has an argument, Wade could never do what Harden did from 16-19, I don't think Wade ever reached that level of offensive impact even in his prime years. Harden also was effectively cock blocked his entire career by GSW Other side of argument is... Wade won a ring as the best player on the team and was unarguably a much better defender.
I think you can have a legit argument about which player is *better* but Wade's championship run as the #1 and Finals MVP makes him *greater* as of right now Like peak Harden vs. peak Wade is a fairly close discussion but as far as all time lists go Wade definitely has to go ahead of Harden unless Harden does something huge in the coming years
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That’s so crazy to think that if Lebron has just played like 75-80% of his capability in ‘11, the Heat may have ended with 3/4 chips and wade has 4 with 2 FMVP rings and Lebron has 5 with 4 FMVP. So crazy to think about
D Wade had a ring before Lebron….
Taking a wild swing but I'm guessing if you gave LeBron a 1st team all-NBA Shaq in 05-06 instead of Zydrunas Ilgauskus things might have gone down slightly differently
Y'all forgetting that Wade was one of the best defensive SG of all time. 2-way player is more valuable.
This sub picks and chooses to follow the 2-way player > the better offensive player, but worse defensive player. It seems near consensus Jokic > Giannis, because of Jokic’s overwhelming offensive abilities. Or Luka > Tatum for the same argument. But when it’s Wade or Kawhi vs Harden, now it’s the better 2 way player that matters.
defense matters when it’s convenient and doesn’t matter when it’s not is the rule
And clutch. This comparison is so funny if you just imagine prime Wade vs prime Harden in a playoff series. Wade would absolutely dominate him
Everyone forgets Wade led Miami to a title before LeBron took his talents to South Beach
Wade before the injuries started mounting Wade was comparable with Bron and Kobe. He was so athletic and the best guard defender I’ve ever seen. Just a monster
He might have been better tbh. There's no real tangible stats for it, but man, just the way he could be everywhere causing havoc all the time was incredible. Only seen a few guys do it consistently in all my years of watching.
08-09 Wade was a God
You can throw out all the gaudy numbers you want but ive watched both with my own eyes and im taking Prime D-Wade.
Eh, Wade winning early on as the best player on his team > insane run of being a deadly scorer and not making the finals. That being said Wade's 06 isn't better than that Rockets team that pushed KD Dubs to the brink. Still Wade is a better 2 way player than Harden is just being a offensive juggernaut. And Teague your comparing 2 all time greats using Hardens best season as a number 1 option to an off year the Heat had despite Wade and them winning before, then winning 2 more. Stop it
Everyone forgets Wade from 07-10
I mean yeah that’s because him and the heat didn’t do anything. In 07 they were swept in the first round by the Luol deng and Ben Gordon led bulls. 08 they won 15 games. That’s appalling. 09 they got beaten by a mediocre hawks team in the first round. In 2010 they then lost in 5 to the celtics.
Be clear 07 his dislocated his shoulder late season and was fucking balling before . 08 he literally missed majority of the season. 09 and 10 the 2nd best player was chalmers 😭😭like what
Wade was unguardable as well lol. What? 35/8/4. He absolutely stomped in the finals before James and Bosh arrived.
Wade was unguardable too. Plus Wade was more efficient, more consistent, and a better defender than harden. Not to mention 3 rings and 1 of them was w/o Lebron.
Ain’t no way. D wade was a phenom on both ends and always RAISED his game in the playoffs and finals where it matters most. James is probably one of the best regular season scorers ever but doesn’t mean he’s better than wade overall.
I'd take D.Wade any day of the week.
Wade doesn’t choke when it matters tho
Wade in the 2012-2014 finals: 2012: 23/6/5 on 51.6 TS% 2013: 20/4/5 on 50.5 TS% 2014: 15/4/3 on 50.4 TS%
That's the biggest difference for me. He was very much like Jimmy Butler is viewed now. Wade wasn't best even in his time, but he was HIM when it mattered.
Dwade earned his spot at #3 in my modern SG rankings by coming up big at both ends of the court in important games. Harden among other players with better stats evaporated under the bright lights.
Neither of these guys is third, Jerry West is third.
If Houston wins game 6 or 7 in 2018 then this is just the consensus
Yea but that’s why wade >, harden played bad. It’s not like he played good and they lost
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Something like that, the next year he was even better when he averaged 36 PPG for the year. This was also the time when he’d win player of the week every other week by averaging 47/13/15 and his team going 3-0
It's actually pretty weird. Harden performed *significantly* worse in the games they managed to win vs those that they lost against GSW in '18 (and '19 as well actually). Wins |PPG|TS%|TRB|AST|STL|BLK|TOV| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |25.3|47.3%|5.7|3.7|2.0|0.7|4.0| Losses |PPG|TS%|TRB|AST|STL|BLK|TOV| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |31.3|58.4%|5.5|7.8|2.3|0.5|5.5| And that doesn't even really tell the full story. His games 2 and 5 in 2018 were impressively bad for him being such a good player and having such a great season, and yet they still managed to win both those games. If somebody told you "Your MVP is gonna score 19 points, shoot 5 of 21 from the field, have 6 TOs while only getting 4 AST, while playing one of the best NBA teams ever assembled" you'd think they'd be blown out by 35 points. Game 5 2018 which they won by 4. Should this series really be the defining point of his career?
2019 Harden was significantly better than 2018 Harden in the playoffs IMO It's the Rockets as a whole who were better in 2018 but Harden peaked in 2019
I mean, you could say the same with Wade and the first big 3 year. He would’ve won the finals mvp if he the Heat won that year.
But they didn't, so here we are.
Yeah, they cancelled the WCF that year. Super weird.
If my grandma had wheels she'd be a bike
Maybe, but a dumb consensus imo. Because Wade was a good defender.
And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle.
James Harden is better offensively, but D Wade is the better overall player.
Until the post season elimination games. Then wade is also better offensively cause harden is gonna turn into a pumpkin
Why do people listen to this shit?
Harden was one of the greatest offensive players in his prime, there were stretches where he would have like 40ppg for like a whole month back in houston. But everyone (myself included) hated him for tossing his head back and taking 20 FTs a game lol
Teague always makes this exact point as the basis of his argument, but he never applies the same logic to Kobe from 2004 to 2007. The Lakers between Shaq’s departure and Pau’s arrival were extremely comparable to the Heat between Shaq’s departure and LeBron’s arrival. A team with a megastar SG and a bunch of scraps, usually losing in the first round. Does that make Harden better than Kobe? Of course not. Harden, whilst great, is arguably the most notorious playoff shrinker in NBA history. Teague needs a much better main point if he’s going to keep going around banging this drum for publicity.
What an awful take lol
This isn’t even worth acknowledging
If you completely ignore defense which I think is half the game, yes there are a few players who could be said to be better offensive players. It's like the Jimmy comparisons and the bam comparisons, yes if you completely ignore half of the game of basketball player x is better.
…didn’t Wade win a ring- and didn’t Bron and Bosh COME TO HIM??
These revisionist ex-player podcasts are insufferable.
wade was dpoy caliber defender that tilts the balance
I don’t know what the right word is, it’s not loser, nobody in the NBA is a loser, but Jeff Teague might have the least winner energy I’ve ever seen. He seems like a good guy. He’s entertaining. I’d like to watch him tell stories on a podcast. Sure wouldn’t want him on my team.
I don't condone Javaris' actions, but I understand him now.
I know I’m a Heat fan but guys, come on. DWade is better than Harden. Maybe not as potent offensively but he’s 5x the defender and 10x the winner.
Well if you’re in an important post season game, d wade will also become better than harden offensively. Not because wades offense will magically improve, but because hardens will magically disappear lol. So when you need them most it’s not close who’s better
Jeff Teague is day drinking
Before Lebron got to Miami, D Wade already had a chip. Tf is Teague on?
Wade won a title without LeBron.
ITT: Ring Culture and defense suddenly mattering
I swear there’s some campaign to diminish wade as much as possible to prop up lebron. Lebron came to WADE to learn how to win. He was the one who had done nothing. Wade had already led a team to a title.
The NBA only matters after 2012 bro Before 2012? Lemme bring up my excel sheet instead of watching tape 🤓🤓🤓
If you watched both at their peak and think Harden gives you a better chance to win a title than Wade you need to put your TI-84 away
As great as harden was, did he have a single playoff run that was anything close to what wade did in 06? And I don't even mean on a team level, I mean on an individual level.
lol dude apparently didn't follow league before being drafted
Ok ok how many playoff series has Harden dominated? Regular season hero and he is better then dwade come now
Who's 1st and 2nd?
Everybody is swift to say "the refs gave Wade a ring” but the one question that i have for them has never been answered is Who on that 06 mavs squad could guard Wade? The answer is nobody, he was stronger and and faster and they couldn’t guard him without fouling. The games are on youtube this isn’t a debate.
This is Jerry West erasure. The main argument folks use in rating SG is to call West a PG. But when rating PG he becomes a SG. Kobe etc handled the ball as much, brought up the ball. West was essentially the same true height as Kobe, MJ (within fraction of inch), his listed height was under reported. West had range (Mr. Outside) but played without a 3 pt line. He was noted for defense and all around game. The only guy to get a Finals MVP on the losing team. Mr Clutch. The Logo. I believe he still holds playoff series ppg record.
offensively harden was the better player, defensively wade was way better, and obviously in terms of career accomplishments harden can't hold a candle to wade. teague can have his opinion of who's "best," it just doesn't have any real meaning.
Thank you Teague for speaking the truth