[thepostman]

I'll be honest, those numbers surprise me. It also indicates the league has gotten very offensive minded. I still don't think Harden is an outstanding defender but his team is much better collectively than I realized. I'll give you that.

[Purple Haize]

The additions of CP3 & Mbah a Moute in addition to the development of Capela significantly improved the Rockets defensive rating from 16th in 2016-2017 to 6th overall in 2017-2018. But if the numbers don't fit your storyline you can always go with tired generalizations from the path. That's always a good take.

My criticism was of Harden. I thought (from what little I watched)the Rockets were better defensively as a team

[RubberMallet]

only 3 other guards have better defensive win shares than harden surprisingly. i think we concentrate on plays he gives up on because they look real bad but as a whole he's not a bad defensive player.

[Sly Fox]

I will grant that he used to be when he first came to town. This year he bought into the defensive philosophy when the franchise brought in a bunch of defensive-minded players last summer. Hopefully he still invests himself on the defensive end of the floor next year and doesn't revert back to his younger days.

[lynchburgwildcats]

Harden allowed a defensive FG% that was 0.5% worse than average in the regular season, according to http://stats.nba.com/player/201935/defe ... r%20Season

However, it was 2.8% better than average in the playoffs. http://stats.nba.com/player/201935/defe ... e=Playoffs