What Is Luka Doing That James Harden Couldn’t?

What Is Luka Doing That James Harden Couldn’t?

so we all remember how dominant James Harden was during his best years in Houston just torching NBA defenses on a night in and Night Out bases putting out ridiculous scoring performances ridiculous triple doubles like these 30 point 40 point and sometimes 50 point triple doubles he was on another planet but in watching LCA dones now right and seeing what he’s doing and seeing how he’s dominating the league with leading the Mavericks to their first Finals appearance since 2011 I can’t help but notice and I know I’m not the only person can’t help but notice just how similar in theory he and James Harden were with their playing Styles how similar Harden’s Prime was and how he played during that time to how luuka donic is playing now both of those guys spent a lot of time out there on the perimeter hunting mismatches right getting into a high volume of pick and roll scenarios doing a lot of penetrating kick or lobbing it to big men if they have that option out of the pick and roll just very similar play Styles and very similar in how their coaches use them within the offense but my biggest question is this why was Luca able to lead this Mavericks team to the NBA finals having playing a similar playing style as James Harden while Harden couldn’t do it what is the difference those guys play very similar brand of basketball and their teams play a very similar to Brandon basketball some different Personnel but still in theory a lot of similarities why was Luca able to do better than what Harden was able to do during his best years in Houston so let’s kind of break it down right for one I think the biggest thing we have to recognize when we do these comparisons between James hard and Luka donic is that they played in two different eras yes they both played in the Steph Curry era where every team is hunting a million three-point shots they’re going with a bunch of different lineups on the floor they’re opening up the idea of putting small ball lineups out there but look at the scope of the league during James Harden’s Prime The Warriors largely ran the Western Conference so yes in 2018 the Rockets were the best team in the NBA but still at that point Golden State was the defending champion and that at that point they also had two NBA championships within a three-year span Luca is playing in the most wide open era we’ve seen in a long time right let’s think about this over the last 10 years the league T saw like two major instances of the same teams kind of ruling both conferences so the heat ran the east from 2011 to 2014 the Spurs ran the west from 2013 to 2014 The Warriors ran the West pretty much from 2015 to 2019 and the Cavs ran the East again from 2015 to 2018 right now we don’t have that type of thing where it’s a lock for one team to get out of either conference things are super super wide open there’s no favorite there’s no active Dynasty so one excuse I always gave Harden was he was running consistently into one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history and yes they had different Personnel over the years but still you were still running into that Steve K system you’re still running into Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson who are the greatest back court of all time you were running into that you were running into Steph Curry and Klay Thompson alongside with Kevin Durant and granted Luca dones did run to Steph Curry too right ran into him in 2022 in the Western Conference Finals but generally speaking he’s not playing in an era where a dynasty is ruling the league right or there is one team that’s flat out dominating their conference right now especially this year the NBA is so so wide open there’s been a new Champion every single year for like the last few seasons 2021 or 2020 let’s start there the Lakers win a championship 2021 the Bucks win it 2022 the Warriors win it 23 the Nuggets win it and now in 2024 two completely different teams in the mix with the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks so James Harden didn’t have as much success I will say because the league wasn’t as wide open even in 2022 when Luca dones ran into the Golden State Warriors eventually win and won a title The League was still relatively wide open right Golden State had to prove that they can go and win another title again it wasn’t a lock for them to go and win a title The League was still wide open it was still very unpredictable Harden didn’t play in that unpredictable era of the NBA where it wasn’t a lock for one team to represent their conference in the NBA Finals another thing that we have to say here is also the availability of second options we saw last night especially from Minnesota how important it is to have a second option a reliable second option score next to your best player Anthony Edwards didn’t have that luxury the one time Harden had a really really good Superstar level second option was Chris Paul in 2018 we all know what happened there they get to a game seven they’re on the verge of winning that series and knocking off the Warriors Dynasty right that would have been the game that would have knocked off the Warriors Dynasty in a lot of people’s eyes but they couldn’t do it because Paul got hurt now granted they could have played a lot better than the way they did play when they went out there in that game seven but things went the way that they went so availability of second options means everything take that and contrast it to Luca donic and Kyrie Kyrie has not missed a game so far this entire postseason and Dallas has been largely healthy so I will say while we criticize harden a lot we never making a finals appearance I will give him this 2018 they had the warriors on the ropes now since it was a seven game series it’s no lock at all to say that Rockets would have won that game seven even if Chris Paul was healthy but it was a good chance that could have happened so we can give Harden the benefit of the doubt there with saying that Chris Paul was out so that maybe gives him a little bit of an asteris right that maybe doesn’t count against his legacy maybe that would have been his first Finals appearance and it was his best window to make the NBA finals and his best window to make the NBA Finals was ruined by an injury to their second most important player Luca dones and Mavericks just did not have to deal with that this particular postseason so on top of playing in an era right now where the league is super wide open Luca’s second option in his best year was more available than James Harden’s second option in his best year and finally let’s get to this point here right this one is where we put it all on James Harden despite everything I just mentioned the intangibles for Luca donic are different than the intangibles that James Harden had and I’ll say this Luca Don is still relatively young right he’s probably 25 may be 24 he’s within that range he’s still a very young player he already has more iconic postseason moments than James Harden so that’s what really separates them that’s why this thing is worked right that’s why people have falling in love with Luca a lot more than James Harden even though they have similar play Styles Luca brings something different to the table we’ve seen him at this point in his career already have two of some of the greatest closeout performances in the NBA over like the last couple of Seasons there was that game seven against the Phoenix Suns he had where he just embarrassed them and at that point they were the defending western conference champions and they came like two wins away from winning a championship they embarrassed them right we saw Luca donic embarrassed one of the best defenses in the NBA with that Suns team in a closeout performance then fast forward to last night does the exact same team against the best defense in the league that just shut down the Denver Nugget in the previous round ask your question does prime James Harden perform like that against that timberwoods defense in Minnesota I don’t know if I can say so that’s the timberwoods defense that knocked out the defending Champion Denver Nuggets that’s one of the most confusing offenses to try to beat that timberwoods defense took them out at home in game seven and Luca donic had zero problems that whole series against that same defense could James Harden do that same thing so one of the issu is James Harden isn’t largely a bad playoff performer he’s had some really good playoff moments but he’s also had a lot of stinkers and he’s had more stinkers than you would like for a player of his caliber right to have Luca just doesn’t have that right now Luca may have had a couple of bad playoff games but Luca doesn’t have a reputation for not showing up there’s been a rare amount of times where Luca has had some bad playoff performances James hortness had some iconically bad playoff performances at this point in his career at this young of an age Luca hasn’t had that Luca’s had more dominant playoff moments than Harden has had it’s just it’s just a major difference between those two guys and like I said they have a very similar skill set they kill teams in a similar way I just think it comes down to the intangibles and I just think Luca has a mindset that allows him to perform in those scenarios a lot better we’re seeing what people are talking about right now on social media Luca may like playing away games a lot more in the playoffs than playing home games cuz there’s something the away crowd does to him that wakes him up that makes him play and take his game to an extremely different level so it’s the intangibles those things are very very important I think that’s one thing that separates them to so like I said while I think there were a lot of factors that Harden couldn’t really control like injuries and just how the league was during his prime there’s also this Luca does possess something internally that James Harden just doesn’t truly possess and so it speaks to this idea that we can have guys throughout the course of NBA history who are skilled as ever right we can have so many players who have ridiculous skill sets ridiculous talents and abilities but if they don’t have those intangibles if they don’t have that mindset they won’t be able to execute it right and so they’ll just be known as these talented guys who never won anything and I’m not saying Lucas would lock to win this series against the Celtics because that can go either way but still those things the intangibles the mentality those sorts of things that you can’t put on the stat sheet those things come up huge and that’s one separating factor between Luca and Harden despite them having ridiculous similar playing Styles and ridiculously similar offensive systems with how their coaches were running things so we’ll see what happens here in the finals for Luca I’m definitely rooting for Dallas to win it but it’s going to be interesting but those are the things I think really separate how we perceive Luca donic and James Harden despite both of them having very similar playing Styles and very similar approaches to the game of basketball

Luka Doncic led the Mavercks to the NBA Finals, their first since 2011. Luka and Kyrie were amazing throughout the postseason, especially with closing out the top ranked Timberwolves defense. With this, Luka is headed towards his first NBA championship series, a moment fans have been waiting for since he asserted his dominance over the league in Year 2. His play style has drawn a lot of comparisons to former superstar James Harden, who torched defenses throughout his prime years with the Houston Rockets. Even with similar playing styles around a system that isn’t “built for winning”, it begs the question… what about Luka’s playing style has led to more team success than Harden during his prime years in Houston?

Time Stamps:

0:00 Intro
0:29 Similarities Between Luka And Harden
1:27 Difference #1: They Played In Different “Eras”
4:22 Difference #2: Health
6:18 Difference #3: Intangibles

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