It wasn’t Pete’s fault that they didn’t have “early entry” status back then? Does anybody here think for one second if they had Pete wouldn’t have left college early. And even if you compare both players first two years in college….Pete’s averages dwarf Harden’s. Harden had ONE 40 point game in college l! Pete scored 50 points 28 times.
My whole point to this argument in this discussion from the very beginning was a poster’s comment that Pete is “worse” than Harden. You can post all the stats you want but what I am pointing out is the full picture of the players side by side. I say again anybody that has had a chance to watch both Pete (not highlights….actual games) and Harden play will tell you Pete was the better ball handler, defender and passer. Now if YOU are old enough to tell me you had the opportunity to watch Pete during his career and you still think Pete is “worse” than Harden then I may relent. But for somebody who has never sent BOTH players play and just post stats you a skewed view of the picture.
Also Pete was not “main” scorer on his teams…..so he didn’t have the volume of offensive opportunities that Harden has had.
Yeah, numbers are objective, where as personal observations are subjective. When comparing players, I try to be objective.
I'm a random guy on the Internet, as are you. Why would you put more credibility into what I'm saying just because I, a random basketball fan, had seen him play in person?
You have repeatedly made the same claims that simply aren't backed up by reality. I've tried to meet you in the middle and discuss players statistically relative to their peers without taking into account how much worse the average NBA player was in the 1970's than they are today.
Statistics *do* paint pictures of players, side by side, and you're simply rejecting the picture in favor of something you attempt to remember from *50* years ago. Are stats skewed at times? Absolutely, but are they as skewed as one person's opinion? Certainly not.
Maravich averaged 20 or more field goal attempts per game for 7 straight years. In that time, his FGA were: 23, 24, 20, 21, 28(!!), 25, 21. He took by far the most shots on his team each of those seasons, and was at or near the top of the entire league in shot attempts.
If that's not being a "main scorer," then who were the "main scorers" that he played with? I'll happily post their shots and points per game relative to Pete's.
Harden, by comparison, has averaged more than 20 field goal attempts per game only 3 times in his career, and in those seasons was much more efficient and a better passer than Maravich ever was.
If you don't believe what I'm saying, go to basketball-reference and see for yourself.
I entered this experiment under the belief that Maravich was an all-time great because I've heard it for so long. I didn't think Harden would even stack up to be honest.
It turns out that Maravich simply wasn't as good as he's often cracked up to be, and the numbers demonstrate it.
Harden is a *bad* defender, and by the numbers, Pete was even worse, but that's for a whole different post.
stathead.com
