High Quality Sports

Harden and Wade are often compared when ranking all time players. Both are elite offensive engine shooting guards who can score and pass. The argument for Harden is simple. Harden has an MVP along with three 2nd place finishes and a 3rd place finish in MVP voting. He is 12th all time in MVP award shares, ahead of Steph Curry, David Robinson, Dr. J, and KD. He has 60 point triple doubles and while he didn’t win a ring, that was really due to running into the greatest team ever. He was the best player on a 65 win team which is better than any team Wade was top dog for. He is a remarkably better free throw and 3 point shooter than Wade and has 3 scoring titles (compared to 1) and 2 assist titles to Wade’s 0 and has more points, rebounds and assists. 

The argument for Wade consists of 3 points. Defense, playoff performance, and intangibles. Intangibles are really hard to define (by definition) and it’s impossible to know if someone is “scared” or actually “choking” vs simply having a bad game, or even bad series (yes, even the greatest players ever are allowed to have a bad playoff series). However, Harden has a pretty consistent history of drastically underperforming his regular season performance in the postseason, which is amplified to another level in games 6 and 7, more on this later. I have Wade somewhere in the 20-27 all time and Harden somewhere between 25-40, with Wade having a higher peak. 

First, we need to take into context their numbers. Scoring in 2004-2011 (Wades prime) is vastly different to scoring in 2013-2023 (hardens prime). We can try to adjust but it’s important to know there should be some mental curving or adjustment of Harden’s offensive numbers compared to Wades. If Wade had 4 or 5 out lineups with shooters all around him combined with a much higher usage rate in a more scoring friendly league environment, it’s almost certain some of his offensive numbers would be higher. Not only were Wade’s teammates between 07 and ‘10 generally trash, it was more of a defensive minded lineup with Wade carrying almost all of the load offensively. This can be seen from their defense always being above league average from 04-14 (barring wades injured year 08). With these defensive lineups Wade had to carry these guys to some mediocre offenses, even when he led the league in scoring. 

With Harden, the approach was to give him the ball nearly all the time and surround him with defensively minded shooters (Covington, Ariza, Mbah Moute) and rim runners (Capela, Howard). This led to some all time box score numbers in the regular season which always seemed to drop off in the postseason. If Hardens numbers maintained in the postseason he would probably be a top tier (top 15ish) player ever, but the defense(which is and always was horrific) and the offensive fall off take him a rung lower. This analysis will only pertain to the playoffs as that’s really what matters when trying to win a title. I will admit Harden as a regular season player is better than Wade as a regular season player, but when the other team has time to prepare and game plan against them, Wade seems to shine brighter and Harden’s shine tends to dwindle. 

As far as scoring, we need to adjust not only for the era, but also for the opponent. Scoring 30 a game against a league average defense is different from scoring 30 vs the best defense in the league. When adjusting for era (adjusting to drtg of 110, about the average of the 2018 reg season) and adjusting for opponent difficulty (adjusted TS%) Hardens 3 year peak is about 28.4 pts/75 on +6 rTS%(‘15-’17) or if you prefer 30.4 on +3.1 (2018-’20) vs wade at 29.7 on +5.2 rTS% (09-11). These are relatively similar scoring numbers where Harden had in my opinion a much better offensive supporting cast(Paul, Howard, Parsons, Gordon, Capela, Ariza, Anderson) vs (Haslem, Chalmers, Marion, Beasley, Moon, Jermaine O’neal, Quentin Richardson). They had similar great individual games. See the below tables to compare their best playoff games and series. 

I would rate them very similar in passing, with the edge to Harden. He’s one of the best pocket passers of all time. Wade was probably better at the lay down pass when driving to the rim but a slight edge goes to Harden here. Again, looking at raw assist data without considering the team environment would not lead to accurate analysis. 

In terms of defense, this is where Wade creates the gap. He was in my estimation, an excellent defender for most of his prime, and although he only got all defensive team 3x, I view him as a comfortably better defender than Kobe (who beat him out in all D voting) and I would say he was excellent to all league in 6 seasons(05-12 sans 08). He’s also arguably the best shot blocking guard ever, having 7 seasons with a block % over 2 compared to (MJ, 3; Tony Allen, 2; Caruso, 1; Butler, Drexler, Kobe, Smart, Holiday, Dumars, 0) whereas Harden has ranged from all time awful to just plain bad at his best. His disinterest on that end of the floor along with general laziness and lack of movement is a true negative to his teams. His high steal numbers are mostly due to frequent gambling and hoping for a steal, and if he doesn’t get it the guy blows by him and he leaves the team out to dry. For some numbers, steals and blocks are hardly a great measure for defense but they are at least something. Over their playoff games (similar GP) Wade had 82 games with 3 stocks (steals + blocks), 26 with at least 5 and 1 with at least 8 vs Hardens respective 57, 16 and 0. 

Lastly, intangibles. Again, it’s hard to be exact with these but Wade seems to be a better teammate and seems to come through in tough situations. He won titles as a 1(2006) and as a second fiddle (12, 13). He was also by far the best player in the 2011 finals (better than Dirk or Lebron) where the Heat lost by a margin of 2.4 pts/game. 

Harden did play well as a 3rd option/6th man in his first few years but as a star he really has to be the number 1 guy. When CP3 joined and they had their best seasons he wanted him traded (not sure why). He also demanded to be traded to Brooklyn where he played well then got hurt and demanded a trade. In Philly he had two of his best playoff games ever (g1 and 4 vs BOS) then absolutely disappeared in G7 before demanding another trade after opting into his contract. The disinterest on defense, lack of off ball movement or effort, numerous trade demands and seeming to disappear in big games (15 g6 vs LAC he was on the bench for the comeback. 17 vs spurs he puts up 13 in G2, 10 in G6 with over 5 TO/g. Wade seems to be the opposite. Down 2-0 v DAL his 4 consecutive games are legendary. 2005 vs DET he was on fire before getting injured (30/g on +17% TS!) He also had great flashbacks in his post prime where he was clearly not the same due to his knees. 41 pt g6 vs Indy in 2012, 32 pt 6 stls in G4 of 2013 finals vs SAS and 38 vs TOR in 2016. It’s certainly possible that I’m biased and unfairly selecting individual moments, but I think there is enough here to see a trend where I would rather have Wade as a teammate or from the perspective of a coach/GM/owner. 

The biggest argument for Harden is longevity. Over his whole career, Harden has been much more durable while Wade’s is one of the shortest/most injury ridden of the modern great players. 

Overall I have Wade with 4 MVP level seasons(06, 09-11), 2 additional all nba level seasons (05, ‘12) and 3 borderline all star seasons(04, 13, ‘14) with ‘08 and his twilight years not giving much value due to age/injury. Compared to Harden with 5 all nba level seasons (17-20, ‘23) and 6 more all star level seasons (12-’16, ‘22) with 21 not counting due to injury/effectively not being available for the playoffs.  You may value the regular season more but I’d like to hear any arguments for Harden on an all time list.

heres a link to their best games and playoff series data: Data