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It's one more thing here on Lockdown Heat.
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Are we really doing this Dwayne Wade?
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James Harden thing again?
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You are Lockdown Heat.
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You're daily Miami Heat Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every
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All right, welcome back to Lockdown Heat.
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I'm Wes Goldberg here with David and Mill.
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We've got one more thing to talk about today.
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It's the old Dwayne Wade versus James Harden argument, which seems to pop up at least once
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It feels like, David, somebody says something and then we've got to talk about this on the
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So we're going to react to the latest bout of Wade versus Harden here on one more thing
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here on Lockdown Heat.
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And Patrick Beverly is the latest one to bring this up on his podcast.
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I think I don't really know where it came from, but I did see the framing of it.
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And I actually will give Patrick Beverly credit for this.
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I think the framing of this argument now is interesting.
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Basically doing the what if what if James Harden does win a ring and does that materially
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change the Wade versus Harden debate because I do think for people who are on the right
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side of history and defend Dwayne Wade in the Dwayne Wade versus James Harden thing, you
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go back to the fact that he's got three rings and James Harden has zero.
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But if Harden wins one, it's obviously not three, but is that one ring plus some of
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the statistical evidence and certainly the longevity part of it, which James Harden
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obviously has the longevity part of the argument over Dwayne Wade.
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Because all of this combined actually give Harden the edge in the Dwayne versus Harden
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I'm going to give you my answer right now.
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I don't think it does, but we can get into that if we want, but where are you on this?
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No, I don't think it makes any difference.
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And I mean, I think the more as you watch basketball, the more, especially a player at Harden's
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stage in his career right now, winning a title, had he won one, maybe with the Houston
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Rockets when they were at their peak, maybe when he was the sixth man of the year for the
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Oklahoma City Thunder, they had one in 2012.
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I wouldn't have counted.
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That would have been similar to this.
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I think either in Houston or in Philly or in Brooklyn, those were the last days.
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No, I think yeah, I clearly would have had to have been when he was putting up the monster
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numbers that he did offensively.
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Like, look, James is a, a hell of a player, a historically great player who did a lot
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to bend and change the way offense was played and the NBA.
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And that, you can't be taken away from him.
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But ultimately, I just come down to seeing Dwayne be the complete player that he was and
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so versatile and everything they did, being able to impact games both offensively and defensively,
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and be able to carry teams as he did in the NBA finals with the highest stakes on the line.
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That doesn't come close to any of the gaudy offensive production that we saw from Harden
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as he was grifting the officiating in a way that we hadn't seen before.
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Like, he's a hell of a passer, a great shooter, far superior shooter to Dwayne to wait.
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And yet, for him to grift the way he did so egregiously, I think Tarnishes his overall
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And I think also just separates him in a way that he's like a great offensive player.
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And there's nothing wrong with it.
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We don't have to have self-imposed binders to review what it is that he is.
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He's a heck of an offensive player, and that's it.
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And that's where all his impact is.
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He's not a defensive player.
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He's never come through in big moments during the playoffs.
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And I think that's another thing that has to be held against him.
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And as such, you can respect him, admire him, appreciate him, whatever it is.
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I will not take anything away from Rocket's fans that want to hold up him as a great
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score, a great offensive player, et cetera.
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But to compare him, it's ridiculous.
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I think, again, you look at the player that Dwayne Wade was, and you've gone record
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saying this, he's more along the lines of a Michael Jordan and a Kobe Bryant in terms
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of the top shooting guards of all time than a guy like Harden who is so far beneath him
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because of his one-way nature and his impact being as limited as he was to just what he
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was able to do on the offensive end.
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And somewhat, I won't use the word unethically, but let's say it was a really ugly style
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of basketball for a very long time that I really did not like watching as he kind of
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flopped his way to an extra 10 to 11 points per night.
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I hear everything you're saying.
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I would disagree with one piece of this.
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So you made the point about the grifting and I hear you on that.
7:15
That to me has almost nothing to do with why Harden falls short of Dwayne Wade, although
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I hear you on the unethical part of it and why aesthetically it's not very fun.
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But you also, we've been doing the show for a long time, David.
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You know, I'm almost, like, I kind of like James Harden, I'm, like, I'm a kind of
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I, not so much as that I would defend him in this thing.
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But I was arguing that the heat should trade for James Harden years ago, right?
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Uh, I've very, I've, I'm on record of being like, James Harden might be the best offensive
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player in the NBA a few years ago.
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When he was playing for the Houston Rockets at his very peak, I, yeah, there's version,
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like there's, I've always sort of wanted it to work for James Harden.
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I really do because I'm such a believer in his skill set.
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I think he's a genius level passer.
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I think he's a much better three point shooter than he gets credit for based because his,
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his shot selection is so difficult.
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I've, I've seen this guy shoot threes in, in pregame and I'm like, there's outside of
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I don't know that there is a better three point shooter in the league at that time.
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So I say all that to say this, what are we doing this for?
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Like this isn't, this league, I know that we look at the box scores every single night.
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We, we, we celebrate the big scoring lines and the big numbers and we give awards for
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that kind of stuff and all this stuff.
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But at the end of the day, we do this to win championships.
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And as good as Harden was at his very peak, he was never good enough to get over the
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And yes, he ran into a Warriors team that Dwayne Wade never had to face.
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Dwayne Wade never faced an opponent as good as that Warriors team.
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But also the Rockets almost beat that Warriors team and the reason they didn't is because
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James Harden forgot how to shoot threes in the most important game of his life.
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And if you, so I don't even want to play like the opponent part of this because time after
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time, James Harden falls short in game sevens and in games that matter over and over and
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And the one time, like, or not the one time, but I would say like, well, yeah, the one
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time during Dwayne Wade's peak before the knee injuries and all that stuff really set
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in in the 2014 finals.
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The 2011 finals, they lost that game not because of that series, not because of Dwayne
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Dwayne Wade played great in that series.
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You know, they didn't lose that series because of Dwayne.
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Dwayne, time after time and after time, always showed up in the big moments.
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And if you want to come at me with stats and all that stuff, okay, fine.
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But I say this again, what do we do this for?
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We do it to win championships.
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And I've watched these games.
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I've watched both of their, their entire careers.
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I watched all of Dwayne's career and I watched all of James Harden's career.
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Dwayne is just better.
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He's a better player, two way better player defensively swing plays in a way that Harden can't
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even imagine as a leader, as a guy who was a glue guy, one of the most unselfish role
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And you can do all this, but also between 2006 and 2010, I thought he was the best two guard
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in the league over Kobe.
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And he had a real argument to be the best player in the league, one of the few players
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to really push LeBron at LeBron's peak as this guy actually might be better, certainly
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And there wasn't, that list is very short.
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And so I, I've watched, if you take Harden in this argument, okay, but I also kind of know
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how old you are, not to do that thing, which I hate.
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But I just think that me, I don't even blame you, like just go back and really watch Dwayne
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Because if the lasting memory of you is Dwayne Wade in like the 2014 finals, and you
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don't really remember him in the 2006 files, I understand why you would take Harden
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In fact, it's the only place to take you, if you don't remember prime Dwayne Wade, you
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I don't see why you would take them.
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But if you watch that guy in the 2006 finals, that's just something Harden never did.
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And it's why I've said this again, having this debate is a detriment.
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It's an insult to Dwayne Wade.
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Adversed Harden is an insult to Dwayne Wade's career.
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Because he's closer to Kobe Bryant on the all-time list than he is to James Harden.
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That's the kind of debate that we should be having.
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The discussion we should be having about Dwayne Wade, there is a clear top three shooting
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guards in NBA history.
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It's Michael Jordan, it's Kobe Bryant, and it's Dwayne Wade.
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And then it's everybody else.
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And that's why I don't think Harden deserves to be in the same conversation as Dwayne
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Because he's part of everybody else.
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I thought Drexel was pretty good, too.
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He could be in that conversation with Harden.
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Hi, that's a great player, right?
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And it's a fun conversation, et cetera, but ultimately, it's so hard.
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I see, I mean, the BAM out of bio, 83 point game, really kind of underscored just how people
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view certain players.
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And I think there's certainly a younger age bracket that will always hold Kobe for
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some reason in such high regard, and it was just never the case for me.
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He was not my generation's player by any stretch.
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He was a poor man's Michael Jordan in a lot of ways.
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And that's a pretty good company to keep, because Michael Jordan was an amazing player.
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But to hear people put Kobe as, I've seen this conversation a lot as the number one player
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of all time, what are we doing here?
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That's ridiculous, to be like, I watched the entirety of Kobe's career, and there's no
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way he was the best player to be a history, not at all.
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And I just feel like this conversation between Dwayne and Harden, et cetera, I don't know
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why there's this need to carry the torch or kind of constantly remind people about
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like Harden's greatness.
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Like, we're aware of it.
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He's a top 75 player.
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He's got the ultimate honor, and he's going to be a hall of famous, going to be enshrined
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He'll never win a ring.
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Well, no, but even if he does to your point earlier, it won't be as the main guy.
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And that's why I think the Patrick Beverly thing is interesting.
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I think it's an interesting framing for the to kind of reignite this debate.
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But it wouldn't be Gary Peyton winning one.
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That's not fair to Harden, because Harden, you get so much credit for the longevity.
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He's legitimately still in all star level player, but it wouldn't be the same as any of
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the Dwayne Wade rings, and I hate doing that, but some rings matter more than others.
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They do for certain players, right?
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And so if he won in 2016, when the Rockets were at their peak, and he had put up ridiculous
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monster numbers in the Western Conference Finals, and then again, NBA Finals, and he didn't
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Which is what it would have taken.
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Then I'll be like, you know, what?
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Maybe it's a lot closer.
14:13
And even then I still don't think I don't think it still would make that difference, just
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because again, the one-way nature of his career really just changes the way I see
14:27
Look, Pete Marevich is probably a guy who a lot of fans don't even know, but he was probably
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a better offensive player than James Harden was, and nobody talks about him, you know?
14:40
Yeah, he was a one-way player only, and that's up in the game.
14:46
Pistol over the beard every time.
14:47
Flash over the beard.
14:48
I mean, just settle it right there, I guess.
14:53
Yeah, I don't want to hear it anymore, but I'm sure we'll have this conversation a few
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months from now again, because somebody will also bring it up.
15:01
I underscore it every time it is an insult to Dwayne Wade that we keep having this.
15:06
Like I would rather have the...
15:08
I actually do think that there's a conversation of Dwayne vs. Kobe.
15:11
I think that's more of a conversation.
15:13
I know we're not allowed to say that anymore, but that to me is a more credible argument than
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Dwayne vs. James Harden.
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I'm trying to think of like the comparison, right?
15:25
It would be like...
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Like LeBron to Paul George.
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I'm like, what are we doing?
15:30
Like, Paul George is an independently great player.
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We could celebrate Paul George for an awesome career.
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But what are we doing?
15:37
Like, it's not a comparison.
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Yeah, Paul George was a good player who was also much more versatile than Harding was,
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but he was also a far lesser version of everything that LeBron was capable of doing.
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Harding is a lesser version of everything Dwayne weighed did.
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We're done with the story, man.
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Until a few months...
16:01
And we'll do it again a few months from now.
16:02
But that'll do it for us here of Lockdown Eat.
16:03
Thanks for tuning in.
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