or maybe the reason could be is that even before he ended up with the Rockets, Harden already looked capable of carrying a team and numbers-wise (as stated by the poster before me) he was just really a much better player than Green. Another viable reason could be is that the 27-yr old Green is about to enter his prime next year and so who he is now is likely already who he will be, while on the other hand, there was every reason to believe that last year's 22-yr old Harden would improve.
While i do think Green's absolute numbers would likely increase from last year due to increased minutes and slightly higher usage, his per-36's probably won't improve by much and his PER will likely remain at about the league average.
On another note (i don't know if this relates to you) i often see people citing that Green avg'd 20ppg in the playoffs. However, they seem to forget that he averaged 43mpg as well. i personally don't think Green will average 43mpg.
Harden had a huge jump in USG% when he went to Houston, from 21% his last season in OKC all the way up to 29%. That is a tremendous jump upward in utilization and, frankly, DOES reflect the team around him. He would not have seen such a jump in USG% if he had stayed on a team with Westbrook and Durant. So, for his ppg to jump from 16.8 up to 25.9 seems pretty much what one would expect.
As for Green playing a ton of minutes in this last playoffs, it's not like his efficiencies dropped in the playoffs: He was still shooting at an eFG% of 49.4% and his points per FGA was a fantastic 1.44 points per FGA. To give you perspective, Pierce, in his brilliant 2008 playoffs scored 1.38 points per FGA. Anything over 1.2 is good. Anything over 1.3 is great.
Green's playoff per-36 also jumped up, slightly, from 16.6 pp36 up to 17.0 pp36, but while his USG% was up also, it was still low compared to "#1 scorers", at 24.5%. So yes, he played a lot of minutes per game, but he wasn't getting the bulk of the offensive utilization. Pierce' USG% during those playoffs was 30.1%.
Again, for Green to be able to score numbers that are 'star like' to meet the lofty standards that some fans want, he'll need to be in a system that cranks his USG up above 26%. Whether that happens will depend on Stevens.
regarding Harden and Green, i'm not just talking about ppg when i say that Harden is a better player. When they were both in OKC and both had around the same USG% of around 20%, Harden was already registering PERs above league average of 16.4 and 21.1 while Green registered 12.9 and 13.9. That to me shows that even in his "sixth man role", Harden was already someone pretty special.
Regarding Green however, i will quote myself:
"While i do think Green's absolute numbers would likely increase from last year due to increased minutes and slightly higher usage, his per-36's probably won't improve by much and his PER will likely remain at about the league average. "
that means his numbers will likely "jump" from 16.6 points to slightly above 17 points per 36. All while maintaining a league average PER in the vicinity of 15.0. Of course these are estimates, but they're not unreasonable projections to make. These are the numbers of a solid player who can contribute to a team. Not a star like Harden (or Pierce).
For comparison's sake, Pierce has a career avg PER of about 20.6. I know it seems like the fashion these days for some of the posters to bash our former C's and say "last year they were already finished", but if you look at Pierce's numbers last year, he was still posting 20points per 36 and a PER of 19.1. I'd be ecstatic if 27-yr old Green would have similar production to a 35-yr old Pierce.
Lastly, regarding USG% spikes, i just don't see it for Green. We can agree to disagree here as this just stems from my hypothesis that Green doesn't have the mentality to burden a high USG% game in and game out, despite being on a bad team like this year's C's that features an injured Rondo. On some games, yes. But every game? I don't see it. I see the C's taking a team-ball approach to each game, and i actually think this plays more to Green's (and also Rondo's) playstyle and strengths rather than going with a superstar-based philosophy. Again, we might just have to agree to disagree here until the actual games are played.
