Steph is not the guy to juxtapose to Giannis in his times of falling short. At all lol. At best he catches heat that dissipates quicker than any of player of his level. Mainly for the "one team" shyt and being the Finals foil to Bron. He gets too much context allowed with him that others don't get outside of KD.
Harden, you specifically said the last 3 or so years. No, Harden in that time period has not gotten the heat you think Giannis isn't/should be getting in this time frame because 1) He hasn't been serving as the #1 player in his Nets/Sixers era, and 2) His near-decade as the #1 has proven him so reliable in choking and shrinking, heads have given up on the What If that is "The Year Harden Delivers", and thus aren't passionate enough to toast him for being Playoff Harden anymore, least of all with KD/Embiid in the Captain's seat ahead of him.
I'm not debating how bad Giannis's injury was. I'm simply saying placing this series on him when he wasn't there for 60% of it to attempt to make the series what he needed it to be, is wrong. And calling for there to be a consensus opinion that it's all on him despite not playing 60% of it, is wrong.
The critiques you or anybody have for him, isn't my issue, because that's deserved. My issue is saying he's getting soft treatment when every thread title, opening post, and 50-80% of responses in said threads, focuses on Giannis.
Not Bud. Not Khris. Not Jrue. Not Lopez. The match that strikes the dry leaves, is the name Giannis. He's getting as much heat for this series, as he's supposed to get.
Talking about other years and his overall legacy/standing is an another and larger discussion.
That's fair enough, saying his overall standing is a different, larger discussion...
I also think Bud is getting the appropriate blame for this series loss. The others, look we've known Middleton is a declining player all year, and he still had a great game. But he's not the Middleton of '21 backwards, so how much blame should we assign him?
Lopez played well throughout the series but it's 15 years watching him in this league, do we really expect Lopez to be the difference maker in wins and losses
that's the contrast for me, we expect Giannis to be the difference maker in wins and losses and he just wasn't. Lopez is a really good player whose had a late career resurgence and a really good series. He's not the guy we expect to close for us...
Now Jrue, I have mixed reviews on. He stepped up all year in Middleton's absence to float the Bucks, even when Giannis was out, so I think expectations were raised for him that he'd taken his game to another level. So for those with that line of thinking, Jrue was a letdown...
I didn't have a higher expectation bar for Jrue. He's had regular seasons where he's balled out his entire career, absent the star player (when AD would miss time in Nola), or even back to Philly. We as a culture have been calling him "underrated" for years, have been lauding his defense for years, none of the superlatives attached to his name this year are new...
For some reason they caught on more this year and the bar of expectation was raised for him...
He got absolutely torched as Butler's primary defender, and devolved into a disaster offensively. It was a bad series. He can get his share if blame for it. Here's the thing, though, when Milwaukee won it all two years ago, he was either their third or fourth best player, depending on how you weigh him and Lopez...
This is 14 years of watching Jrue's career.
At best, if you have championship aspirations or are a contender, he can be your #3.
At best. We know who he is. In this series he was instantly thrust inti a larger role given Giannis' G1 injury, and Middleton being the Middleton he's been all year, a player in decline...
So we were asking for Jrue to be the best or second best player this series, again his regular season probably raised expectations, but those shoes are simply too big for him---->and that was proven in the end. So I'd say we all should have saw it coming. Jrue can be the Jrue he's earned praise for over the years, when he's playing on bad or mid teams and putting up numbers with no pressure, or on a contender where the largest burdens are carried by guys who can handle the weight...
Jrue can't be the Jrue he's gotten praise for years as, if we're asking him to be our best offensive player and be serviceable vs the other team's best perimeter threat simultaneously. That's not his role, he's never had to be that on a contender, and clearly he doesn't need to have that responsibility, he can't do it. You can't help that Giannis got hurt------>but Giannis coming back strong the last two games is supposed to alleviate the pressure on everyone because we DO expect Giannis to show up big for us...
And then Bud leaving this man on his own to get shytted on game after game by Butler when he should've doubled and forced the other Heat to beat him is the issue too, so part of the Jrue equation still goes back to Giannis and Bud...
To be fair too, Butler was torching everyone, Giannis got some burn on him, he just wouldn't check him late which is another Giannis/Bud issue, but when he did guard Butler he got ate up. Middleton abd Lopez got run on Butler on switches and got destroyed. Bud watching this guy kill his entire team and not changing the approach is a problem...
And ultimately this vaunted Bucks defense that even I lauded this year turned out to be extremely overrated. Again this was an opponent missing its third best player and its 6th man, so yes while you had the Giannis injury, Giannis came back and came back strong---->Herro and Oladipo didn't, on a squad that was already worse than yours! This loss can be given to the collective overrated defense 10%, Jrue 5%, and Giannis/Bud splitting the remainder at 42.5% apiece, because again, Giannis came back in the series vs a weaker opponent, and came back hard...
He just did his habitual Giannis shyt in the clutch moments and he deserves every bit of criticism for that, because it's habitual, and he didn't come back averaging 15 points or something, he came back looking like Dominant, MVP-level Giannis......then turned back into Choking Giannis when the games got tight...
So does Giannis deserve all the blame? No...
