You’ve heard this before: James Harden is too selfish. James Harden flops too much. James Harden isn’t playing basketball how it’s supposed to be played.
It’s ridiculous. Harden — he’s now up to 36.3 ppg, 6.5 rpg and 7.5 apg and do you realize that if the season ended today that points per game total would be the seventh-most in a single year?! — is nearly single-handedly doing something unreal and it’s actually helping his team win basketball games.
There’s a new voice joining that chorus of critics: Los Angeles Clippers commentator Don MacLean, who was watching Harden step to the free-throw line in the Rockets’ 135-103 win over the Clips and delivered his take:
“I just feel like this style, what Harden does, is manipulating the game somehow. Almost like cheating it somehow. And I don’t really have a thought beyond that other than I’m watching something that isn’t basketball. To me, basketball is player movement, ball movement, designed plays. Not just a guy walking it up and isolating every time. That’s why I brought up that point earlier, that who else could do this? It’s not like that within the system, he’s getting all these numbers. The system is built for him.”
How is that manipulating or “almost cheating?” Harden and the Rockets — under Mike D’Antoni, who went from the Seven Seconds or Less offense in Phoenix to We’re Going to Iso You to Death offense — have figured out what’s best for their team and taken it to dizzying heights.
Just watch Harden’s highlights from Wednesday night and remind yourself that McLean is right about one thing: “Who else could do this?” Using a pick, he can take advantage of a mismatch and drive, take a three, collapse a defense and put up a lob for an easy Clint Capela alley-oop, or dish to one of the many shooters sitting at the three-point line. He is a one-man machine, and although he’s the focal point through which everything runs, he’s still creating opportunities for his entire team (see: his assists totals) that was built to work within this system.
What’s funny to me about MacLean’s comments is that Harden thrives in an era after we spent decades watching slow, one-on-one isolation basketball before the NBA eliminated some rules that stifled more of a team-oriented game. There was a guy named Michael Jordan who made a living on this:
This argument about Harden is tired and worn out. He’s a once-in-a-generation talent who is doing unheard of things, and although that might mean he’s gassed by the postseason, it’s a winning formula.
There’s a GIF that sums this up perfectly:
