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“#Rocket4Life” was a assure that famous person guard James Harden made to the Houston Rockets’ fan base in a September 2017 tweet. Nevertheless, as demonstrated many times earlier than, just a few years is typically all it takes for the NBA’s greatest to now not really feel at residence with the franchises to which they as soon as dedicated their future — as was the case for Harden, who entered the 2020-21 NBA season decided to depart a Houston group he felt was now not deserving of his All-NBA caliber providers.
With $132.9 million and three years nonetheless remaining on his contract, Harden’s solely means out was to persuade the Rockets to do the unthinkable and commerce the previous MVP, who remains to be within the prime of his profession. From skipping training camp to journey to Las Vegas to violating league COVID-19 protocols at a strip membership and openly disrespecting teammates and administration in entrance of the media, Harden made it abundantly clear his answer to power a commerce was to grow to be an unbearable pest for Houston’s higher-ups.
On Jan. 13, a four-team trade granted Harden’s want and despatched him East to hitch the newly revitalized Brooklyn Nets juggernaut.
The Harden commerce spells a bitter finish to a posh period in Rockets historical past, one that’s onerous to neatly characterize. Do Harden’s particular person achievements and work to rework the group right into a constant title contender make his eight years in Houston a hit? Or is the Harden period doomed to be remembered by the group’s incapability to realize championship glory?
Though Rockets followers have each proper to be bitter towards Harden’s forceful departure, what Harden was in a position to accomplish in Houston was nothing in need of exceptional and needs to be remembered as such.
Promise I received’t. #Rocket4Life
— James Harden (@JHarden13) September 2, 2017
For almost a complete decade, Houston bore witness to the craftsmanship of one of the deadly scorers in NBA historical past. No scoring document was secure with Harden on the ground, and three consecutive seasons of over 30 factors per recreation prompted a slew of scoring heights that solely the legendary likes of Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan summited earlier than.
If the leisure issue alone wasn’t sufficient, Harden’s potential to unlock defenses with ease sparked a revolutionary offensive system that lent itself into profitable, a system during which 3-pointers reigned supreme. The Rockets graduated from an occasional playoff participant within the early 2000s to a perennial championship contender that made the playoffs in every of Harden’s eight seasons. Harden is the principle cause why Houston reached the Western Convention semifinals in 5 of the final six seasons.
But regardless of the overwhelming proof that Harden promoted profitable basketball in Houston, the absence of an NBA title to his identify has been commonly used to recommend {that a} mixture of character flaws and his extremely ball-dominant play model make him a participant round whom it’s unattainable to construct a championship group.
The issue with solely evaluating particular person impression on championship rings is that the context of playoff success modifications dramatically based mostly on the energy of the person’s group and their opposition. A lot of Harden’s perceived legacy is tainted by the Rockets’ greatest title prices being stopped of their tracks by the Golden State Warriors, arguably the greatest team of all time.
Harden’s Rockets have been the closest any group obtained to dethroning any of the Warriors’ groups with a wholesome Kevin Durant, having solely been stopped by a nine-point differential in Game 7 of the 2018 Western Convention finals. Even a LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers group was comfortably swept within the NBA Finals per week later.
Anticipating Harden, or every other participant in NBA historical past, to individually bridge the expertise hole between his Rockets and the prime Warriors was and is preposterous, and is why his lack of an NBA title shouldn’t be used to discredit his greatness.
Harden ought to go down in Rockets historical past as one in every of their all-time greats who stood toe-to-toe with an infallible Golden State group and revolutionized the extent to which one participant can run a profitable offense. He can be sorely missed in Houston.
Former Houston Rockets guard James Harden goes up for a shot in opposition to a Washington Wizards defender in 2016. Harden is now a Brooklyn Web. (Wikimedia Commons/Keith Allison)
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