Nets’ James Harden has changed his game on the fly, and he’s avoided the superteam backlash in the process

Because the Brooklyn Nets had been busy walloping the Golden State Warriors on Saturday, I used to be going forwards and backwards in our NBA chat room with my editor, who at one level posed a query I hadn’t given a lot thought to: Why hasn’t James Harden acquired the identical sort of vitriol for hopping on a superteam bandwagon that Kevin Durant did when he went to the Warriors? 

It is an fascinating query. Folks went out of their strategy to decide bones with Harden whereas he was in Houston, the place he was really touring the tougher highway, making an attempt to slay the superteams, a seemingly admirable quest. It could stand to purpose if he was that vibrant a goal whereas battling the NBA behemoths, he can be a good brighter one when he joined them. 

However it hasn’t labored out that method. 

In actual fact, Harden has grow to be one of many extra celebrated gamers within the league during the last month. Rightly so. He is been good in Brooklyn. However Durant was good with Golden State, and 4 years later he is nonetheless getting dragged for his resolution, his back-to-back Finals MVPs handled, by many, as footnotes in a sellout NBA story. 

The distinction, after all, is Harden did not be part of a 73-win workforce that had already gained a championship with out him. When Durant joined the Warriors, barring harm, there was nothing that might go improper. He was a close to good participant on a close to good workforce. We do not like certainty in our sports activities. 

The Nets will not be an ideal workforce, not even the title favourite in most individuals’s eyes, and it was no certainty Harden would match. I’d then posit, maybe, that our collective fascination with all that might go improper suppressed the everyday annoyance we reserve for deck-stackers. How would all these moody dudes share one locker room, not to mention one ball? Was protection even a consideration? 

One month into the experiment, the protection remains to be a significant query. Since Harden’s arrival, the Nets have the fourth-worst defensive score within the league coming into Monday. However the offense is magical. The “just one ball” crowd has been silenced by Harden, who has transitioned so naturally right into a facilitator’s position that it makes you marvel how anybody might’ve ever questioned his functionality, or willingness, to take action within the first place. 

Certain, Harden was in all probability probably the most single-minded isolation scorer in NBA historical past with the Rockets, however when you suppose he wasn’t additionally top-of-the-line passers on the earth throughout that point, you were not paying consideration. We’re positive to show this Harden position shift into certainly one of romantic sacrifice, and whereas Harden has been prepared to swallow a few of his scoring satisfaction, it is largely simply what makes probably the most basketball sense. 

Durant and Irving are higher shooters, naturally suited to, and vastly skilled with, off-ball roles. Durant existed alongside Russell Westbrook in OKC, then Stephen Curry with Golden State. Irving performed off LeBron James, then burned out in Boston as a result of he might by no means fairly grasp the fragile scoring-sharing steadiness. 

Harden has taken that burden off Irving, and it is making him appear to be the beneficiant hero in a method we might by no means take a look at him in Houston — even when Harden was solely working in accordance with the ethos of Daryl Morey, who constructed the Rockets in a method that demanded Harden perform as a solo artist. 

“I really feel he is been doing an incredible job of simply managing the purpose guard position,” Irving mentioned of Harden after Saturday’s win over the Warriors. “We established that perhaps 4 days in the past. I simply checked out him and mentioned, ‘You are the purpose guard, and I will play capturing guard.’ And that was so simple as that.”

It actually has felt that easy, however in fact this position readability to which Irving is alluding, no less than from the surface, was achieved so much sooner than 4 days in the past. Harden had 14 assists in his Brooklyn debut. In 14 video games with Brooklyn, Harden’s had double-digit assists in all however two, and he is averaging 11.6 dimes over that point. 

In opposition to the Warriors, Harden dished 16 assists whereas taking simply 11 photographs, hitting six of them, together with 5 of his eight 3-pointers (one of many three misses was an end-of-quarter heave). It is the third time Harden has completed a recreation with extra assists than photographs tried with the Nets. In the meantime, Irving and Durant bought up 36 photographs. They mixed for 43 factors to Harden’s 19, whereas Harden led the workforce with a plus-28. 

Folks love to speak about “chemistry” with newly fashioned groups. “It is going to take time,” is the go-to line when a workforce fails to fulfill early expectations. However there’s been no want for such excuses with the Nets. Irving and Durant have been superior all season, and Harden has enhanced their effectiveness reasonably than merely not interrupting it. 

It is not nearly sacrificing photographs, both. Sure, Harden is making an attempt eight fewer photographs per recreation than he did final season in Houston, and 10 fewer than he took in 2018-19, nevertheless it’s his shot choice, and his total decisiveness that is confirmed most significant to Brooklyn’s offensive circulate. 

Briefly, Harden is not dominating possessions as extraordinarily. He isn’t dribbling the air out of the ball as his teammates develop roots watching him. With Houston, Harden would get into his bag and keep in there till he discovered one thing. In Brooklyn, he is out and in, cognizant that over-creating in an atmosphere rife with creators comes with diminishing returns, trimming his time of possession by almost one second per contact from final season in Houston (a direct product of him dribbling much less), which is much more than it feels like. 

As to Harden’s improved shot choice, we’re talking primarily about his signature step-back 3-pointer. To date with Brooklyn, Harden is taking 4 of these photographs per recreation, down significantly from the 7.2 step-back 3s he averaged per recreation from 2018-20 with the Rockets.

To be truthful, Harden made that shot at strong charges in Houston (38 % from 2018-20), however at related volumes, it would not stand the effectivity check in Brooklyn with Durant and Irving photographs representing the chance value — notably, once more, whenever you think about on a regular basis Harden tends to spend dribbling earlier than launching that shot. 

All of that is the quantifiable proof of Harden’s dedication to vary, which should not be a shock. Take into account the choice: Harden comes into Brooklyn weapons blazing whereas Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who had been scorching sizzling previous to his arrival, hang around on the aspect? Facilitating was all the time going to be Harden’s smartest path, to not point out the best path, to quick acceptance, each on the workforce and within the public eye. 

Abruptly, Harden appears like a completely totally different participant, an precise enjoyable participant to observe as his most aesthetic expertise — his passing — is now on nightly show, a welcome departure from his usually paint-drying possessions in Houston. And that, for my part, is the large purpose why Harden has prevented the superteam-joining backlash. As a result of he is proven humility. A willingness to function exterior his personal phrases. 

Maybe that by no means ought to’ve been questioned within the first place, nevertheless it was nonetheless. Folks actually believed that Harden had gotten so used to taking part in a technique that he was incapable of adjusting at this level in his profession. The truth that he had made that adjustment so effortlessly speaks to his unbelievable expertise, which, absent all of the unfavourable discuss, the plenty are maybe beginning to absolutely recognize.