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James Harden’s previous two video games display how erratic his thirteenth season has been. On Saturday night time, Harden aimlessly wandered through a disappointing home loss against the Suns, producing the kind of triple double that reveals how ineffective a triple double will be: 12 factors, 13 rebounds and 14 assists to go together with seven ugly turnovers, six missed threes and solely two journeys to the charity stripe off a drawn foul.
Afterward, as he sat with yet one more efficiency that lacked all of the poise and self-assurance Harden has collected all through his first-ballot Corridor of Fame profession, the 32-year-old defined why he regarded like a automotive spinning its wheels. “I am attempting to determine it out,” Harden stated. “I am attempting to determine when to attain, when to be a playmaker, when to run the offense, when to perform a little little bit of every thing.”
Three days later we noticed somebody who discovered the cheat sheet he’d been on the lookout for. Harden blasted through the Knicks with the identical score-when-I-want confidence seen all through his reign as a perennial MVP candidate, ending with 34 factors, 10 rebounds and eight assists. He went 9-for-10 from the free throw line and 11-for-20 from the ground, drilling a number of stepback threes, rumbling downhill off excessive screens, rummaging via his bag to humiliate everybody who stood in his path. There was even a putback dunk!
“Being aggressive. That’s the one factor each night time is my aggressiveness. I’ve simply received to proceed that,” he stated after the win. “That’s the mindset for 4 quarters.”
These two video games stay on reverse ends of the spectrum, however their distinction has been on show for the final six weeks, the place classic bearded greatness duels in opposition to a dejected, solemn silhouette of what that greatness was once. The inconsistency isn’t exhausting to diagnose. A severely strained hamstring derailed Harden’s offseason and was nonetheless bothersome into November (although by no means dangerous sufficient to maintain him out of the lineup). In the meantime the NBA determined to reinterpret what’s and isn’t a private foul and the Nets suffered a sudden expertise drain: Kyrie Irving hasn’t played a minute, Joe Harris just had ankle surgery, and Harden’s main pick-and-roll associate is 36-year-old LaMarcus Aldridge as a result of Blake Griffin played himself out of the rotation and Nic Claxton has been out since October twenty sixth with a non-COVID sickness.
It’s additionally exhausting to disentangle the contextual components written above from what could also be age-related decline by somebody who’s performed quite a bit of NBA basketball. Harden’s physique shouldn’t be anticipated to carry out as reliably because it did three years in the past, however a tighter whistle, plus outside-shooting starved items, may need accelerated Father Time’s impact. Since he entered the league in 2010, the only player who’s logged more regular-season minutes than Harden is LeBron James. (For the playoffs, it’s simply LeBron and Kevin Durant.) And over the previous 10 years—aka since Harden was traded to the Rockets—solely Damian Lillard, one other celebrity on the unsuitable facet of 30 who’s struggling to dominate on a nightly foundation, tops Harden.
Not all his numbers have plummeted, however a number of are low sufficient to ask what could also be this season’s most pressing query: with regards to Harden’s fluctuating play, how a lot is non permanent and what’s everlasting?
In 2018 and ’19, Harden completed first in estimated plus-minus, a catch-all metric that calculates a participant’s influence whereas accounting for everybody else on the ground. In 2020 he was second. Final yr he was sixteenth, and right now he’s 17th. His drives, pick-and-roll effectivity and scoring are all all the way down to ranges that ought to fear a workforce that, sans Irving, wants Harden to create as he did three years in the past.
Harden is taking solely 14.4 photographs per recreation, over two fewer than a yr in the past and a whopping 10 under his profession excessive. (Tallying fewer than 20 factors in a recreation isn’t the only real mark of irreversible decline, nevertheless it’s a neat spherical quantity Harden as soon as crossed in his sleep. This season he’s failed to reach it 11 times in 21 tries. Final yr it was 13. The season earlier than? Seven. The 2 seasons mixed previous to that? Six.)
Because of the three-point line and a few stellar work in isolation—albeit at half the quantity of what it was simply two seasons in the past—Harden’s true taking pictures share is kind of superb (62.3% during the last 10 video games). And after a sluggish begin, he’s starting to attract fouls and get to the line like he used to. His free-throw rate is certainly one of this season’s 15 finest, and the share of his factors earned on the line jumped from 22.5 in Brooklyn’s first 10 games to 36.5 in 11 through 20—a mark that’s excessive even for him.
However he’s nonetheless not on the assault as typically as he must be. Within the 5 years heading into this season he averaged 17.8 drives per recreation. Right now he’s down to 14.3, whereas 46.7% of them finish with a cross. He’s pushed the ball extra over the previous 10 video games, however that cross share hasn’t dropped to the place it was when he just about lived on the rim in Houston.
Throughout the similar minute, Harden will concurrently concern and reassure these invested in his return to type. Take this sequence in opposition to the Cavaliers for example. As an alternative of going proper at Kevin Love, Harden slows down, waits for Ricky Rubio to get better, then goes out of his method to attract contact and miss the bunny.
On the following play, this time with Isaac Okoro on him, Harden flies off Aldridge’s display and Eurosteps proper by Love for the layup, completely unbothered by his unique man, his screener’s man or any assist defenders attempting to clog the paint.
The hesitation seen in that first play is partially why his subject aim share contained in the three-point line is the bottom it has been since he was a rookie. Solely 18.2% of his photographs are coming from inside three ft of the basket. Harden’s previous career low was 23.5%, and in 2020 it was 24.3%. (That is unlikely to stay so dramatic but in addition indicative of the expertise that’s round him: Harden’s taking pictures splits within the restricted space with Durant on and off the floor are wild—he’s taking pictures 70.7% with Durant and 38.5% with out.)
Harden’s turnover charge can also be a profession excessive, and in pick-and-rolls he’s coughing the ball up almost a 3rd of the time, in keeping with Synergy Sports activities. That’s up 13% from final season. Each turnover isn’t the identical, however a bunch are some variant of the one under, the place Harden anticipates a double workforce or cuts his drive quick as a result of his teammates can’t fairly create sufficient area for him to select up steam. Harden doesn’t need to problem JaVale McGee, and once you cease and observe the place Phoenix’s assist defenders are, it’s exhausting responsible him.
In getting again as to whether he’s in decline or just working his method out of a bodily impaired rut that’s compounded by a supporting solid that does not carry the identical quantity of gravity he usually enjoys, it’s attainable each elements are responsible. That’s to not say Harden gained’t ever recapture the energy and finesse that was obvious only a season in the past, when he spent prolonged stretches as Brooklyn’s most respected participant. However even when he does bounce again this season and reasserts himself as an All-NBA drive and bonafide top-10 participant, these first 21 video games will nonetheless exist as a glimpse for the Nets of what Harden will doubtless grow to be.
And much too typically, for a player who can sign one of the priciest contracts in NBA history this summer, it hasn’t been a reasonably sight.
Extra NBA Protection:
• NBA Power Rankings: Suns, Warriors Battle For No. 1
• How the Suns Are Getting It Done
• What’s Next For Nuggets After Michael Porter Jr. Injury?
• Inside the Strange John Wall Situation in Houston
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