Houston Rockets: Why James Harden is the best player in the NBA

With Kevin Durant injury and LeBron James aging, Houston Rockets guard James Harden has now emerged as the best basketball player in the NBA

The last we saw of LeBron James in the playoffs was perhaps the most dominant run of basketball of his career. He averaged 34/9/9, hit two buzzer-beating game-winners, and gave us the nickname “LeBronto” in route to dragging the likes of Jeff Green and Tristan Thompson to the NBA Finals.

A lot has changed in the past 12 months, however. One of the major storylines from the 2019 postseason was who would emerge as the undisputed best player in the world. Kevin Durant looked poised to seize that mantle before hobbling off the floor of Oracle Arena in Game 5 against the Houston Rockets.

The playoffs became somewhat tainted. Kawhi Leonard capped off a remarkable run with an NBA Finals MVP, but nobody is rushing to the altar to anoint him as the heir to LeBron for supremacy over the rest of the league.

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James Harden is the best basketball player in the world. LeBron has held that title for around a decade, give or take a few magical Stephen Curry stretches, but his reign is likely over. In the era of stat-padding, load managing, forcing trades, and narratives over winning, the Bearded One has been one of the very few constants in this league.

A smart man once quipped that the only opposing team he watches is the Rockets because Harden “is ridiculous.” Imagine a cobra about to strike its prey, patiently waiting for one false movement or lapse in concentration.

This is what many defenders see when staring into a whirling series of James Harden jab-steps and crossovers. He has mastered using delayed acceleration to leave his opponents in the dust, and once he gets going downhill he can decelerate faster than anyone. It’s like the basketball version of the Tower of Terror Disney ride. Combine that with his ball-handling wizardry and it’s no wonder James Harden has flummoxed the rest of the league. Defenders resort to desperation reaches or trying to be overly physical. Good thing he is also one of the pioneers in the art of exaggerating contact, landing on the feet of defenders, the rip-through move, and any other forms of tomfoolery that lull officials into blowing their whistles.

It also helps that he weighs around 220 pounds and has a 6-foot-11 wingspan. And this is all without even mentioning his most lethal weapon, a shot which is revolutionizing the sport right before our very eyes.

The only move that is comparable to a James Harden step-back 3 is Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s skyhook. We have never seen anything like it in terms of pure volume and efficiency. He can go to it regardless of time, score, location, or who is guarding him. The shot is always his ace in the hole. He usually prefers stepping back to his right side, although he has occasionally shown the ability to make it go left.

In 2017, which was the first season of the Mike D’Antoni era in Houston, Harden first began to push the boundaries of basketball by making 179 unassisted 3-pointers. He then proceeded to hit 196 the following year, and a mind-boggling 317 step-backs this past season. It has the entire league searching for answers. Even the elite defensive teams like the Bucks and the Jazz were left with using this outrageous strategy of guarding him.

Many other stars would have faltered amidst a barrage of injuries like the Rockets had in the first half of the season. Harden is not like other stars, however. He put the team on his back to help the team from a rocky start.

The past two seasons he has averaged a preposterous 1.15 points per possession on isolations, with more than double the frequency of any other player. James Harden is the best one-on-one player in the association, and his patented step-back 3-pointer is the main reason why.

This type of scoring profile is impressive, no doubt, but there are plenty of great scorers in this league. It’s the NBA, after all. If Harden was a one-trick pony then he would just be your typical all-NBA guard. His game truly becomes transcendent once you add in the fact that he is an incredible playmaker for others. He has every pass available to him in the toolbox. Trap/blitz him and he is one of the best ever at throwing the pocket bounce-pass. Hard hedge and he will throw wrap-around or behind-the-back dimes to the pop man. Send a third defender to tag the roll man and he will fire a laser to the opposite corner.

Let him drive and he will either kick to a shooter or throw the lob to the big (it also helps that this pass looks exactly like his newly added floater). His only bugaboo is throwing passes from the right side of the floor towards the left side. Harden’s playmaking statistics are off the charts. The first time he was utilized as the sole point guard (coincidentally also the first year of D’Antoni in Houston) he led the league in assists at 11.2 per game.

Rajon Rondo and former teammate/adversary Chris Paul are the only players to average more than that in a season. Passing the rock comes easy to James Harden, just like pretty much everything on the offensive side of the floor.

James Harden has a counter for anything the defense throws at him. He is the queen on the chessboard, offensively speaking. He has opposing coaches and players at a loss, and his production demonstrates this. Since 2015, Harden is averaging 30.4 points per game on a 61 percent True Shooting. The only other players to ever match that in a single season are Adrian Dantley, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, and Kevin Durant.

He has been a mainstay in the assist leaderboards to boot. On a broader level, the Rockets have been the second-best offensive team (112.3 offensive rating) over that time period, behind only those guys in the Bay Area. Harden finished in the top two in MVP voting four of those five seasons. The list of players to do that is reserved strictly for first-ballot hall of famers.

Simply put, James Harden has put together one of the greatest five-year runs of offensive basketball in NBA history. The numbers are absolutely mind-boggling, so how come he is not already the consensus best player in the world?

There are two elephants in the room that have not been discussed. The first being defense and the second being playoff performance. YouTube montages aside, Harden is not really all that bad on defense. In the Rockets switching scheme (admittedly part of the reason they switch so frequently is because Harden is allergic to fighting through screens), he is nearly impossible for big men to take advantage of in mismatches. And he is a great help defender and box-out guy on the weak side. Russell Westbrook is the only active guard with a higher defensive rebound rate.

The one area where Harden is really lacking is moving his feet laterally on the perimeter. Overall, James Harden is a negative on the defensive end to be sure, but this impact has been dramatically overstated. I personally believe that he is better on defense than some of his contemporaries like Westbrook, Damian Lillard, and Kyrie Irving.

The Golden State Warriors have nearly the perfect collection of players to guard James Harden. Long, physical wings with incredible intelligence littered throughout the roster. They can all help and recover on a string. And not to mention they have a genius at navigating the two-on ones at the rim.

The Beard has still bedeviled this imposing armada on many occasions. The high-profile losses to the Warriors have clouded the fact that he has actually played very well in these playoff series. In the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals, he averaged close to 35 points per game on a respectable 44/35/82 shooting line with 5.5 assists per game. Harden even played extremely well in their two defeats to finish the series. He was the best player in the series (better than KD).

Maybe they beat Golden State if he does not inexplicably miss five free throws in Game 6. He had his share of struggles in the 2018 Western Conference Finals but still played well enough for them to win with a full roster. The meltdowns still loom large, namely the end of Game 5 and Game 6 vs. San Antonio in 2017, and Game 5 against Golden State in 2015. A championship would mostly erase these from the collective consciousness. Just ask Dirk Nowitzki.

Alas, the regular-season brilliance of James Harden has created impossible standards for which any player would find daunting to match.

As LeBron James nears his 35th birthday, his days of turning into Thanos in the playoffs are likely behind him. Since his last year as a member of the Miami Heat, he has largely been in a self-labeled “chill mode” during the regular season. The history of returns from ruptured Achilles tendons is grim, and Kevin Durant’s impact on the Warriors was always overstated. I have always believed that Draymond Green was more valuable to their success. Kawhi Leonard’s defense has waned considerably since his San Antonio days, and he does not elevate his teammates like Harden…yet.

He also seems content with playing the long-game by waiting for May and June to go full-throttle. Giannis Antetokounmpo may be the heir apparent, but he has some glaring weaknesses that he needs to iron out of his game first. Anthony Davis is arguably the most talented, but it’s a guards league, and he has won a grand total of five playoff games. I have long vouched for Stephen Curry as the best player in the league, however, Harden separates himself with his durability and usage.

Perhaps we see him fully unleashed this season, but 2016 Curry is far in the rearview mirror. James Harden is still getting better. He adds something new to his game every offseason, could it be this astonishing ballet this year? Westbrook may rain on his parade a bit, but dialing back his usage might not necessarily be a bad thing. The last time he was in a lower-usage role, he produced one of the best shooting seasons of all time.

James Harden turns 30 years old today, and we should appreciate how incredible he is. He has broken the sport. He is the best player in the world, and I cannot wait to see what he has in store for us in his 30s.