Since the Brooklyn Nets were busy defeating the Golden State Warriors on Saturday, I was going back and forth in our NBA chat room with my editor, who at one point asked a question that I hadn’t thought about: Why didn’t James Did Harden receive the same type of vitriol for joining a super-team wave that Kevin Durant received when he went to the Warriors?
It is an interesting question. People went out of their way to pick bones with Harden while he was in Houston, where he was actually traveling the hardest road, trying to kill the super teams, a seemingly admirable quest. It would be logical that if he were such a brilliant target while fighting the NBA giants, he would be even brighter when joined they.
But it didn’t work that way.
In fact, Harden – who had a 29-point triple-double, 14 assists and 13 rebounds in Brooklyn’s victory over Sacramento on Monday – became one of the league’s most celebrated players last month. With reason. He’s been brilliant with Brooklyn. But Durant was brilliant with Golden State, and four years later he is still being dragged by his decision, his consecutive MVP finals treated by many as footnotes in an exhausted NBA story.
The difference, of course, is that Harden did not join a 73-win team that had already won a championship without him. When Durant joined the Warriors, except for injuries, there was nothing that could go wrong. He was an almost perfect player on an almost perfect team. We don’t like certainties in our sports.
The Nets are not a perfect team, not even the title favorite in the eyes of most people, and there was no certainty that Harden would fit. I would then postulate, perhaps, that our collective fascination with everything that could go wrong in Brooklyn – however unfounded these concerns were – suppressed the typical annoyance that we reserve for forklift trucks. How would all these temperamental guys share a locker room, let alone a dance? Was defense really a consideration?
After a month of experimentation, defense is still an important issue. Since Harden’s arrival, the Nets have had the league’s fourth worst defensive ranking on Monday. But the offense is magical. The “one ball” crowd was silenced by Harden, who made the transition so naturally to the role of facilitator that it makes you wonder how anyone could have questioned his ability, or willingness, to do that in the first place.
Sure, Harden was probably the most stubborn isolation scorer in NBA history with the Rockets, but if you think he wasn’t one of the best passers in the world at the time, you weren’t paying attention. We are sure to turn this change in Harden’s role into a romantic sacrifice, and it is true, Harden is willing to swallow some of his pride in scoring. But mostly, it’s exactly what makes the most sense in basketball.
Durant and Irving are best shooters, naturally suitable and with extensive experience in off-ball roles. Durant coexisted with Russell Westbrook at OKC, then Stephen Curry with Golden State. Irving played against LeBron James, then sold out in Boston because he was never able to master the delicate balance of scoring division.
Harden lifted that burden from Irving without completely compromising his own scoring aggression. He is still scoring more than 23 points per game. On Monday, he got 29 points from 18 shots without Durant. Irving made 22 shots for 40 points. This slight deference to Irving as a gunner is making Harden look like the generous hero in a way we could never look at him in Houston – even if Harden was operating only in the spirit of Daryl Morey, who built the Rockets in a way that required that Harden functioned as a solo artist.
“I feel like he’s doing a great job just managing the role of point guard,” Irving said of Harden on Saturday. “We established that maybe four days ago. I just looked at him and said, ‘You are the point guard and I will play as point guard.’ And it was as simple as that. “
It really seemed so simple, but in fact that clarity of paper that Irving is alluding to, at least from the outside, was achieved long before four (now six) days ago. Harden had 14 assists on his Brooklyn debut. In 15 games with Brooklyn, Harden had double-digit assists in all but two, and he has averaged 12 cents over that time.
Against the Warriors, Harden gave 16 assists while firing just 11 shots, hitting six of them, including five of his eight points out of 3 (one of the three fouls was a late-quarter lift). It was the third time that Harden finished a game with more assists than attempted shots with the Nets. Meanwhile, Irving and Durant made 36 shots. They added 43 points, against Harden’s 19, while Harden led the team with a + 28.
People love to talk about “chemistry” with newly formed teams. “It will take time” is the front line when a team fails to meet initial expectations. But there was no need for such excuses with the Nets. Irving and Durant were incredible throughout the season, and Harden increased his effectiveness rather than just not interrupting it.
It’s not just about sacrificing shots. Yes, Harden is attempting eight fewer shots per game than he did last season in Houston, and 10 fewer than he hit in 2018-19, but that didn’t cost him his aggression. If he exaggerated his generosity, it would hurt his pace and the general attack. but it is his selection of pitches and his overall decision that has proved most vital to Brooklyn’s offensive flow.
In short, Harden is not mastering possessions so extremely. He is not dribbling the ball while his teammates take root by looking at him. With Houston, Harden would go into his bag and stay there until he found something. In Brooklyn, he comes and goes, aware that overreaching in an environment full of creators comes with diminishing returns, reducing his ball possession time by almost one second per touch since last season in Houston (a direct product of his dribbling less ), which is much more than it seems.
* Numbers by NBA.com, coming in on Monday
|
2020-21 (with networks) |
5.3 |
4.7 |
|
2019-20 |
6.0 |
5.7 |
|
2018-19 |
6.3 |
5.9 |
|
18-2017 |
6.3 |
5.8 |
As for Harden’s improved streak selection, we are mainly talking about its 3-point indentation. So far with Brooklyn, Harden is giving four of those strokes per game, considerably below the 7.2 steps backwards 3s he averaged per 2018-20 game with the Rockets.
To be fair, Harden made this attempt with solid rates in Houston (38 percent from 2018-20), but in similar volumes, he couldn’t stand the efficiency test in Brooklyn with Durant and Irving’s attempts representing the opportunity cost – particularly , again, when you take into account all the time, Harden tends to spend dribbling before launching the kick.
|
2020-21 (with networks) |
3.5 |
3.7 |
|
2019-20 |
5.8 |
6.7 |
|
2018-19 |
6.7 |
8.1 |
All of this is quantifiable evidence of Harden’s commitment to change, which should come as no surprise. Consider the alternative: Harden enters Brooklyn with guns drawn while Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who were very hot before their arrival, sided? Facilitating would always be Harden’s smartest path, not to mention the easiest way, for immediate acceptance, both on the team and in the public eye.
Suddenly, Harden feels like a totally different player, a real fun player to watch while his most aesthetic talent – his pass – is now on display every night, a welcome departure from his often dry goods in Houston. And that, in my opinion, is the big reason why Harden avoided the negative reaction of the super team’s entry. Because he showed humility. A willingness to operate outside your own terms.
Perhaps that should never have been questioned in the first place, but it was nevertheless. People really believed that Harden was so used to playing in a way that he was unable to adjust at this point in his career. The fact that he made this adjustment so easily shows his incredible talent, which, without all the negative talk, the masses may be beginning to fully appreciate.