Things Really Aren't Looking Good For James Harden

James Harden might just be ruining his career…

#nba

Harden said he changed the game of basketball and that the only thing that he’s missing is a championship…well that’s a pretty big thing and a lot of that goes on Harden.

Don’t get me wrong. Harden is still a really good player. The 76ers are rolling. But clearly Harden isn’t the same as the perennial MVP candidate.

When we used to speak of James Harden, it was always as one of the best players in the league. I mean he’s a top 75 player in NBA history.

Comparing Harden to his peak, the last 2 seasons have been his worst offensively since 2014. His true shooting is down to 60.3%, the 6th lowest of his career. He’s running 6.6 pick and rolls per game, but with the worst efficiency of his career, only scoring on 0.76ppp, which is in the 28.0 percentile. Yeah, even with Embiid, 72% of the league is more efficient. But forget the stats for a second. We can visually see on the court that Harden has regressed.

And we can say age. Harden is 33 years old, but his contemporaries, Curry and KD are 34. And one just led a team to a championship while the other is leading his team averaging nearly 30 points a game on his best field goal percentage of his career.

And now he’s already planting seedlings of doubt by saying he’s not interested in a long term deal with the 76ers and open to going back to the Rockets? **Why?**

Because time and time again, we’ve seen Harden ruin his own career **and that’s only a part of the downward spiral we’re seeing from him.

We all know that throughout Harden’s career, he’s had his “roster” of superstars that he’s played with. Dwight Howard was the first when Howard joined the Rockets back in 2013. But that relationship deteriorated when Harden refused to give Dwight the ball in the post. Him and Dwight wouldn’t talk and would go so far as taking different exit routes to leave the Rockets stadium avoiding each other completely. Once Dwight was out, THE POINT GOD, CP3 was in. This was Harden’s closest chance to winning a chip since OKC. That Rockets team could’ve gone places, but like Dwight, Harden and CP3 had issues. Chris complained that Harden wouldn’t move without the ball, that he would “sometimes barely step over half court”, and wanted an offense that wasn’t so iso heavy. But once again, the Rockets sided with Harden and he didn’t really change anything. CP3 and Harden wouldn’t talk for as long as 2 months…DURING THE SEASON.

Durant was mad at Harden because he came to training camp out of shape. Combine that with Harden’s early season struggles and well, Harden didn’t look at all the same. He And what did Harden do? What he does best. The silent treatment where he isolated himself from his teammates.

**But when he doesn’t get his way, we begin to see some of the more wild stunts**

Harden has always switched up his stance. When he got to philly, he said in the press conference that philly was always his first choice?? Bruh you just said the Nets was your first coming outta Houston? Ya’ll can see the pattern. Everytime Harden’s team didn’t do well, he’d point fingers at everyone but himself. And if he can’t fix it anymore, he’d just drop his hands and leave.

Everytime in the postseason, Harden has come up short and all his numbers across the board drop significantly. Sure all his teams were him iso balling with high usage rate and kicking it out to a shooter. But what good is that when the iso baller can’t isoball in the playoffs? He made a new record of 13 turnovers in a playoff game. He couldn’t close the deal against a Durant less Warriors team in the final 2 games. Do I need to mention the choke job he had against the Spurs who didn’t even have Kawhi.

So for most of the NBA community, the regular season Harden was a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Not being able to get by anyone, attempting only 2 shots in the second half of a closeout game that they lost. He averaged 18 points a game in that series against Miami was not what Harden was brought on for.

Now, Harden and Embiid for the most part seem to be good with each other. It even appears that Harden has adjusted, giving the ball to Embiid in the post, actually shooting midranges, but it’s hard to tell if he’s realized he isn’t as effective.

**But to then turn around and seriously be considering the Rockets if he turns down a new deal with the 76ers makes no sense.** The Rockets are 9-23, full rebuild mode unless Harden tryna pull a LeBron 2014 to Cavs but even then Harden isn’t the same guy to carry an offense. After Harden and the Sixers lost to the Heat last playoffs, Embiid called out Harden in the press conference saying Philly James Harden is not the same as Rockets James Harden, that’s just now who he is anymore…