Brick by Brick: James Harden (Part 3)
This article was co-written by Chris Howson-Jan.
We’ve taken a look at Harden’s career — both good and bad — in a vacuum; now, it’s time to put his accomplishments in the context . If we say he is better than Nash, who sits at #40 currently, how high do we put him? What measurements and metrics matter? How much do we weigh offence vs defence? Regular season versus playoffs? Superstars are meant to be held to a higher standard, but can we fully pin every loss on him? In order to crystallize Harden’s placement, we have to consider this from all angles.
Our short list of greatest shooting guards ever is Jordan, Kobe, and Wade, in that order. They are the Tier 1, best guy on championship team-calibre players. Tier 2 is Harden, and in my opinion, no one else. Tier 3 is made up of Drexler, Gervin, and Sam Jones, who are all excellent, but flawed players to varying degrees. I don’t think any of them could carry a team, regular season or playoffs, in the way Harden can. After that, take your pick of Allen, Miller, Greer, Klay Thompson, David Thompson, Joe Dumars; the list goes on, and tiers become murky. But right now, Harden comfortably sits fourth overall — certainly an impressive achievement for a player who’s barely in his 30s.
But what about outside strictly positional comparisons? What about Harden as an offensive weapon? Here, it’s hard to dispute — Harden is one of the 10 greatest offensive players ever. Here’s what I think is a fairly indisputable Top 9 (in the order they entered the league):
- Wilt
- Kareem
- MJ
- Shaq
- Kobe
- Dirk
- LeBron
- Durant
- Curry
- Harden
You can pick your 10th — I’m taking Karl Malone — but those nine feel pretty inarguable. Harden is an outlier on that list in one key category — all of those guys have won championships. That tells us there’s probably more to the story with Harden’s all-around game, but it also shows you the rare company he’s in. He is a special offensive player. And he has the stats to back it up.
When we profiled Harden as a player in part 1, we threw a few key stats at you about Harden’s efficiency and pure scoring numbers, and stacked him up against Steve Nash as a point of comparison. But truthfully, once you start digging on Harden, much like any other all-time great, the crazy stats start piling up. Here are just a few of our favourites:
- Most already know that Harden’s 36 points per game in 2018–19 is the highest since Michael Jordan averaged 37 in 1986–87; before that, you have to go back to Wilt Chamberlain to find someone who scored as much as Harden did. But what’s even more impressive than the pure numbers is the efficiency. Harden’s .616 TS% is by far the most efficient season ever for a 35 PPG scorer. The closest to him is Jordan, who put up a .562 TS%. To put it in perspective, in 2019–20, a .616 TS% would put you in the top 30 most efficient players; a .562 TS% would put you in the mid-120s.
- Equally impressive is that Harden combines this scoring and efficiency with elite passing. Only 9 players have ever had seasons averaging 30 points/7 assists; Harden’s done it 3 times, trailing only Oscar Robertson. Control for the elite level efficiency we discussed above, and once again Harden’s only competitor is Jordan, who has 1 season putting up the kind of statline Harden has been averaging for the last 3 seasons. And for all the talk Russell Westbrook got for being the first player in 50 years to average a triple-double, there was substantially less fanfare for Harden last year when he became the first player to put up 35 points/7 assists since… ever.
- Advanced stats are incredibly kind to Harden as well. BPM is short for Box Plus-Minus, a holistic stat that attempts to calculate a player’s net impact per 100 possessions. A BPM of 0 is league average. A BPM of around 5 puts a player at All-NBA level — exactly 15 players reached the mark in 2018–19. In the 8 seasons Harden has been with the Rockets, he has an average BPM of 8. It’s a mark that’s been met by 13 players in the decade since Harden was drafted. Harden has done it 5 times, trailing only LeBron’s 8 such seasons. Harden’s VORP — Value Over Replacement Player, a cumulative stat that compares on-court contributions to a hypothetical player signed off the street — is similarly eye-popping, putting him in the top 25 all time in spite of his age. Among players with over 60 career VORP (just 25 in NBA history), he has the fewest minutes by a large margin. Three more seasons at his current rate and he’ll jump into the top 7 in VORP, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
We could hit you on the head with statistics, because Harden’s eye popping numbers are seemingly endless. But greatness goes beyond the numbers on a page. Even the most advanced stats can only complement the eye test (and vice-versa), not replace it. Kobe and Karl Malone have racked up some of the most impressive career numbers ever, but they sit 9th and 19th, respectively, on our Top 100. Much of this project is inspired by Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball, and Bill’s list places major stock in intangibles, including what he dubbed “The Secret.” These intangibles are part of what captures greatness, and while they’re incredibly hard to accurately measure, they’re also incredibly important.
Dream Team
In this section, we’ll examine a timeless NBA scenario — assembling a Dream Team. NBA fans know that these kinds of exercises are not as simple as putting the 5 players you think are the best on the court. Basketball is a game of balance; scoring, passing, rebounding, defence, and team chemistry all have to be considered in constructing a roster. On paper, a team with Kobe and Jordan on it should be unstoppable. In practice, the overlap in skillset and shared alpha dog mentality could prove disastrous. So, how does Harden fit into this complex equation?
It seems odd, but Harden only doing the things he’s really, really good at could be considered a point against him. He’s not as versatile as the other great shooting guards discussed above, in the context of skill or fit. It’s hard to imagine him fitting into a Dream Team scenario and raising the ceiling massively. Yes, he can get a bucket, but he would be sharing the floor with a host of elite scorers. He is not quite an elite 3 point shooter, nor have we seen much off-ball cutting from him. Even as a bench player in OKC, his best role was essentially as backup point guard, leading the offence and creating shots for himself and others. That being said, his career 36% from 3 isn’t indicative of his spot-up shooting ability; many of his shots are step-backs and late shot clock attempts.
It’s also hard to argue that, given his propensity to play the game as efficiently as possible, he wouldn’t be willing to adapt his game and play off-ball. But regardless, he’ll never fit the 2-guard profile of a young Kobe or Dwyane Wade: the hyper-athletic, slithery off-ball slasher with impressive lateral movement. He doesn’t have an array of low post moves, spins, and turnarounds that Kobe and Wade do. They are great because they can beat you any way offensively. Harden is great because he’s unstoppable at doing the things he does on offence, even though you know he’s going to do them.
Matched up against a Dream Team-level elite defensive player, I wouldn’t be as confident in his offensive creativity and resilience as I would be in an average regular season game. At the same time, he is one of the premier “bucket-getters” in league history. This is critical for late game situations in playoff games when a team relies on its superstar more and more. But in a Dream Team scenario, where every player can likely create a shot at an efficient level, this skill diminishes in importance.
Harden is also nowhere near the defender Kobe or Wade are, much less someone like Jordan who was all-world on both ends of the floor. Analytics nerds are quick to say Harden is a good low post defender. Yes, it is certainly a great benefit to the Rockets when they go small, but in a regular team context, how much does it matter? In a Dream Team scenario, would you rather have Harden guarding the post, or Davis, LeBron, and Kawhi? Yes, guards like Westbrook and Doncic are good at snaring a few extra rebounds a game, but are the 8th, 9th, and 10th really that significant to their teams chances of winning? In short, Harden is more of a floor raiser than ceiling raiser. And on a Dream Team, when ‘best player on a championship team’-calibre players are abundant, ceiling raisers are more desirable.
X-Factor — Leadership
I really hate that this might come off as reminiscent of a First Take segment, but bear with me. I’m thinking out loud here in an effort to separate Harden from other Tier 1 peers. As we’ve come to learn more than ever this past decade, it’s really hard to win without proper leadership and chemistry. The Mavs, Heat, Spurs, Warriors, and Raptors gave the blueprint on how to leverage those qualities to win; conversely, the Clippers, late-period Cavs, and 2018 Celtics showed how wrong things can go without it. Unselfishness is not just expected, but required. If guys are unhappy or at odds with each other, they will crumble under adverse conditions.
Despite his subtweets and his corny pre-game speeches, players seem to like LeBron. They get along with him, enjoy playing with him, and respect the culture he works to create. Steph Curry might be the most unselfish superstar ever. Dirk might be the most likeable. As much as it was detrimental to his team, the Thunder seemed willing to run through a brick wall for Russ. Kawhi’s lead by example mentality and confidence was critical to the Raptors overcoming their shaky playoff past. Need I mention Duncan and the Spurs culture?
Harden is a guy who I can’t really put my finger on in terms of personality and leadership skills. He is an extremely hard worker, but also famously loves to party and frequents strip clubs. He clearly loves the limelight, but comes across as fairly reserved for a star player. He is quiet, but subtly loves to trash talk. I’ve never heard him give a pregame speech. Players in Houston certainly buy into what he does, but are they really willing to go to the mattresses for him?
It seems that Harden is willing to let sleeping dogs lie. When players inevitably get frustrated and discontent, he does not seem like the type to address the player and make sure they are on the same page. That kind of attention feels necessary given how heavily the offence revolves around him. Players are entitled, even role players; they need reassurance that they matter. I just can’t imagine Harden being proactive with these types of issues within a team. I also can’t imagine him stepping up and taking the blame for a loss when he needs to. This sounds like movie quarterback take-charge bullshit, but it’s a cliche for a reason. Some of Harden’s clashes can be attributed to Dwight Howard and Chris Paul, two famously unlikeable teammates, but Harden has to take some blame for not trying to make it work better. CP3 sacrificed heavily on the Rockets compared to his role on the Clippers, but it seemed Harden wanted more
Harden just doesn’t seem resilient like a leader needs to be. When the going gets tough he wavers and retreats sooner than he maintains confidence with poise. He can come across as laissez-faire in the crux of the season. This can be seen in many of his worst playoff moments. I’m not asking him to weep like Joel Embiid, but he doesn’t exactly come across as devastated. As childish as Cam Newton’s post Super Bowl interview was, at least we knew it came from a place of care. As much as CP3 seems to annoy others, it comes from a place of passion. Harden does not exude that energy, and I think if he did his team may have rallied around him better in those tough moments.
Pyramid Placement — #36
So, now we have the full picture of James Harden. We’ve heard about his achievements as a player, and his greatest failures. We’ve explored the hard statistical data, and the ephemeral intangibles. The only thing left to do is give him his place on the Pyramid. In Part 1, we concluded that Harden deserved to sit ahead of Steve Nash. Now, we’ve concluded who he should sit behind — #35 on our list, David Robinson.
Harden and Robinson make for a fascinating point of comparison with respect to their ability to win titles as individuals. Being able to win a title as the best player on a team is rarified air, but there are levels to that capability. Winning with the supporting cast Kevin Durant had on the 17–18 Warriors is not the same as winning with the supporting cast Hakeem Olajuwon had on the 94–95 Rockets. Harden and Robinson fall on the lower end of that spectrum, and in many ways they set the bar for a ‘1st option on a title team’-type player.
At a bare minimum, both Harden and Robinson have tremendous capability to elevate their teams. Both have led their teams to 60 wins and playoff series wins, and both have shown flashes of Pantheon-calibre form. But one thing that separates the Level 5 Tier from everyone else is how they can elevate merely average teams to a title, or at least to legitimate contention. Harden has had some tough breaks in his career, most notably facing a near-unbeatable Warriors team for most of his prime, but as we’ve often said while working on this project, you can only give players so much credit for things they didn’t do. Both Robinson and Harden have had ample opportunity to prove themselves in the playoffs, and have largely failed.
Indeed, for all the flak Harden gets for his playoff resume, Robinson might be worse off. His Spurs were upset in the first round multiple times as a higher seed, including a 2–7 upset by the Warriors in 1993. We can fairly cleanly compare Harden’s 8 year tenure on the Rockets to Robinson’s 8 years with the Spurs before Tim Duncan arrived; Robinson was injured in his 8th season, while Harden may miss out on the chance to play in the playoffs in 2019–20 as well.
For Harden, his defining playoff game is probably the disastrous Game 7 against the Warriors in the 2018 Western Conference Finals. The Warriors were the reigning champions, but Harden was the MVP, and the Rockets were the #1 seed in the conference. For Robinson, his defining playoff image prior to his championship years was the 1995 Western Conference Finals against the Rockets. The Rockets were the reigning champions, but Robinson was the MVP, and the Spurs were the #1 seed in the conference. Sound familiar?
For the first decade of Robinson’s career, getting the brakes beaten off him by Hakeem was his biggest claim to fame. Despite both he and Harden being fantastic individual players, neither could quite hit the apex of superstardom. Obviously, the big distinction between the two is Robinson’s later career, when he won two titles with Tim Duncan — first as the #2 option, then as a key role player. Robinson absolutely deserves credit for these accomplishments, which is what puts him clearly above Harden at this point in his career. But neither one has made the leap to putting their team in position for a title as the clear-cut #1. These later years also filled out Robinson’s accolades to put him a notch above Harden, finishing his career with 10 All-NBA appearances.
We can extrapolate and assume that Harden will reach and surpass these benchmarks within the next few years, but championships are much less certain. It’s impossible to predict how Harden’s game will age, whether he will deal with injuries, and how he might look as a secondary star or even a role player on a title team. It’s plausible Harden could end up with multiple Finals MVPs; it’s also plausible he could retire without a championship. Thus, for now, while his career has paralleled Robinson in many ways, it’s impossible to put Harden above him just yet.
Conclusion
Doing this deep dive into Harden’s career was a massive undertaking, and a major learning experience. These articles are reflective of the kinds of conversations we have as basketball fans, and the kind of approach we want The Bench Connection to take to NBA analysis. Analysis should entail doing research, and painting a picture of a player based on that information. Too often in sports discussion — and outside of it — people get that backwards; they begin with a preconceived notion, then look for data to support it.
Narratives are unavoidable in sports. Humans are storytellers, and there’s something elemental about the stories that sports create. It’s often nothing short of modern myth-making. But unlike in myth, we have the facts. And we owe it to players like Harden — one of the greatest to ever play the sport we love — to build that narrative on a solid, unbiased foundation. With that in mind, we hope you enjoyed taking this journey with us; there’s much more to come.
