James Harden had a slightly a hit 2022-23 season with the Philadelphia 76ers. He led the NBA in assists and earned a number of votes for All-NBA honors on the finish of the season on how one can each incomes the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference and serving to Joel Embiid win his first MVP award. However, he additionally averaged his fewest issues in step with recreation (21) and posted his lowest utilization price (25%) since turning into a full-time starter all over the 2012-13 season.
Apparently, this shift in role stricken Harden. After spending many of the offseason angling for a industry to the Los Angeles Clippers, Harden were given his want on Tuesday, and all over his introductory press convention Thursday, he when compared his role in Philadelphia to “being on a leash.”
“Philly is just changing my role knowing I can give more, knowing I can do more, but if you want me to be honest, it’s like being on a leash,” Harden stated. “Like me knowing, in order for us to get where we want to get to, I was gonna have to be playing my best offensively, whether it’s facilitating and scoring the basketball, and Joel as well. I never really had that opportunity as well.”
As The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor famous, Harden ranked 2d in the NBA in time possessing the basketball remaining season at the back of best Luka Doncic. He was given various alternative in Philadelphia. However, even that was not sufficient for him. “Someone that trusts me believes in me, I’m not a system player, I am a system,” Harden said. At one level in his profession, this was true. In 2019, Harden turned into simply the second one participant in NBA historical past to post a utilization price above 40%.
However, he is becoming a member of the all time single-season file holder for utilization price in Russell Westbrook, his former teammate who posted a 41.3% utilization price all over the 2016-17 season. Both of them should defer, to a point, to former Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, who’s the crew’s easiest participant, in addition to eight-time All-Star Paul George. If touches have been laborious to come back through in Philadelphia, they are going to be even rarer on the Clippers. That’s notable right here as a result of his former trainer, Doc Rivers, speculated that Harden’s willingness to play crew basketball relied on a sure degree of exterior validation.
“When playing right, I tell everyone to go back to the first half of last year where he gave himself to the team,” Rivers stated on the Bill Simmons Podcast (h/t Justin Grasso of Sports Illustrated). “We were the best team in the NBA for a 10-20 game stretch, and obviously we have Joel, Tyrese, and Tobias, but we were because James was being a point guard. It’s funny; a coach called me and said, ‘I never thought anyone could get him to do that.’ And he did! For a short term. If you could keep him in that and not want to chase numbers — the thirst of scoring — then you have a terrific player.”
“He really was [playing perfectly]. I would say not making the All-Star team really bothered him,” Rivers added. “The coaches just didn’t put him on. He was only leading the league in assists. He was having the best 3-point percentage shooting year of his career. He was averaging plus-twenty, and the coaches didn’t put him on the All-Star team. He would never say this, but in my gut, I thought it changed almost immediately.”
Integrating a high-usage ball-handler onto a crew with a number of different big-name avid gamers is rarely simple. Doing so calls for vital sacrifice through all events concerned. If Harden expects to completely keep an eye on the Clipper offense, it is more than likely going to be a bumpy journey in Los Angeles.