“Houston, We Have A Problem”
It’s September 10th, 2020 and the Lakers have taken a commanding 3–1 lead over the Houston Rockets. The first season of the duo of Russell Westbrook and James Harden seems to be a failure, as the team has yet again failed to win an NBA championship.
With the Rockets’ game 4 loss, came a lot of criticism for the best player on the team: James Harden. His statline for game 4 was 21 points/4 rebounds/10 assists. Harden’s points in the loss is quite disappointing because it’s far below his series average, 29.3 points/game. To make it even worse, Harden scored 16 of his 21 points from the free throw line.
After years of flaring out in the most important part of the season, it seems that people are beginning to point the finger at Harden, for why the team has yet to see any sort of success. As previous occasions have shown, Harden’s co-star seems to always be “the issue”.
The First Instance
Dwight Howard joined the team in free agency of 2013, after a horrendous stint with the Los Angeles Lakers. Howard spent 3 seasons with the Rockets and averaged 16 points and 11.7 rebounds. With Harden becoming one of the league’s shining stars in his first season with Houston, it seemed that adding an all-star center, like Howard, would allow the Rockets to plan for potential championship runs. The Rockets never seemed to gather themselves and never played consistently enough to make a championship run. Howard left in free agency of 2016 because he stated that he couldn’t play with a ball dominant shooting guard, like Harden and Kobe Bryant, and that he wanted to be a team’s first option. The media and Howard were convinced that he just didn’t fit the offensive scheme that was being built by Kevin McHale, who was Houston’s coach at the time.
As the Rockets went a season without getting a formidable co-star for their franchise player, their new coach Mike D’Antoni decided to run the entire offense through Harden. After receiving help from Patrick Beverly, who made the All-NBA Defense First Team, and the Sixth Man of the Year, Eric Gordon, they went 55–27 and were the third seed in the West. After receiving more help than previous years, they were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs to the San Antonio Spurs in six games.
Second Time’s The Charm
After deciding that a second star was needed for success, the Rockets traded for all-star point guard Chris Paul, who was coming off another disappointing and drama-filled season with the Clippers. This squad seemed destined to be the squad that would get the job done.
In their first season together, the Rockets were the 1st seed in the West. Harden averaged 30.4 points/5.4 rebounds/8.8 assists and won his first MVP award. After breezing through the first and second round of the playoffs, they were matched up against the 2018 Warriors, who were attempting to get back to the NBA Finals for the fourth consecutive year, and win back-to-back titles. For Paul, this was his first Western Conference Finals appearance and third appearance for Harden. In the fourth quarter of their game 5 victory, Paul picked up a hamstring injury. The Rockets took a 3–2 lead in the series and were 48 minutes away from their first Finals appearance since 1995, where Hakeem Olajuwon led the Rockets to a sweep vs the Orlando Magic.
Unfortunately, the Rockets couldn’t close, so the Warriors came back and finished the job. The Warriors then went on to beat LeBron James, not the Cleveland Cavaliers, in the NBA Finals.
Paul seemed to be the centerpoint of the collapse of that Rockets squad because people were certain that *if* Paul was healthy, then they would’ve advanced to the Finals.
It seemed as the universe wanted to right its wrongdoing by allowing Houston to get another chance to face the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the playoffs. To favor the Rockets even more, the Warriors experienced the same fate as they had faced the previous year: an injury to a vital player on the team. Instead of advancing past the nightmare of last season, the team had fallen yet again, in six games this time. Harden is at fault for the game 5 loss, even if he had 31 points/8 assists/4 steals, because he shot the ball only three times in the fourth quarter of close game. For a player being known as and being praised as one of the greatest scorers that the league has ever seen, shooting the ball THREE times in the fourth quarter of a must-win game doesn’t get talked about when that series is brought up. That series loss shouldn’t be the fault of Chris Paul, as he did his job as the co-star. That loss should entirely be on the best player on the team and the leader: James Harden.
After being within scratching distance of their first NBA Finals appearance in 20+ years and falling short versus that same team, but without their best player, the Rockets decided that it was time to pull the plug on the Chris Paul/James Harden experiment in Houston. Before sending him to the Oklahoma City Thunder, rumors started to spread about the tension between Paul and Harden. According to a Bleacher Report article, “Chris wants to coach James, James looks at him like, ‘You can’t even beat your man. Just shut up and watch me.’” Harden seemed to care more about the individual success and stats, rather than winning.
The Hail Mary
In the summer of 2019, the Rockets decided to trade for 2017 MVP Russell Westbrook, in exchange for Chris Paul and a load of draft picks.
Daryl Morey reunited the lifelong friends and former OKC teammates. Going into the season, there was skepticism regarding this duo, as they have “stat padding” narratives surrounding their style of play. Until February 5, 2020, they were 32–18, but decided to differ from that style of basketball and wanted to utilize the maximum spacing available on the floor. A four-team trade occured, that sent Clint Capela to the Atlanta Hawks, Robert Covington to the Rockets, Shabazz Napier, Keita Bates-Diop, and Gerald Green to the Nuggets, and Evan Turner and Jarred Vanderbilt to the Timberwolves. With the Rockets trading away their starting center, they had truly committed to playing with a size deficiency. Just as the Westbrook trade brought skepticism, this trade brought even more conversation over the decision making of the Rockets’ front office.
In their first game with the new lineup, they had to face one of the lengthiest lineups in all of the league, in the Los Angeles Lakers. Surprisingly, they won. Making quite the statement about fluidity of this unique lineup and quieting some of those conversations. With their new lineup, they won 12 of their 21 regular season games.
In the first round, they were matched up against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who defied all expectations and made the playoffs as the 5 seed and were led by Chris Paul. The series went all seven games and seen the Rockets advance. The Rockets won game 7 because the Thunder weren’t hitting their shots and also made pays that costed the opportunity to win. Something that stood out was the fact that James Harden was atrocious. The Beard had 17 points on 4/15 (26.7%) shooting. Had it not been for his block on Lugentz Dort, the Rockets probably would’ve been watching the playoffs from home. It seemed that Harden wasn’t playing like it was a game 7, instead playing like the Rockets were en route to an easy win.
As they barely advanced passed the Thunder, they face one of the best teams in the NBA: the Los Angeles Lakers. After escaping with a game one win, the Rockets have lost three straight and are one game away from elimination. James Harden’s performance in game 5 summarizes Harden’s postseason mentality. 16 free throws and 5 points actually scored. In a game where they needed their best player, he ran from the challenge, rather than accepting it.
I believe that everyone, who watches the game of basketball, is finally starting to notice this fact about how Harden approaches the postseason. He received more criticism tonight, than I think I’ve ever seen him take in his entire career. He’s the textbook definition of a “regular season player” and it sucks to admit that about one of the best scorers of all time.
Houston has continued to progress through struggles by allowing or forcing Harden’s co-star, at the time, to leave. Houston are at fault, just as much as Harden is, because they’re constantly making the same mistake and allowing Harden to continue on, as if he isn’t the main reason for their shortcomings.
As talented as Harden is, I don’t think he has the winning mentality and has never had it, as the best player on a team. He never duplicates his regular season performance to his postseason performances. He always shrinks when the team needs him. I hope that it changes, but realistically, it probably won’t.
To conclude, here are some of the best tweets I’ve seen about Harden tonight:
Let me know what you think, all criticism is accepted!
-IZ
