It looks like a very long time in the past, nevertheless it wasn’t.
In 2018, after a regular-season marketing campaign that earned him the league’s Most Invaluable Participant award, James Harden and the Houston Rockets had been main the protection. After a victory in a slugfest Sport 5 that was extra paying homage to the ’90s, the Rockets took a 3-2 lead over the mighty Golden State Warriors.
You most likely know the way that story ended. Chris Paul’s harm and the worst capturing luck in NBA historical past led Houston to lose the collection in seven video games. The Warriors will proceed to brush the Cavaliers within the Finals.
This was the closest Harden acquired to lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy with the Rockets. It was additionally the closest Western Convention workforce to knocking out Golden State throughout a historic race.
With the Japanese Convention seemingly open-ended, paired with somebody who performs basketball higher than anybody else on the planet for the time being, this might be the liveliest alternative.
Truthful or unfair, there are many narratives surrounding Harden. Some would possibly view Harden as being egocentric to drive him into two offers, with the Sixers being his third workforce in fourteen months. Or possibly Harden was actual when he mentioned Philadelphia was his first alternative of leaping jack, and within the period of participant empowerment, he noticed his probability to get right here in a mutually helpful place for the Nets and Sixers.
Both approach, there’s quite a lot of stress on the 32-year-old to make it work.
He appears completely satisfied to be right here. He has met with Daryl Morey and Tad Brown. He performs for a coach who considers him “the most effective coaches who’ve ever coached a recreation of basketball.” He may have the prospect to play with Joel Embiid, the most probably candidate for the MVP award. The workforce he joins is inside strolling distance of the highest of the convention.
There aren’t any robust warriors or another breed to go by means of. There’s possible no supernova for LeBron James who might single-handedly carry his workforce to the Finals. (Not that gamers like Kevin Durant and Giannis Anticonmo aren’t nice, however what LeBron did within the Japanese Convention for almost a decade was out of one other world.)
There isn’t a time like the current for Harden.
“That is the purpose,” Harden mentioned in his introductory message. “As Daryl mentioned, the chance, the window is now. Joel is enjoying the perfect he has ever performed. So my job is to get on the market and assist him and assist the entire workforce win a championship this 12 months and within the years to return.”
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Harden discovered himself within the MVP dialog once more. Within the “what you probably did to me not too long ago” and “post-pandemic” world we dwell in, issues that occurred yesterday really feel like they occurred months in the past.
After a commerce plunge that despatched Harden from Houston to Brooklyn, the 10-time All-Star was thrilled in his position as a bouncer. In 32 video games earlier than struggling a hamstring harm, Harden averaged 26.4 factors, 11.4 assists, and eight.9 rebounds per recreation on 61.6 p.c of actual pictures. This extension has expired much less A 12 months in the past (March 29, 2023).
Whereas Nikola Jokic took house the award, and Embiid was firmly within the combine, Harden’s title has been within the dialogue for a lot of the season.
All this to say that expectations might be – and ought to be – in heaven. He pairs The Sixers Embiid on the top of his energy with one of many 75 greatest gamers in NBA historical past. They’re simply two of the highest 20 gamers within the league proper now. They may turn into essentially the most wonderful duo within the NBA.
There isn’t a escape from the excessive expectations of this metropolis’s basketball workforce. Harden ought to cuddle them.
Every little thing is in place.
This can be James Harden’s second to silence critics and take away the frustration that has overshadowed the brilliance of his profession.
He simply has to seize it.
