NBA 75: At No. 33, James Harden evolved from sixth man into one of the NBA's most gifted offensive players (2024)

(Editor’s note: Welcome back to The Athletic NBA 75. We’re re-running our top 40 players to count down every day from Sept. 8-Oct. 17, the day before the opening of the 2022-23NBA season. This piece was first published on Jan. 5, 2022.)

Back in October, James Harden couldn’t believe he had been named by the NBA as one of the league’s greatest players for its 75th anniversary.

“Ever?” Harden asked. Then a pause. Then, raising his eyebrows. “Wow.” Another pause. “Wow.”

So why would a guy who led the league in scoring three times, led the league in assists in 2017 and won NBA MVP in 2018 be surprised that people consider him one of the best ever to lace ’em up? Maybe he never anticipated such an honor because just making the NBA seemed like an unlikely concept when he was younger.

“Where I come from, man, even just to be in the NBA was like a far-fetched dream,” said Harden, who grew up in Compton, Calif. “To be an NBA basketball player was unheard of. And then, not just making it but sustaining it was a different type of mountain you’ve got to climb. And then, to be one of the best basketball players is a whole different mountain. It’s just a testament to the work I’ve put in and continue to put in until I can’t play anymore.

“Obviously, I haven’t reached the ultimate goal, which is a championship, but that’s what keeps me working and going hard every single day. That’s the end goal. When I get to that point, work doesn’t stop. I’ll continue to work and continue to strive until I’m not able to play this game anymore. This game has given me so much, just the people I’ve interacted with and I’ve touched and the families I’ve helped. It’s a beautiful thing. So, I’m just blessed to be a part of that list, and it don’t stop.”

To be honest, it may not be that hard to believe Harden was somewhat incredulous when informed of his place in the NBA pantheon. After all, how does a third wheel on the Oklahoma City Thunder reach No. 33 on The Athletic’s NBA 75?

In the summer of 2016, shortly after Mike D’Antoni was hired as the next head coach of the Houston Rockets, he called for a meeting with Harden at the team’s practice facility.

On paper, the union of D’Antoni, Harden and the Rockets couldn’t have come at a better time. The team was left looking for a sense of direction after a ho-hum, 41-41 finish to the 2015-16 season and a subsequent first-round playoff humbling at the hands of the Golden State Warriors in five games.

During a conversation, D’Antoni expressed how hungry he was for a new beginning, having been part of a Philadelphia 76ers team that finished a league-worst 10-72 in 2015-16. He understood that Harden was already established among the league’s elites, but D’Antoni felt that there was still another level that Harden could reach. Harden, a player who truly marches to the beat of his own drum, had already seen personal success in four seasons in Houston but wanted to push the envelope and test the limits of his reach. He expressed such a desire to D’Antoni.

“Luckily that was an easy conversation because he was thinking about the game the same way,” D’Antoni told The Athletic. “Daryl [Morey] was a big influence around that, about what the data is showing and what it means — we’re all three on the exact same page, how we wanted to influence the game, how we wanted to push forward. For us to win a championship, this is the best route that we could take. And there was never any doubt.”

One of D’Antoni’s better qualities has always been his forward-thinking ways. His vision of the game and how to advance or tweak it brought him a great deal of success with the Phoenix Suns in the early 2000s. His famous “Seven Seconds or Less” offense, flanking point guard Steve Nash with versatile wings and forwards — eventually becoming what is now regarded as small ball — truly accelerated the league’s timeline and put a new meaning on pace and space.

So as Harden was bright-eyed and eager to soak up knowledge from one of the game’s brightest minds, his interest was particularly piqued when D’Antoni suggested something out of the blue: changing Harden’s position by moving him to point guard. D’Antoni spoke at length about a system tailored to Harden’s unique skill set, one that would only be possible by moving him to a bigger playmaking role.

“It went well,” D’Antoni said. “He was interested in it, and I think he was intrigued with those challenges. And, you know, he liked it. I explained to him how I envisioned it. And I think he got excited by it.”

The 26-year-old had never averaged more than seven assists in his career — still an incredible accomplishment — but D’Antoni had even bigger dreams. He was enamored with how Harden saw the game, particularly when the ball happened to be in his hands. The two traded ideas back and forth to no end.

“Just his vision as a whole,” D’Antoni said. “Obviously, as I coached him, as we got deeper into me being around him, I learned a lot more about it. But what popped out real quick was just his vision, passing ability and the vision of the court. And that through a playmaker, you add the strength and the size and all that, I thought there’s a high probability he’s gonna be a great playmaker. I didn’t know about his knowledge of the game, that came later is just how smart he is, but just his ability to see and create was off the charts.”

Because of Harden’s presence as the Rockets’ new point guard and D’Antoni’s history and relationship with Nash, the comparisons were always drawn between the two. Physically, there were clear differences — Harden 6-foot-5, 225 pounds and strong as an ox, Nash slithery and slender with his 6-foot-3 frame — but on the floor, those physical traits didn’t seem to matter as much to D’Antoni as the mental aspect of the game. Nash’s defense-warping passes were a thing of beauty, and his place among the game’s greatest lead guards was already established. But D’Antoni saw similar potential in Harden.

“You see in both of them a talent that is not normal,” D’Antoni said. “And that they are, you know, heads and shoulders above most of the field, so that jumps off. And then later, you appreciate more things of how they go about their craft or how they win. But what jumps off is just the ability that they had to be able to see the floor and think two or three moves ahead. And that you know, those two guys share that for sure.”

Harden has and always will be a gifted scorer. His 22,000-and-counting points place him right outside the top 30 all-time. But there is no modern-day Harden without D’Antoni, and there is no modern-day D’Antoni without Harden. The two are symbiotic, one and the same.

The Harden you see today — the gifted scorer and passer — didn’t happen overnight. And that just means success didn’t come immediately.

When Harden was drafted by the Thunder with the third pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, he became a part of a young nucleus with an upstart organization featuring other rising stars in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. From Day 1, Harden learned what it took to be in the NBA. Of course, as a young, quirky southpaw, his style wasn’t what the Thunder were used to, but he quickly found his niche as a sixth man, winning the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 2012.

The early battles with Durant and Westbrook on the practice floor formed brotherhood bonds, bounded by a fierce competitive drive and a will to succeed. The Thunder went from a 23-win unit the year before to a 50-win team the following season. That improvement was a testament to the hard work put in by those three budding stars, something that stuck with Harden throughout his career.

“I think he was groomed right in OKC,” Durant told The Athletic. “(It) taught him about the business of basketball, talking about what winning meant. We went to the Finals, and we were expected to win every game. So that is a blessing to have that coming into the league. A lot of high picks like him go to losing teams and build a losing mentality. So, he learned what it takes to win, and he used that to catapult him into being a superstar.”

Harden experienced highs, such as winning consistently on an entertaining Thunder team year after year and collecting personal accolades but also had lows, such as losing in the 2012 NBA Finals to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat — and the public fallout that came with that. Even though Harden’s performance in those Finals was below his typical standards, there was enough data during his time there to suggest he would thrive in an environment where he didn’t have to be the third wheel. The Thunder essentially opting to extend big man Serge Ibaka over Harden only further pushed that narrative.

It’s what led Morey and the Rockets to pull the trigger and trade for Harden that offseason, placing him as the centerpiece of an organization desperate for another star.

“It was competitive amongst us,” Durant said. “It was competitive. We (are) all young and want to establish ourselves, but it was all genuine. We all wanted to win, as well. So once James got his own thing going to Houston, you could tell that he was ready for that next step of being a superstar leading a franchise.”

Harden’s persistence and determination to grasp the position proved a worthy cause. In the 2016-17 preseason, he averaged 10.7 assists in six contests. One game, in particular, a 130-103 drubbing of the New York Knicks, proved that Harden was more than capable of running the show, his hands all over the offense and his imprint officially stamped on the team.

That season, Harden’s personal numbers were off the charts — 29.1 points, 11.2 assists and 8.1 rebounds per game — but the sheer fact that he led the league in assists proved that the Harden-D’Antoni experiment was working. He became the first player in history to score 50 points, grab 15 rebounds and dish out 15 assists in a game — with his 53 points against the Knicks on New Year’s Eve tying Wilt Chamberlain’s record for most points ever with a triple-double. He would then go on to be the only player in NBA history to record two 50-point triple-doubles in the same season.

The Rockets pushed the envelope in terms of spacing and 3-pointers, taking nearly seven more 3s a game (40.9) than the rest of the league. That approach was good for 55 wins and the third seed in the Western Conference, and a series win over NBA MVP Westbrook and the Thunder, of all teams, in five games, setting up a second-round showdown with the San Antonio Spurs.

Just like the 2016 playoffs were a sign that some sort of change was necessary, the 2017 Spurs series proved that Harden couldn’t get over the hump by himself. The Rockets actually took the first game of that series, an impressive, 126-99 road win, but the Spurs showed their class, versatility and tenacious defense to stop the Rockets in their tracks. Harden’s infamous Game 6, a lowly 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting and six turnovers in a blowout 114-75 loss, was the talking point of the summer.

“James wore down, you know, he got tired,” D’Antoni said. “We put so much on your shoulders to get to where we got, because, if people remember, they were saying we can maybe make the playoffs, and I think we ended up third or fourth. And the Spurs were second. We put a lot on him, played him a lot. And then, if you look at the series, he wore down and got tired and ran up against a really good team and didn’t go well. But you know, those things happen. And you try to retool, get him some more help in the second year? And I think we did that.”

In the 2017-18 season, the Rockets traded for Chris Paul, and were the team expected to give the defending NBA champion Warriors a real run for their money. Now with Paul and Harden winning MVP, this certainly wasn’t the same Rockets team Golden State had vanquished a few seasons back. That 2018 Western Conference was an epic back-and-forth showdown, a true battle of elites cut short by Paul’s unfortunate hamstring injury after an emotional Game 5 win at home. Houston couldn’t hold on to a double-digit halftime lead in Game 6 and simply ran out of gas in Game 7 at home, missing an unprecedented 27 straight three-pointers as Steph Curry and the Warriors advanced to the Finals. It’s a regret the entire organization holds near their heart to this day, especially with the members of the franchise that have moved on, D’Antoni included.

“Oh, no doubt,” D’Antoni said. “No doubt. It’s always that way, but that’s our business and you kind of deal with it going in. There is a lot of luck involved, and when you’re in the final four and when you’re so close, it just didn’t happen and that’s the way it is. And then you try to tweak and come back and sometimes you never get back up that height again. A lot of things got to go right and it’s disappointing but at the same time as you look back and think about the days that we had you know you don’t regret anything.”

Harden’s greatness continued in the 2018-19 season, forced to take his game to new heights because of Paul dealing with a series of injuries. It was during this season where Harden began a historic scoring streak, amassing at least 30 points in 32 straight games, the second-most in NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 65 consecutive during the 1961-62 season. He pushed the Rockets from a poor 11-14 start and 14th place in the West to 53 wins.

Along the way, his game continued to revolutionize the league. Harden’s stepback and side-step 3-pointers became his most efficient form of offense, a move that has since been emulated by dozens of elite players in today’s game. His ability to create space out of seemingly thin air was another trick up his sleeve. Combined with his ability to earn fouls and scoring savvy, it made him a near-impossible cover.

The beauty of Harden’s legacy is that it’s still being written.

We can talk about the way he plays the game that might not be everyone’s cup of tea. We can talk about the infamous defense clip. We can talk about some of the playoff letdowns, both individually and as a team. We can talk about some of the off-court antics of how he bolted on Houston after eight years of not getting over the hump. But what we can’t deny is his profound impact on the way basketball is played.

“I think it’s just his consistency,” Durant added. “And I think when he came to Houston, they depended on him to be the number one scorer. And he did that for eight years and provided some great memories and moments for the state and the city. They were the best team here for a while. So he did a lot for this organization.”

Harden is now showing off his talents in Brooklyn, after an ugly exit in Houston (which has since seemed to heal). A blockbuster four-team trade in January 2021 reunited Harden with D’Antoni last season and paired him with Nash, putting his former coach’s greatest disciples together in the Big Apple. Upon Harden’s arrival, Kyrie Irving handed the point guard reins over to Harden and elected to play off the ball. The result was Harden logging numerous triple-doubles and looking like an MVP candidate. Ultimately Durant and Harden suffered hamstring strains, which cost Harden the rest of the regular season.

Harden returned in the playoffs only to reaggravate the injury. Coupled with Irving spraining his ankle against Milwaukee, the Nets season ended in the Eastern Conference semis. After being one of the league’s most durable players in Houston, Harden spent the first part of the 2021-22 season playing himself back into shape and he’s only recently returned to looking like his former self. Also with his impending free agency, Harden’s window to win a title in Brooklyn suddenly looks shorter.

Regardless, D’Antoni was more than proud of how Harden conducted himself through a season full of twists and turns. Durant was impressed as well.

“I just think (it’s) just being a grown up and maturing over the time and learning,” Durant said. “Every process we all go through as we get older, especially when he was living under the spotlight. You can learn so much about yourself, so you just see a more mature and polished human being. It’s the reason why he’s a Hall of Famer.”

Recently, Harden became just the 10th player in NBA history to score 20,000 points while dishing out 6,000 assists and grabbing 5,000 rebounds, a group that includes greats such as Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, John Havlicek, Gary Payton and Clyde Drexler, and contemporaries such as LeBron James, Paul and Westbrook.

As with any player on this NBA 75 list, there will be detractors. But for eight seasons in a Rockets uniform, Harden dominated games. He dominated weeks. He dominated months. His goofy, weird energy was contagious to anyone who stepped foot inside the locker room or building. D’Antoni’s tenure featured hard work, fun nights and competitive games, and Harden was at the center of it all.

That’s why it’s so hard for D’Antoni to pick out one shining moment that stood above the rest. There were so many. The game-winner in Oakland. The stepback and shimmy in Los Angeles. The block heard ‘round the world in the Orlando bubble. The list goes on and on. Harden lives for the game and he embodied that during his time in Houston. To say otherwise is, as D’Antoni describes it, noise.

“Well, first of all, I don’t listen to a lot of them, because that’s really just noise,” D’Antoni said. “And I understand what they’re saying. And you appreciate that they’re fans. But you know, James Harden is phenomenal. And what he did, what he accomplished in Houston, and as Steve Nash was phenomenal with what he did with Phoenix, there’s different ways to win games.

“There’s different ways to be so good at what you do. And it doesn’t all fit into one cookie-cutter mold. And James is a little different, he plays differently. But would it be the same argument if Chris hadn’t gone down with his injury and we win a championship, then is it the wrong way? I mean, you won 65 games and you can’t play that way? I don’t know where the evidence is on the other side other than we just didn’t win the whole title. So much good and how he plays what he does that I think it’s a little silly.”

— The Athletic’s Alex Schiffer contributed to this report.

Career stats#: G: 877, Pts.: 25.1, Reb.: 6.5,Ast.: 5.5, FG%: 44.4, FT%:85.8,Win Shares: 142.0, PER: 24.8

The AthleticNBA 75 Panel points: 635 | Hollinger GOAT Points: 343.1

Achievements: NBA MVP (’18), Seven-time All-NBA, Nine-time All-Star, Sixth Man of the Year (’12), Scoring champ (’18, ’19, ’20), Assists champ (’17), Olympic gold (’12), NBA 75th Anniversary team (’21)

#Through the 2020-21 season

(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)