Ever since he left Houston in 2020, James Harden stopped playing like James Harden. At first it was a choice. As the point guard on Brooklyn’s ill-fated superteam, he still had his trademark dynamism, but used it to help his teammates rather than himself. Then, at some point, it became a necessity—in Philadelphia, Harden took a back seat because the front seat was already occupied by Joel Embiid.
By the time he worked his way to the Clippers last season, Harden had distilled his game to something unrecognizably small. In his mid 30s, he’s shed all the excess and indulgence that once made him the best offensive player of his generation. Eyeing up his defender, shifting opposing defenses with every dribble, creating a coherent offensive attack from nothing more than his own savvy and talent, like Zeus birthing Athena from his forehead: he doesn’t do that stuff anymore.
Now, having narrowed the scope of his duties, his greatness is metered. On the Clippers, Harden averaged just 16.6 points per game, less than half of the 34.3 that he averaged five years ago. Ceding control of the offense to Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, Harden put up a 20.5 percent Usage Rate, his lowest mark since 2011. This looked like the next step of his gradual decline, a sign that he’s graciously accepted the player that he is, rather than vaingloriously trying to cling to the player he once was.
In recent years, Harden—older, slower—hasn’t been able to replay his greatest hits. If Harden was once one of the most skilled and most athletic players in the league, now only half of those statements are true. Accordingly, as a Clipper, he drove less frequently and passed more frequently when he did; his 10.4 drives per game represented a career low and his 50.5 percent pass rate on drives was a career high.
If some players decline with a spectacular crash, Harden’s diminishment can be measured in half-steps and millimeters. Never fully regaining his top speed after playing on a severely damaged hamstring in the 2021 Playoffs, he’s spent the last few seasons trying to outthink the ever-growing proportion of players he can’t outrun. The unguardable stop-start element of his game is mostly gone; he’s downshifted into a steady canter, no longer pinballing between different tempos.
Still, Harden boosted the Clippers’ offense by 9.3 points per 100 possessions when he was on the court; he’s grown less productive, but not necessarily less effective. When needed, he can even muster flashes of his old self. Against the Dallas Mavericks in last year’s playoffs, he looked like the best player on the court for the first four games, outfoxing Luka Doncic and averaging 26 points and 7 assists per game on 73.1 percent True Shooting. In the 2023 playoffs, he hung 45 points on the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of their second round series, carrying the Sixers to a surprising Joel Embiid-less win.
Although Harden was relegated to unglamorous prep work within the Clippers starting lineup, he ramped up his aggressiveness whenever he was separated from Paul George. Across nearly 700 George-less minutes, Harden averaged 29.6 points per 100 possessions, compared to 22.1 points per 100 possessions when he played alongside George. Most encouraging, Harden remained a high-end one-on-one player, ranking in the 88th percentile as an isolation scorer and scoring the sixth-most isolation points in the league.
In this sense, it’s still possible to be optimistic. Maybe Harden was silenced, not silent. Even at this late stage of his career, he’s still a near-elite point guard; every team in the league would love to have a 6’5 point guard who’s an all-time great passer and shooter and can plausibly guard nearly every position. But at this point, Harden is a lot closer to being a system player than he is to being the system. Ironically, his best trait is his generosity, his ability to help his co-stars to flourish.
With George off to Philadelphia and Leonard’s body in open revolt against playing basketball, however, Harden is once again his team’s leading man. Since most of the Clippers’ roster consists of non-dribbling role players, the team’s offense, according to Harden, is “definitely going to involve a lot of me.”
For the Clippers to maintain their spot in the West’s creamy middle, Harden will have to reanimate the old him; at his peak, Harden would’ve been the perfect fit, guaranteeing regular season success and allowing Leonard to conserve himself for the playoffs. But, in 2024, it’s unlikely to expect that his brief glimmers of situational dominance can last the full season. To his immense credit, Harden has been able to come to terms with the fact that he’s no longer James Harden. Now, it’s time for the Clippers to do the same.
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