PHILADELPHIA — Is there a double standard when it comes to the 76ers’ James Harden?
When he routinely produced 50-point performances as a Houston Rocket, he was labeled selfish, a ball hog, and deemed bad for basketball.
But this season, individual scoring explosions are becoming commonplace. We’ve already seen 14 50-point games by 10 players before the midway mark of the season.
Now, folks are saying the high volume of players doing it is good for basketball.
So that narrative around individual performances has definitely changed. With that, Harden was asked if he doesn’t get enough credit for having 23 50-point games — which ranks fourth in NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain (118), Michael Jordan (31), and Kobe Bryant (25).
“I don’t need the credit,” Harden said. “I don’t really care. I guess, later or eventually, people will recognize it. People give credit to who they want to give credit to. They pick and choose who they want to give credit to.
“If I was to sit there and feel some type of way that I wasn’t getting the credit, I wouldn’t be doing a million of other things I’m supposed to be doing.”
While it’s a cliché, Harden said he plans to only focus on things he can control. He goes out there and plays basketball.
“And try to be the best James Harden that I can be,” he said.
In doing so, he is averaging 21.8 points, 11.0 assists, and 1.4 steals this season. He recorded his second straight triple-double Tuesday with 16 points, 12 rebounds, and a game-high 15 assists in a 147-116 victory over the Detroit Pistons at the Wells Fargo Center. The Sixers (25-15) improved to 5-0 when Harden dishes at least 15 assists and 3-0 when he produces a triple-double.
No longer the main focal point of an offense, he’s getting more credit these days for his all-around game.
However, high assist performances and triple-doubles are nothing new to the 2018 league MVP and three-time scoring champion.
Harden has 72 career triple-doubles, with 46 coming during his nine seasons as a Rocket. He also won the 2017 assist title in Houston. And 10 of his 26 games with at least 15 assists or more came as a Rocket.
Yet, we remember Harden as an over-dribbling mercenary during his heyday with Houston. We criticized him for averaging 30.5 shot attempts during his 50-point performances. And criticized him for dominating the ball, slowing down the game with an overabundance of foul shots and hunting fouls late in games.
But Dallas Mavericks point guard Luka Dončić has a similar style, and he somehow gets a pass. No one says he is bad for basketball. Nor has anyone spoken negatively about the average of 30.7 shot attempts during this season’s 50-point performances.
Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson took 39 shots when scoring 54 points in a 143-141 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 2. Instead of people criticizing him for taking so many shots, Thompson was praised for stepping up in a game when Steph Curry was sidelined.
But that wasn’t close to being the highest scoring performance of the night.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points in an overtime victory over the Chicago Bulls. The next night, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo had a career-best 55 points in a victory over the Washington Wizards.
All of those performances came less than a week after Dončić posted the NBA’s first 60-point, 20-rebound, 10-assist triple-double on Dec. 27. And we can’t forget that Joel Embiid joins Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker and Dončić as the only players to score at least 50 points multiple times this season.
“I think at this stage I’m just numb to everything,” New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum said on his podcast. “You just expect crazy stuff to happen, like Luka was doing 60-point triple-doubles, and we’re talking about it more now than we ever did before.
“But I do want to go on the record of saying James was doing stuff like this regularly. Not 70s, but he was putting up 50. He’d have a week where he’d go 55, 54, 50 with triple-doubles, and we just didn’t really even talk about it.”
McCollum aside, Harden did not receive praise for those performances. He was criticized for having an NBA usage rate of 33.1 as a Rocket. During the 2018-19 season, his usage rate was a ridiculous 40.3. But it was high out of necessity. He wasn’t surrounded with other elite offensive players, so the Rockets’ offensive success depended solely on him.
But there’s never a team that has won a championship with a guy who had a usage rate that high. That’s partly why basketball purists criticized Harden’s style of play. Sixers coach Doc Rivers seconded that.
“I think that’s still going to be the key,” Rivers said. “Scoring is great, and these numbers are great. But these are teams trying to win titles. And that will be the key.”
The jury is still out on whether this style can translate to winning basketball. Teams that move the ball and play the right way, in Rivers’ opinion, are the ones that still win the most.
The only difference is more players are now doing what Harden perfected in Houston. And they’re being praised for their accomplishments — even though it might not be winning basketball.
