By Parker Cassell, Delta Tau Delta
James Harden is a lot like your average-looking friend’s hot ex-girlfriend. She (Harden) was always much too good looking to even associate with your friend (the Oklahoma City Thunder), but somehow by the powers of true love or a rigged NBA lottery system, they ended up together. Puzzlingly, their relationship worked for a surprisingly long time. They had chemistry. They loved each other. However, you always had a gut feeling that things would not work out, that things were not geared for the long haul of eternal partnership, that the relationship would most certainly go awry. You were right, and your friend’s much-too-sexy girlfriend left him for a guy with copious money and more insane point guards. Sometimes true love works out. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes your friend’s bearded girlfriend moves to Texas. Life goes on.
The sweet, vindictive glory of these relationships is that, usually, the flaws of that smoking hot ex-lover are exposed. The Thunder-Harden break-up is no different. Oklahoma City prides itself on a created self-image that values hard work and ethical action over anything else. If winning cannot be done in a good and decent, old-fashioned, hard-working way, then Oklahoma City reckons that it probably ought not be done at all. James Harden reached the point where those values did not line up with his values anymore, so he left.
Harden, at least in the harsh eye of public perception, was revealed to be two things after the trade. First, without delving too deep into the numbers of his new contract, Harden appeared to be a spineless money grabber. He refused the contract Oklahoma City offered because Houston offered him more money—plain and simple. Even worse, when put on the same scale and time frame, the difference between the two contracts comes out to about a meager (meager!) 4 million dollars. But hey, beard products do not buy themselves.
Second, Harden proved himself a man that cares deeply about his own image. He desperately wanted to be known as an NBA superstar who brought in the maximum amount of money (what Houston offered) an NBA player could make. Never mind that Harden, combined with two dudes named Russ and Kevin, had the opportunity to compile several championships over the course of the coming years if he stayed in Oklahoma City. James Harden sought to shed his image of beloved and eccentric collection of whiskers that came off of the bench in Oklahoma City in an effort to re-establish himself as an NBA superstar.
Being the savvy, self-promoting bearded weirdo that he is, Harden knew that he would never be the primary attraction in Oklahoma City playing alongside those two superstars. He refused to share attention, and shots, any longer and chose to rebrand himself a superstar as a member of the Houston Rockets.
At least from a character standpoint, it seems that James Harden always wanted more. Oklahoma City offered him plenty of money, Harden wanted more. The Thunder offered him a share of the spotlight, Harden wanted more. He had the opportunity in Oklahoma City to become a top 15 NBA player, but he wanted to be top 5. Nothing seemed to be more important than for Harden to emerge from the shadows of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant to embark on his journey to heroic superstardom.
Sometimes your friend’s hot ex-girlfriend falls flat on her face and gets dumped the week after leaving. Sometimes she marries a billionaire and dives into pools of coinage for the rest of her life while your friend works a double-shift at the Starbucks on Main. The jury is still out on James Harden. Yet, at least to this point, he has experienced more success than failure, and has mostly accomplished everything he had hoped to by moving to Houston.
Over the last two years, Harden emerged as a sure-fire NBA superstar. His scoring average jumped roughly 10 points after the move. Harden is a tremendous scorer, amongst the best in the association, with an uncanny knack for getting to the free-throw line. Usually, he is tremendously efficient with the basketball, shoots well for his position, and Houston wins fairly often. He has made two NBA All-Star teams. Harden is the face of the Houston franchise, and one of the most recognizable players in the association.
Unfortunately, superstardom comes with disadvantages too. Harden has been dreadful in the playoffs for most of his career, but especially bad in the 2014 post-season. Through the first four games, Harden shot a combined 36 of 103 from the field, which comes out to around 35%. Frankly, that is not very good.
Generally, his Houston playoff career—which, to be fair, consists of only 2 series—has been a pristine example of inefficiency and bearded ball-hoggery. Harden might score 29 points in a playoff game, but he will take 25 shots to get there. So far, playoff James Harden has been the exact opposite of regular season James Harden: inefficient, somewhat selfish, and unsuccessful.
As a greater blessing to Harden, we will even half-ignore his play on the defensive side, a place where Harden plays with all the passion of a baked potato. If you are having a bad day, look up “James Harden, Defensive Juggernaut” on YouTube and think to yourself, “Well, at least I can do pretty much everything better than James Harden can defend.”
Of course, NBA Playoff basketball is different than NBA regular season basketball. Everyone is better. Harden does not play the lowly Lakers, lead by a player who inexplicably gave himself the nickname “Swaggy P” even though his name is Nick, four times in playoffs. Numbers deflate. Even so, if Harden is truly the top 5 NBA talent he promotes himself to be, he should perform better in the playoffs. Plain and simple. Houston demands it. His contract demands it. His dreams of reaching truly elite superstardom demand it.
All things considered, it remains to be seen if Harden made the right move. It takes time to see if your friend’s hot ex-girlfriend will work out with her new rich boyfriend. Either she lives lavishly, swimming in pools of crème brulee and Kendra Scott earrings for the rest of eternity, or she gets dumped. James Harden will either experience success in the playoffs and cement himself as an elite player in the association, or he will likely be remembered as a nice player who valued money, his own self-image, and what appeared to be at least a couple NBA titles. It all takes time.
