Clippers’ Harden
Skepticism was prevalent when the Clippers traded for James Harden in the first week of the 2023-24 season. To be sure, there was ample reason for the second-guessing. Conventional wisdom pegged their new acquisition as fool’s gold, having seen the destruction he wreaked in his wake. In successive years, he forced his way out of the Rockets, Nets, and Sixers — ostensibly because he felt their objectives ran counter to his own. In short, he was looking out for Number One. As he himself argued in a presser immediately after his latest change of address, “I’m not a system player. I am a system.”
For a while there, it looked as if the Clippers would find cause to regret their move. Harden posted pedestrian numbers in his first five games for the blue and red. Not coincidentally, all led to losses; blowouts to the Knicks and Mavericks were interspersed with inexcusable setbacks to the otherwise-inconsistent Nets and incomplete Grizzlies and Nuggets. The general consensus was that too many cooks invariably spoiled the broth. In the midst of the swoon, P.J. Tucker — who was included in the deal with the Sixers — could not help but note that “There’s not enough basketballs on the planet for this team, really.”
All the same, Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue saw enough improvements since Harden’s arrival to believe that a turnaround was in short order. He also kept tinkering with the lineup in search of a winning rotation, which not coincidentally, had Russell Westbrook coming off the bench and Tucker riding the pine. And since he made the changes, the results cannot be denied: nine straight victories to catapult them to fifth in the highly competitive Western Conference. So confident have they become that they didn’t even need Paul George yesterday against the Mavericks to keep their win streak intact.
Admittedly, Harden’s stats this season are the lowest of his career outside his sixth-man days with the Thunder. That said, there can be no discounting his contributions to the Clippers’ cause. His mere presence places pressure on the defense and has enabled Kawhi Leonard to puncture the hoop with consistency. He has even coaxed former Thunder teammate Westbrook into accepting a significantly reduced role. The former Most Valuable Player awardee is sporting his worst line since being drafted fourth overall in 2008, and yet professes to be happy. “I’ve been in the league so long, I understand the definition of true sacrifice and understanding what that looks like … This is a team game, and I know the most important goal. That’s to win a championship.”
Which, in the final analysis, is how the Clippers’ decision to go all in with Harden will be judged.