HOW THE HARDEN-WESTBROOK PAIRING CAN WORK.
As fellow recipient of honor, Harden sees a winning co-existence with Westbrook
The chants followed them to Tokyo, honorifics that rose from the Saitama Super Arena crowd as clearly as in Toyota Center. • “MVP! MVP!” • The way boxing champions forever answer to “champ” and ex-presidents are always called “Mr. President,” James Harden and Russell Westbrook had earned that NBA measure of respect. • “MVP! MVP!”
Eventually, the chant can become a lobbying effort, an argument made in support of a candidate for the award. For now, it is a high-volume recitation of the measure of greatness the members of the Rockets’ backcourt share the way they share a history that goes back to a Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club and a friendship that lasted through the ensuing years, partnerships and competitions.
There are seven active NBA players who have been named MVP. Two play for the Rockets. Both insist they have moved on to other, greater goals.
“It feels great any time you hear those chants,” Harden said. “Both of us have accomplished that unbelievable goal of being MVP. I think the reason we’re here together is to accomplish something bigger than that. We’re (going) in the right direction.”
There have been 13 other pairings of MVP winners, only two with recipients so freshly named when they teamed up. Those combinations worked spectacularly well. Kevin Durant, the 201314 winner, and Stephen Curry, who took the next two MVP awards, won a pair of championships with the Warriors. Julius Erving, the 1981 winner, and Moses Malone, who won the next season, captured the 1983 championship with the 76ers, with Malone also taking another MVP.
Other MVP unions have brought championships. Only two — Bill Russell and Bob Cousy with the Celtics and David Robinson and Tim Duncan with the Spurs — saw the players win the MVP as teammates before also taking their teams to titles.
Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has joined three fellow MVPs — Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson and Bob McAdoo — on his teams and won titles with each.
The Rockets’ pairing of MVPs is not the franchise’s first. Charles Barkley joined Hakeem Olajuwon in 1996-97.
Most often, when MVPs come together, at least one is past his prime. That can work. Bill Walton was Sixth Man of the Year when he won a championship with Larry Bird. More often, as with Karl Malone joining Shaquille O’Neal for a season, or O’Neal pairing with Steve Nash or LeBron James, the combinations brought more excitement than triumph.
Yet with all that precedent since Bob Pettit was the first MVP in 1955-56, the Rockets duo can be considered unique.
Never have former Most Valuable Players playing such comparable positions in similar ways been paired.
The closest combination might be Olajuwon and Barkley, who played different positions but by that stage of their careers operated best when in the low post and on the boards. The idea was to have Barkley do some of the dirty work to help keep Olajuwon fresh to dominate when needed most and to keep Olajuwon’s window of greatness open longer. They reached the Western Conference finals in their first year together but never returned.
Harden and Westbrook, however, share far more. Though Harden spent three seasons with Westbrook and several seasons since as a shooting guard, both were point guards when they were MVP winners. Both are among the most high-usage players in NBA history. Both are their best with the ball, putting their team’s offense in their hands.
Both also have no doubt they can adjust.
“When you’re that great of a basketball player, you just go out there and hoop,” Harden said. “There’s no like, ‘Oh, you have to change your game.’ We’ll figure it out. It’s not difficult. We’ll let everyone else outside the locker room talk about, ‘Can they figure it out?’ Nah. We’re going to figure it out. It’s going to happen. It’s going to be easy.”
There is recent precedent for Harden’s optimism. Though Chris Paul never won an MVP, he has twice finished third and was considered of that caliber. When there were similar questions about how he and Harden could thrive together as there have been now, Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni insisted they would make it work because their gifts and determination would allow them to succeed.
The Rockets won 65 games and reached the Western Conference finals that season, losing the final two games against the Warriors after Paul was hurt. The pairing lasted just two seasons, with Paul packaged with first-round draft picks to land Westbrook. But that stretch seemed to build the foundation for the Rockets’ plans now, from D’Antoni’s intention to again stagger his star guards’ playing time to each’s intention to cede control to the other as games develop.
“It just depends on the course of the game,” Harden said. “For myself, Russ, Eric (Gordon), talented players, you don’t want to
take that away from each individual, because that’s what makes you who you are. You just have — throughout the course of the game — to figure out ways. There’s going to be times throughout the course of the game when I’ve got it going, the other guys kind of back up a little bit.”
Harden began his career doing that, coming off the bench while Westbrook and Durant were Oklahoma City’s signature stars. He was NBA Sixth Man of the Year then, but his game flourished with each layer of responsibility he assumed with the Rockets, first under Kevin McHale and then at another level as the “points guard” under D’Antoni.
Harden has been the MVP or runner-up in four of the past five seasons and last season produced one of the most prolific offensive campaigns in NBA history. The Rockets are not about to ask him to dial anything back.
“He’s evolved,” Westbrook said. “Obviously, tremendously learned other ways to score the basketball. Playmaking skills have always been there. But just like that, learning how to carry a team, understand what it takes to … win at a high level.”
Westbrook also has won a scoring title, but his greatness has been built on an ability to do many things at an elite level, taking the almost unthinkable achievement of averaging a tripledouble and making it assumed in his three consecutive seasons averaging double-digit points, rebounds and assists. That wideranging collection of talents, Westbrook said, will allow him to fit in as needed.
“I can pass the basketball,” Westbrook said. “I’m the best rebounder at my position. I can screen. I can cut. I can do whatever I need to do to help us win. I can talk, communicate. There’s so many different things in the game.
“I don’t really care about (scoring), as long as we win. That’s the most important part. If James has it going, I’ll sit there and watch. No problem with me. It doesn’t matter who scores, how many points they score. As long as the Houston Rockets are scoring and … winning, that’s all I care about.”
Harden has often made similar proclamations. He and Westbrook might play together roughly
22 to 24 minutes per game, with D’Antoni planning to keep a star point guard on the floor at all times. The goal, however, is for
both to feel free to dominate in their way even when playing together.
“When I’m feeling it, my entire team is going to gas me up,” Harden said. “They’re going to be like, ‘Keep going.’ So when Russ is feeling it, I’m going to gas him up. ‘Keep going. Do what you do. Do what’s gotten you to this point in your career.’ Like when Eric is getting it going, hitting 3s and getting to the basket, that’s what we need, and that’s the kind of team we’re going to have.
“When somebody’s got it going, keep gassing them up, keep boosting them up. We try to build it up.”
The challenge is to avoid taking turns. That has often been the issue when stars become teammates, from the first season with James and Dwyane Wade in Miami to even the first half of last season with Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry in Toronto. The best players help not only the role players around them but one another. The Raptors still relied heavily on Leonard on the way to the NBA championship, but the offense became far more cohesive on the way to the title.
“Taking turns is something you don’t want to do,” D’Antoni said. “That’s like an All-Star Game. ‘I’ll watch him play because he’s so good, and then he’ll watch me play.’ We try to avoid that. It takes awhile to get over that.
“I’ll be honest with you. The leadership that James has shown so far and Russ and everybody else, it’s been impressive. That heartens me the most. Their focus is not on James and Russ playing together, not on teaming up superstars. They’re focused on winning a championship. If they can keep that, then we’ll have a good shot. It can be really good.”
Harden and Westbrook could benefit from their differences, like a hard-throwing righthander coming in after a lefty throwing breaking balls. Harden described Westbrook as “way more athletic” and said he plays “two or three times faster.” But beyond the advantages that come with different styles and the issues of perhaps of making their skills mesh without diminishing either, theirs in not an arranged marriage.
They wanted this and have celebrated their reunion since it came together in a July rush. The previous pairings of MVPs have brought mixed results, but the potential was always as clear as the only way Harden and Westbrook can realize it.
“At the end of the day, we need each other,” Harden said. “This thing won’t work without each other.”