70, 80 … 90? How high can Harden go?
Scoring spree could put Rockets guard in the record books
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tilted his head. He paused to calculate the possibilities and ponder a question that has inspired the NBA: How much could James Harden score in a game?
“I’m doing the math of what’s the limit,” Morey said. “I’m thinking of his usage rate and our possessions.”
He closed his eyes. He muttered and spoke in tongues, his sentences starting and fading as if he were writing out the equations in his mind like John Nash on a window or Will Hunting on a chalkboard.
“… 45 … 105… that’s 50… so then 50 possessions … I’m doing, like, roughly our pace for the year, one of our higher-pace games … and a usage rate of something around 50 … then, so, I mean, you’re talking probably 50, 60 plays, as we call them … then he has one of his better efficiency nights — 1.3 or something.”
Punching the theoretically high rates of team possessions, pace and Harden’s most efficient points per possession into his
TI-83 brain, Morey took 94 seconds to answer.
“So that’s … uh … 80, probably 90,” he said.
He suggested that Harden could drop 90 points if all went right in a game.
Morey qualified his theory: “I don’t want to limit him, though.”
Reason has its boundaries, but Harden’s wizardry is testing the imagination. The spree that has catapulted his league-leading average to 36.3 points per game began modestly Nov. 21 with 40 against the Pistons. By Dec. 13 against the Lakers, he mounted his second 50point performance of the season, and nights that followed would find him permanently mentioned alongside Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain and/or Michael Jordan with regard to the NBA’s most prolific scoring streaks.
Harden has scored at least 30 points (32, actually) in 24 consecutive games. Doing so again Friday against the Denver Nuggets would tie him with Chamberlain for the third-longest streak in history. With 610 points in January, Harden joined Chamberlain as the only players to score 600 in a month with fewer than 15 games.
“Even an off night, if he goes 1for-17, he gets 38,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “That’s why I thought this could go on forever.”
D’Antoni was exaggerating, but Harden managed to score 35 on seven field goals against Miami and 43 on eight against Memphis.
“No matter what, he’ll find a way to score,” D’Antoni said.
Harden has scored at least 35 points in 11 consecutive games. His career-high averages in 3s (4.9), drives (19.6) and free throws (10.3) have made some performances, like the 35 he piled on Toronto, seem quietly constructed.
“I wish I could have a quiet 35,” Rockets guard Gerald Green said. “It’s kind of weird to not see him score 45 or 50. I’m so used to seeing him score 58 any time now.”
Harden’s 61-point opus at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 23 left room for improvement.
“He didn’t even shoot well that game and had 60,” Rockets guard Austin Rivers said.
Harden went 5-for-20 from 3point range. If, instead of making 25 percent, he had shot 36.7 percent, his average this season, he would have drilled two more 3s and finished with 67 points.
Stretching that logic a bit further, if Harden were to match his game highs of 10 3s, 12 2s and 22 free throws, he would total 76 points.
“I have no doubt in my mind he could score 70 and get to 80,” Rivers said.
Opponents are just as confident as teammates that Harden has not topped out.
“He’s scoring at the rim, he’s scoring at the free-throw line, he’s making a bunch of 3s as well,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “Realistically, the 61 number is pretty high, but I don’t see why he couldn’t go higher than that.”
“It could be from 70 to 75, easy,” Pelicans forward Wesley Johnson said.
“He could get 70 for sure,” Raptors forward Danny Green said. “If anyone could do 80, it’s him.”
As Harden walked past Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry before Tuesday night’s game, Gentry made a request.
“Slow down,” Gentry said halfjokingly. “Try to stay under 60, OK?”
Basketball is trending in a direction that encourages scoring binges and amplifies the isolation style, which is Harden’s mastery. Teams are playing at the highest pace in 20 years and averaging more than 110 points for the first time since 1984-86.
There were five 50-point games from 2009 to 2011. There have been 26 since October 2017, and Harden has nine of them.
Players speak about Harden as if it is a foregone conclusion he will surpass a mark that seemed untouchable 13 years ago.
“He could probably break Kobe’s record if he was on and everything was going his way,” Pelicans forward Jahlil Okafor said.
The sport was incomparably different when Chamberlain scored 100 points in Hershey, Pa., in 1962, but Kobe Bryant’s 81 points against the Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006, is viewed like the modern singlegame record.
“He definitely can get to 81,” Raptors forward C.J. Miles said of Harden. “He shoots so many 3s, he’s going to give himself a chance. A night when it opens up, he’ll make 12 out of 20 3s.”
“Nobody knew Kobe would do that,” Magic guard D.J. Augustin said. “Guys have those nights where they can’t miss. If anybody in the league could get to that level, it would be (Harden).”
Magic center Mo Bamba reasoned that Harden has the ball in his hands enough to give it a try.
“The amount of touches that he gets, it’s possible,” Bamba said. “His isolation scoring is unreal.”
Among the most impressive qualities he has displayed, Harden is countering defenses better.
“He’s continued to get better scoring-wise each year,” Rockets guard Eric Gordon said. “Now it’s on a different level because he’s doing it against set defenses. We’ve watched him go through it all. You can’t guard him.”
Said Miles: “He knows the rules of what can and can’t be done on both sides of the ball. He’s evolved. He’s going to get all these different defenses and (defenders). Then he figures out, as the game flows, ‘How do I make what he’s doing my strength?’ ”
Entering Jan. 25 against the Raptors, Harden had drawn 60 fouls on 3-point attempts, by far the most in the league.
“They referee him differently than other people,” Green said, “but he does a good job of using his body. You can’t give him space. He makes tough shots. Even when you get in his space and try not to let him hit it, he’s good at drawing the contact. You come up underneath him, with his elbow or his arm down, he’s good at drawing the contact to where he’s going to get an and-one 3-pointer or three free throws.”
Just because Harden is capable of catching Bryant with a rush of 3s and free throws does not correlate strongly with the likelihood he will. As Morey suggested, Harden can take advantage of several factors within his control, such as Houston’s pace and possessions, but he also needs the opposing team to fall in his favor.
“It’s going to be one of those teams, like a young team that’s going to try to play faster than them,” Miles posited. “They’re thinking about, ‘We’re trying to be as good as we can be. We’re not playing a tactical game trying to beat the Houston Rockets.’ So if he’s rolling and they’re rolling, ain’t nobody playing defense anyway.”
The Rockets would need to be in a game that relied on Harden’s scoring a lot, according to Johnson, who recalled that the Lakers trailed the Raptors by 18 points before mounting a comeback on Bryant’s 81-point night.
That raises another obstacle to Harden: pride of the opponent. The Raptors franchise still gets burned by mentions of Bryant’s scorching night.
“If you’re down by 20 and a guy has 60 or 70, (the opposing team) literally will be like, ‘Y’all can beat us by 30. We’re not going to be the butt of a joke,’ ” Rivers said. “Nobody wants to be that Toronto team. How many times has (former Raptors guard/forward) Jalen Rose brought that up?”
The return of Rockets guard Chris Paul offers another complication. Over the long run, Paul will steal minutes from Harden, but Harden has more than 30 games remaining to mount a special night. D’Antoni suggested Paul could make Harden more efficient because Harden will not have to wind down the shot clock, waiting for the right moment to strike.
“No more dead minutes,” D’Antoni said.
To think, all that time Harden spent carrying the Rockets with his repeated historic efforts, he could have been scoring more.