It’s almost time to unmask this team’s identity as true title contender or just a pretender again
Only a few of the NBA’s international superstars could coolly stroll into the league’s protective bubble environment five days after their team arrived and have an eight-second video of the nighttime entrance viewed 1.5 million times less than 24 hours later.
James Harden is one of those superstars.
His rolling suitcase made the most noise. Technically, there was nothing to see. But the NBA’s leading scorer and one of the league’s most debated players was back in the spotlight, which made the eight-second video must-see Twitter TV.
Rockets fans have been waiting and wondering about Harden. A team still tied for fifth
place in the Western Conference, more than four months after the last game was played, has simply been waiting. And now that the bearded (and masked) face of the franchise has finally arrived in Orlando, Fla., for the restart of a season that almost fell apart, the lingering questions can begin to be answered.
Can these re-collected Rockets really become the July through October force they have been insisting they can be during recent weeks?
Will small ball be the best thing that has happened to the Rockets since 1995? Or the beginning of the end for Mike D’Antoni, Daryl Morey and more in Rockets red?
How long is it going to take Russell Westbrook, who announced Monday he had tested positive for the coronavirus, to return to his soaring January/ February form and reconnect with Harden?
The power duo is averaging 61.9 points, 14.4 assists, 14.4 rebounds and 45.3 field-goal attempts per game but rarely clicked in peak form together before a pandemic abruptly paused the NBA’s season.
And why did it take Harden almost a week to join the team that he leads, with so much on the line in the 2020 bubble and the basketball world watching a modern science experiment play out in real time?
As of Wednesday evening, the Rockets still hadn’t said anything official about Harden’s absence. Which means the official word will likely have to come from The Beard in a video interview with the media.
Is he going to open up?
Did he just need a last look at non-bubble life?
To be determined.
And that’s how everything is for these Rockets, really.
For all the talk about prepackaged food, ping-pong tables, water slides, shoe collections and quarantine lines, there will soon be real games to play inside an environment that is absolutely unprecedented in NBA history.
The Rockets have so much to gain and not much to lose. If they ultimately faceplant in Orlando, it will be remembered that they were unpredictable and uneven all season, deserving all the frustrated public callouts by D’Antoni.
Harden has everything to gain and can write a new life script in the Florida sun.
His numbers, on paper, are again ridiculous this season: 34.4 points, 7.4 assists, 6.4 rebounds, 1.7 steals, 36.7 minutes, 28.3 player efficiency rating. He leads Washington’s Bradley Beal by almost four full points in average scoring, and Beal won’t run the hardwood in the bubble. Harden trails only Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo in PER, and the Bucks entered Orlando sporting a league-best 53-12 record.
But even with all the crazy numbers, Harden again isn’t an MVP favorite, and the national perception of his current season has had more in common with 2015-16 — when he somehow failed to make all three All-NBA teams — than his record-setting 2017-18 MVP campaign.
A healthy, rested, fully motivated Harden should be the best and most unguardable scorer on any court in Orlando. Add in Westbrook’s dynamic play and full-court intensity, and the Rockets rival Los Angeles’ NBA teams for the best superstar combo in the league.
The swished 3-pointers, stepbacks, hard slams and gamechanging drives will soon return for Harden. There will be points, points and more points.
But when the Rockets are really tested?
When the opposition is taller and deeper and plays four quarters of playoff defense?
When the Rockets need a true leader to push them past the Lakers, Clippers, Nuggets, Bucks, Raptors, Celtics and more?
Who, really, is the man who coolly strolled into the NBA bubble five days after his team, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, backpack, camouflage pants, bucket hat and mask?
We’re about to find out again.