Clippers Preaching Patience, Process After Harden Trade
"Process" has been the word du jour espoused by players and staff alike since the team's trade for the 10-time All-Star.
PLAYA VISTA, Calif. — The Philadelphia 76ers were once famously known for their organizational motto, ‘The Process’, used to describe the rebuilding endeavor that the organization underwent, which landed them several No. 1 overall picks that resulted in the eventual drafting of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Markelle Fultz.
With the LA Clippers acquiring guard James Harden on Wednesday from Philadelphia, it appears that ‘The Process’ has now moved to Los Angeles.
Yet, like most Hollywood stories, there’s one big cloud hanging over this burgeoning saga: talk is only as good as the actions that follow it.
“We just going into practice and just going to try to figure everything out,” reserve guard Bones Hyland told gathered media on Friday ahead of a scheduled practice at the team’s training facility.
“Everything is new for everybody, so just going to see what spots everybody likes, go through plays. He give [sic] his insight on things and other players give their insight on things as well, and we just go from there. Like Russ said a couple of days ago, it's not just going to mesh right away, it'll take some time. He just came along. So don't, don't look at it as like, ‘Oh, it's not clicking, it's not working yet.’ We’re in, what, game five, or we in game five or something like that? Yeah, so it'll work out.”
The players and coaching staff have been adamant that this is not going to be a seamless fit that’ll come together instantaneously. Harden is set to make his Clippers debut on Monday night in New York, but he will likely be on some form of a minutes restriction as he plays his first meaningful basketball game in roughly six months.
“It won’t be you know, like, no crazy restrictions,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said on Friday. “But we want to be smart. And so when he does take the court we want to make sure we're doing right by James and so, just making sure he's gonna be able to handle the load and how he's gonna be able to play and what level and how many minutes. So, we just got to make sure we just monitor him well and just keep an eye on him.”
The last time that Harden appeared on an NBA court, the 10-time All-Star was part of a Philadelphia squad that was in the process of blowing a 3-2 lead against the Boston Celtics as they lost Game 7 on the road by 24 points. Harden finished that night with nine points, seven assists, and six rebounds, but shot just 3-for-11 from the field and generally looked disinterested for stretches.
Harden is a future Hall of Famer who has played with fellow players of his ilk. The biggest comparison that outsiders, and even Harden himself, can point to is the brief time the guard spent in Brooklyn alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
That trio only managed 16 games together during their 13 months, but the Nets did go 13-3 during that time and outscored opponents by 136 points in their 783 minutes, according to PBP Stats.
“I've been in situations where I've been having the basketball or situations where I play off the basketball,” Harden said during his introductory press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“I was in a similar situation in Brooklyn where you've got two guys that can score the basketball and create mismatches with defenses. So, I'm fine on the basketball, off the basketball, pick-and-roll, catching and shooting. We have some really good coaches. We have some really, a lot of really unselfish players, to where if things are going, if one of those guys or even somebody like Norm (Powell) or Bones (Hyland) or any other teammates got it going, we got a pretty good team and a pretty unselfish team where we can see that and let them go. For me, I can score the basketball, but I'm a very, very good passer as well. So, I can facilitate.”
Harden presents the Clippers with their biggest and most potent perimeter maestro to date.
They attempted to fill the glaring point guard hole in recent years with a variety of guards. That list included, in no particular order, Reggie Jackson, John Wall, Eric Bledsoe, Patrick Beverley, Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook, and now Harden. But none of those players bring what Harden does.
The guard’s penchant for delivering off-the-bounce creativity both as a scorer and facilitator is unmatched by any of the prior lead guards. While there were and are positives to each of the ones before Harden, none come close to his level of offensive chutzpah and imagination.
Still, there is the issue of the team attempting to mesh this all together, and the team’s current starting point guard was quick to point that out on Wednesday following the loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, a few hours after the trade became official.
“It's going to be a process,” Westbrook said postgame when asked about how it’ll all come together both on and off the court after adding Harden.
“It’ll be a process. I don't have the answer. I don’t know, I don’t predict the future. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know, bro. But it's going to be a process. It's going to be ups and downs, going to be good games, bad games. It's not just going to come together and mesh and we're going to be perfectly fine. That's unrealistic expectations for everybody. The realistic expectations, like I said, it's going to be a process. I don't have the answer [to] what that is.”
Westbrook is the player who will be hit the hardest by Harden’s arrival, and while the two are friends and do talk regularly throughout the season even when on different teams, it’s clear to all who can read between the lines that there is some semblance of uncertainty with their relationship on this team. What’s good for Harden is not necessarily what’s good for Westbrook, and vice versa.
However, what’s good for the Clippers and their superstar duo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George will supersede what’s good for Harden and especially Westbrook, who was re-signed this past offseason to a two-year minimum contract with the second year as a player option.
“He's one of the best players to step on the NBA floor and yeah, so we got a lot to figure out and I'm happy for him and ready to see him play in a Clipper jersey,” said Leonard following Wednesday’s game when asked his thoughts on the team acquiring Harden.
“I think we still have to come in kind of like with a selfish mindset, meaning we can't look over our shoulder and say this guy is going to win the game, or this guy's going to win the game for us. We still have to step on that floor like we out there by ourselves and from there, it is going to be sacrifice. It's only one basketball and we just got to figure it out from there. But I think we all are old enough to understand what we want to do here and we'll see what happens.”
The age aspect of this quartet, as mentioned by Leonard, is another factor in all of this.
Westbrook, who turns 35 in November, and Harden are both 34 years old while George is 33 and Leonard is 32. In basketball years, there’s a lot of mileage here. The hope, at least based on Leonard’s comments and those who have looked at the situation from afar, is that age breeds maturity from each one of them.
There needs to be a certain level of buy-in and understanding that none of these players, all of whom have finished in the top three in Most Valuable Player voting or won the award outright, as both Harden and Westbrook have during their careers, are the head honcho on the team. There’s no “me” anymore. It’s a “we” that has to develop. That doesn’t happen overnight. And that appears to be what they’re trying to hammer home.
“We all said we think we can make it work, we'll figure it out, but we've obviously got to practice, we got to play for us to really get on the same page and understand how to play how on the floor with one another,” George said Wednesday.
It’ll be up to Lue to get all of the pieces working together and ticking in rhythm like a Swiss watch. In terms of basketball purity, the trio of Harden, George, and Leonard might be the best-fitting triumvirate of perimeter talent we’ve seen in recent years. While some will point to that Brooklyn team that Harden featured on alongside Durant and Irving, an argument could be made that Harden, George, and Leonard operate in different areas of the floor and thus won’t step on each other’s toes when things get dialed up.
“I think it’s gonna be a great working relationship,” Lue said Friday.
“You know, just understand that we're gonna let James be him but at the same time just doing it in the confines of our team, team schemes. And so what he brings to our team is his passing ability, able to get to the free throw line, and get downhill and make plays is huge for us. It takes a lot of pressure off Kawhi and PG when they get tired and they don’t have to make every play along with Russ as well. So, you have another guy who can do that and actually generate open shots, which is huge for our team.”
There’s a growing belief that Harden’s arrival can signal a further need to limit the workload being shouldered by both George and Leonard.
Through five games, George is averaging 28.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 2.4 steals on a 73.7 True Shooting Percentage in 33.4 minutes per contest. George's Usage Rate presently sits at 28.2, which is slightly down from the 29.5 he enjoyed last season.
Leonard is averaging 23.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 1.8 steals on a 58.1 True Shooting Percentage while playing 33.6 minutes per game. Leonard has seen his Usage Rate slightly increase from 27.0 last season to 27.8 this season, but that's still down from where it was during his initial season with the Clippers when he posted a 33.0 Usage Rate across 1848 minutes, which still stands as a career-high in a season for the forward.
Even Westbrook's on-ball exploits have dropped this season with the Clippers. After arriving in February, Westbrook posted a 25.2 Usage Rage across 21 games. It jumped to 29.8 in the postseason. But now, through five games, it sits at 21.5. That would be the lowest mark of Westbrook's career if it went on for a full season.
Lue addressed the topic of Harden potentially limiting the stress and workload on George and Leonard when asked on Friday.
“Yeah, it's very important,” Lue said. “I think you have two guys that have to do so much for the team, like I said, defensively and offensively. Adding James takes a lot of pressure off of them, a lot of workload, and now they can be recipients of catch-and-shoot threes and not having to make every play. And so I'm very excited about what it’s gonna look like.”
All the talk of sacrifice and process and patience and sharing and meshing together is just that — it’s talk. The stars and coaching staff can play in their heads what they think will happen, but until they actually see it take place on a court, no one has any idea.
The Clippers are confident that this can work. The stars seem confident that it can work. They’re just asking for a little patience and understanding along the way. It might be a bumpy road before they get to a point where everyone and everything is comfortable. Only time will tell.
Until then, as Paul George poetically espoused on Wednesday night, there’s just one thing the four future Hall of Famers need to have a shared epiphany about for all of this to mesh together and work as they look to achieve the common goal of winning a championship.
“Understanding it’s one basketball.”