James Harden Returns Home to Compete for Championship
On Thursday, the oft-criticized guard spoke for the first time since his trade to the Clippers.
PLAYA VISTA, Calif. — Home is officially where the Harden is.
Superstar guard James Harden has returned home to Los Angeles, where he starred at Artesia High School before heading off to Arizona State University and eventually molding himself into the No. 3 overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft.
“When I was back at Artesia, I was just trying to make it out and change the direction of my family and make it to the NBA,” Harden said at his introductory press conference at the LA Clippers training facility in front of around 50 gathered media on Thursday afternoon.
“Now being in my 15th year is something special, and then having an opportunity to be back here with literally my entire family is, it's even more special. So, I'm definitely excited.”
Harden is fresh off a season with the Philadelphia 76ers where he averaged 21.0 points, a league-leading 10.7 assists, and 6.1 rebounds in 58 games. Harden has toned back his scoring load in recent years since leaving Houston and joining up with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn and 2022-23 MVP Joel Embiid in Philadelphia.
Harden’s need to sacrifice in recent years became a talking point during Thursday’s presser.
”[The] Philly [situation] is just changing my role, knowing I can give more, knowing I can do more, but if you want to be honest, being on a leash and me knowing in order for us to get where we want to get to, I was going to have to be playing my best offensively, whether it's facilitating and scoring the basketball and Joel (Embiid) as well,” Harden said on Thursday when asked the biggest challenge he’s had to overcome.
“And I never really had that opportunity. So, I think all that plays into where I am today where whatever T-Lue and the coaching staff needs me to do. I've been prepared and been in both situations, whether me scoring 15, 16 points or scoring 30, as long as we win the game and everybody's feeling confident and good about themselves, that's all that really matters.”
Before the Achilles soreness that he dealt with during March and April of last season, Harden was averaging 21.7 points, 10.8 assists, and 6.3 rebounds on 44.6 percent shooting overall and 39.0 percent on 7.3 three-point attempts per game. After the soreness, Harden managed only 14.7 points, 9.2 assists, and 4.2 rebounds on 38.8 percent shooting across six games.
When later asked to expand on his comments about what happened in Philadelphia, Harden responded, “When I'm in [sic] a leash, I'm not just shooting the basketball every time. I meant, like, I think the game and I'm a creator on the court, you know what I mean? So, if I got a voice to where I can [say], ‘Hey, coach, I see this. What you think about this?’ Then it's like, OK, somebody that trusts me, that believes in me, that understands me, that I'm just not, I'm not a system player. I am a system. You know what I mean? So, somebody that can have that dialogue with me and understand and move forward and figure out and make adjustments on the fly throughout the course of games, that's all I really care about. It's not about me scoring a basketball, scoring 34 points. I've done that already. So that's what I meant by that.”
Harden arrives to the Clippers at a pivotal point for the franchise as they desperately chase the organization’s first-ever championship.
Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are off to hot starts in 2023-24 as they’re averaging 28.8 points on 56.0 percent shooting and 23.0 points on 47.3 percent shooting, respectively. The Clippers lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in an overtime heartbreaker on Wednesday night and moved to 3-2 on the young season.
When Harden was asked on Thursday whether he felt that he was motivated to prove anything with the Clippers, Harden was straight to the point: “Yeah, everything. That I'm very elite as an individual, and then I can fit in with anybody and make a championship run work. So, I think all of us are on the same page in the sense of the individual stats and all those things are past us and we all got one goal and I think everybody knows what that is. So for me, it's just going out here and finding the best way to contribute to this team.”
Harden’s comments about “being on a leash” and wanting to play under a coach that “trusts” him appeared, at least for those in attendance, to be subtle shots at former Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers. That suspicion was given greater credence when Harden later implied how motivated he is to play under Clippers coach Tyronn Lue. Lue, in his fourth season at the helm in Los Angeles after taking over for Rivers after Rivers’ dismissal following the team’s collapse in the 2020 Bubble, appears to have the makings of the type of coach that Harden can thrive under.
With the Clippers’ stars adamant about still finding a lead ball-handler to both pair with and offset Russell Westbrook’s workload, the front office went out and got one in Harden who is arguably the best player in this current era at running spread pick-and-rolls — a system Lue has cultivated over the years that’s yielded immense results.
“We’ve had conversations,” Harden said of his relationship with Lue. “I’ve known him for a very long time. Not in this setting, but he has a very, very basketball mind, and I've been just watching him and the things he draws in the huddles is, it's crazy. Unbelievable.”
For Harden, the inevitable storyline of four players who starred at Southern California high schools playing on a team in Los Angeles as they all compete for that franchise’s first championship is not lost on him, not just from a standpoint of winning but what it also means to the community at large.
“That's special,” Harden stated. “That goes, like, beyond us. You know what I mean? Like, we were those kids looking up to guys like, you know, Paul Pierce and, you know, I mean, Baron Davis, you know? Those guys are OGs, you know what I mean, that had very, very successful careers. And we have an opportunity, and I think we've been doing a really good job thus far. But we have an even more better opportunity to do it and show them. Whether it's in the community, whether it's on the court, just overall. That's definitely a story that, you know, we'll try to push and try to help the community because, you know, like I said, they're next and, you know, they're watching.”
The LA Clippers are banking a lot on this mishmash of talent jelling together and delivering what the franchise has so desperately craved since their inception in Buffalo 54 years ago.
George, Harden, Leonard, and Westbrook are all future first-ballot Hall of Famers. They’re the type of players whose games have been diligently watched, studied, and dissected for the last decade-and-a-half. But their ties to the local Southern California and Los Angeles areas are another thing that binds them together.
For Harden, his career has seen him go from Oklahoma City as a Sixth Man, to Houston as the star player who catapulted a franchise into contention, to Brooklyn where he got to play with his good friend Kevin Durant and fellow superstar guard Kyrie Irving, and finally to Philadelphia where he was able to have what was roundly viewed as his best chance at a championship.
Now, Harden gets to come home to Los Angeles and play in front of his friends and family. Life has a way of bringing you home. Even at what could be the last possible moment.
Before Harden is able to play a single game in Los Angeles, he and the Clippers will head on the road to play the New York Knicks, and Harden intimated that his first game for the franchise will be on Monday in Madison Square Garden.
“I had a really good workout today, so I think our next game is Monday,” Harden said. “So, tomorrow we'll practice, and in a few days, and hopefully be ready to go by Monday.”
Harden participated in a “Stay Ready” game at the team’s practice facility on Thursday alongside the Clippers’ young players. Friday’s practice will be the first time that Harden, George, Leonard, and Westbrook will share the court in an official setting for the first time since the trade became official on Wednesday.