James Harden-BEARD

We met with Lamont Smith last summer in Novi Sad.

Smith is currently the first assistant coach of the University of New Mexico looking at potentially interesting players from this part of Europe for his college. Why is Smtih important in this story? In the period 2008-12 Smith was an assistant trainer at Arizona State at Herb Sendek and spent most of his time working individually with James Harden. The story of the then still neatly shaved beak has made progress.

A lot of them, unfortunately, are not for these lines, and are mostly concerned with James's efforts outside the court. They're just as interesting in the field ...

"James is a Californian boy." The people born in Calie generally have easier access to life, there is not much rush in most Americans. "Harden is sometimes too relaxed but likes to compete. all the reactions are attacked in a fraction of a second. Nothing works in advance, but reacts at a given moment, it has the perfect instinct. "

What would you say to me, Harden knows how to play basketball. It is not particularly fast, it is not particularly jumpy, it is not particularly strong, but it will without much effort stack 30. About 10 free throws, two - three triples and an endless series of penetrations from different angles with a ball dropped below the knee ...

"In the second year he already had the reputation of a big shooter so that the majority of opponents in his position were burning to stop him. One match, a boy played two or three times a good defense against him and then broke up ... James looked at him then and then he asked the next balls to go in. He dropped 20 points against that guy in a row without fail in the next 8-9 attacks. I followed his reactions ... it seemed to cry, "Smith recalls.

Sam Prestige was preparing himself in detail to draft Hardena. Prestigiously he did his homework. It was as if Harden had filled up various types of tests and what was not, all in order to complete the file ... Oklahoma liked the fact that attacking Harden could do everything.

If it needs to stand in the corner, it can. If he needs to translate the ball, he can do it. If you need to play one to one or two in two, it's not a problem.

Harden needed the Thunder to bring the total attacking flexibility, which he did. Entering the first reserve from the bench, Harden passed the way from a stationary shot from the corner to the player who created the OKC attacks in the finals of the match and won the award for the best sixth player. As Nick Collison then said:

"Surprised how many tricks are in attack and how much it has a natural sense of play."

Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka.

All exceptional in their own way, no one over 23 years at that moment. A team that will probably win at least two NBA titles. A nucleus that makes you from this point of view to make you cuddle when you think of what they could do. In reality they played one NBA Finals in which they were defeated and that was it. The stigma of Oklahoma's foremost people is unbreakable from this perspective. All the stories about the cost of maintaining such a team, the famous luxury taxi are falling into the water when you say only one word - the dynasty.

Oklahoma could have been a sheriff of the West, a team through which all the way to the title goes ... now this story looks like a distant past.

In essence neither Harden did help himself, probably playing his worst NBA career in the final against Miami in the final. Probably not even at his usual level, Oklahoma would not get caught up in the wallet, but as if they were barely waiting to play the story that Harden was not the player for the maximum contract.So he did not mean "Hurricane" from Houston Darryl Morey. He promised Harden's agent Rob Peligny a maximum contract and soon an exchange was agreed between the player in which the Oklahoma Road was heading for Martin, Jeremy Lamb and a selection of the draft later transformed into Steven Adams ...

Harden is armed with a $ 80 million contract to go to Rocketz in his favorite habitat - Stripper Club. Since arriving in Houston, the "beard" was armed with self-confidence and quite went aside from what he did in Oklahoma.

From the guy who mostly talked about the team and team victories, we came to the point that James declared himself to be the best player in the world, how he and Howard are the players of the game, and everyone else in the team, "players of the role," and then appeared and Lithuanian Moteijunas with the statement that "Harden and Howard never eat with the rest of the team." Youtube compilations were made on his annual vacation in defense during the last season.

Since the arrival of Darryl Morey as the general manager, Houston has been trying to form the concept of the game on what advanced statistics say. Experiment with NBDL Houston, Rio Grandeom, whose players exclusively shot three points and out of the free-throw racket largely ignored the poludistance, further convinced Morey that this is the best way to win them (the experiment was brought by the team and the players such as Troy Daniels, Isaac Cananna, Robert Covington who have developed into the real specialists of this type of basketball).

Rockets are silent for three points or out of the racket (poludistance is used only when there is no other solution) and extract the most fouls in the NBA.

Morey and his statisticians calculated that the team's percentage of three-point shots of 33% is the same as 50% for two, and that every decimale of the team's percentage by three points above 33 points to the team giving priority to a three-point shot compared to a half-player.

Just 15 years ago, Jeff Van Gundy said that the best shot in basketball - free throw, and that teams have the best percentage of shots in the penalty shootout regardless of all Shaquill, Bradley, Dudley, DeAndre Jordan and other wooden arms of the basketball world. Even then, Jeff was talking about how important it is to attack as many free throws in the attack, and allow them to do as little as possible in the defense.All this Houston incorporated into his game philosophy. Kevin McHale is always open to try new things, so Houston plays quickly and without a call to action in the attack. It pays a lot for three points (preferably from the corner) and goes a lot on the line of free throws. The main driving force behind this game is James Harden. Harden, though no longer has the work ethic he had in Oklahoma (his nights are longer in Houston), because of the accumulated experience he is becoming more and more dangerous. He sees the game even slower than it was two years ago. His basketball skills were here five years ago, only then did not have the present day's confidence. Now with more courage, Harden works on things that he seemed to know from the second grade of high school.
One of the best market statistics prof. Kirk Goldsberry said in his article at Grantland that James Harden is currently "the best producer" of the three in the NBA, that his total of three hit players with a number of assistances for three-point shooters are by far the biggest in the NBA. You hear all kinds of stories about the game of Harden, but it's worth noting that no one at the NBA currently combines such good points and assistances as James. In the perfect environment between selfishness and altruism.

Free throws are a special story ... Harden has already kicked off 2,840 penalties for five and a half, which is really powerful for the back. This year is the best in terms of the number of attempted and by the number of affected throws. Currently, Harden has nine free games per game with a fantastic 88% realization. Last year he had a game with 27 points out of which 22! from the penalty line (only two points from the game).

We should add to this that Harden will only be 26 years old in August. The simply crossed two-step or as Americans call it "eurostep" has become the subject of numerous analyzes.

Ginobili was the pioneer of this move in the NBA, Wade was close to it, but no one did it so lightly and out of all possible positions as Harden. A man simply enters an opponent to make a foul. There's no such extra glamor. In 95% of the cases Faul really was ...

Here we come to strange dynamics. Harden is better in the season than in the season and he is training less and less. Two years ago, he was preparing for a season riding a stationary bike at a local fitness club (not exactly spartan training) in Los Angeles. His love for strip clubs is over and widely documented. The case is flourishing by coming to Houston, which has Las Vegas and Atlanta the best of its kind in the United States (Howard loves the same love so they are the perfect combination).

Everything appears to be the information that Harden paid some 20 million or 25 thousand dollars to a luxurious girlfriend to come to Houston and spend a few days with him (or not to pay as much as expected, and then damaging her on Twitter). In Harden's society, solo bands, strippers, models from video spots with strange tattoos or sponsored by the catalog have been solved. Even NBA players on All Star weekends get:

"I hear you've raised the criterion, huhaha !!"

With all the effort you will not find that lawyer or doctor (Recently, it was noticed that a tetra from a club in Las Vegas with Amber Rose) .... Not particularly helped by the fact that he has happily climbed among the 12 players for the London Olympics. Harden has just been given the confirmation that his arsenal of moves is sufficient to bear equally against the best in the world.
Carrying a sleeve and headphones and glaring his head in the rhythm of music throughout the SP in Spain, Harden was playing as a veteran approaching the end of his career. Lightly, effortless, sporadically precise from distance, and yet extremely killer and useful (double-digit in every game except in the first against Finland, the best team-shooter, second assistant, first ball thief).

And despite all the exits, Harden and there is some balance because he is next to Steph Curry as the first MVP winner this season. Harden is currently the first scorer of the league with 27 points per game. To this, you need to add six rebounds, seven assists and two stolen balls on average and a very good percentage of the shot (especially for three points where it has become a constant threat with almost three hits per game).

Unlike last season, Harden is not sleeping in defense this year, and he has even sequences where he completely stops his opponent or perfectly jumps onto the dodge line and steals the ball (something he always worked perfectly), and his team is among the top five defense teams in the league, after they were eliminated last season by everyone.

Regardless of the brilliance of Harden, it is hard for Rocketse to be ranked in the favorites list for the finals, taking into account the difficulty of the West, and to have better teams at the moment (not even constant problems with Dwight Howard's injuries are helpful). Again with the defensive progress that this Houston show, it works like a team capable of making a problem for everyone and passing at least one round of the play, something that did not go hand in hand last year.

Houston since 1994 and Hakeem did not have the most useful league player, "Brad" is 20 years later on a good way to change it ....