James Harden injures knee in Rockets preseason game (Video)

James Harden left the Rockets’ preseason game on Sunday with a knee injury

James Harden was forced to leave the Houston Rockets’ preseason game against the Orlando Magic on Sunday night after suffering a right knee injury. The injury occurred when Harden was hustling back to defend Evan Fournier on a fast break and Fournier made contact with Harden’s knee on the way to the basket:

As you can see in the video, Harden was obviously hobbled by the contact. With the injury occurring late in the second quarter, the Rockets pulled their superstar from the game and ruled him out for the rest of the preseason contest with the team calling the injury a right knee contusion:

Harden had a legitimate case to be the league MVP for the 2014-15 season, though he ultimately lost out to Stephen Curry for the award. With the Rockets guard entering his prime and point guard Ty Lawson joining he and Dwight Howard and Houston, the Rockets have NBA Championship aspirations heading into the 2015-16 season.

Consequently, it’s a smart move for the Rockets to pull him from a relatively meaningless preseason game. Even if the injury isn’t that serious and really is nothing more than a contusion, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Rockets sit their star guard for their next couple of preseason games as well.

It’s better to make sure that Harden is healthy at the start of the season and for the Rockets to get off to a good start in a loaded Western Conference than to push him to play in games that ultimately don’t mean a great deal. For the sake of wanting to watch one of basketball’s best players be at his peak this season, let’s hope he recovers from this quickly and that it isn’t something that lingers.