Nylon Calculus: James Harden’s scoring is unreal

It’s still early in the season, but this is the best basketball James Harden has ever played, particularly on the offensive end. He’s always been one of the league’s most efficient scorers, and he’s somehow managed to get even better this season.

By volume and efficiency he’s breaking into some uncharted territory.

Harden’s current season isn’t just a personal best in terms of scoring; it’s also arguably better than all of Durant’s and all of Curry’s aside from the latter’s unanimous MVP campaign in 2015-16. Curry’s efficiency was certainly unreal that season, but many more of his shots were set up by teammates than what we’re currently seeing for Harden:

Curry and Durant may score a similar volume on comparable efficiency, but Harden does so with little help from his teammates. The only other players with multiple high-scoring seasons and over 75 percent of field goals made unassisted are Russell Westbrook (career high 55.4 true shooting percentage) and Allen Iverson (career-high 56.7 true shooting percentage). Harden is certainly in his own category of scorers.

One specific example of Harden’s remarkable scoring is his isolation play. Isolations are traditionally among the least efficient play types, but this doesn’t seem to apply to James Harden this season.

Since NBA.com started offering this data in the 2015-16 season, Harden runs the most isolation plays by far (1266 isolation plays, second most is Carmelo with 869). This season, Harden isos more frequently than ever before and on an unreal efficiency. His volume will likely decline over the course of the season as Chris Paul eases back into the lineup, but if anything, we should expect another strong shooter like Paul to help Harden’s efficiency.

Another demonstration of Harden’s improvement is his 3-point shooting. He’s always been a high-volume 3-point shooter, but his percentage dropped in recent years. This season, his efficiency caught up:

Again, Curry’s 2015-16 season stands out for its far higher efficiency, but even Harden’s 3s are quite different from Curry’s. In the 2015-16 season, 60.2 percent of Curry’s 3 point attempts came after fewer than three dribbles. This season, 63.8 percent of Harden’s 3 point attempts come after three or more dribbles.

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We typically see shooting percentages drop with more dribbles, so Harden’s high percentage with so many attempts off the dribble is particularly impressive:

The raw numbers suggest James Harden is having a phenomenal scoring season, and slicing the data further suggests it may be one of the best all time. Combine that with his playmaking skills (he’s currently the league leader in assists per game), and this may be the best offensive season in the modern era. The picture could change as Chris Paul comes back into the rotation, but for now, Harden is the early MVP favorite.