The Whiteboard: James Harden faces a legacy-defining Game 7

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Game 7 of this first-round series between the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder is a no-win situation for James Harden, and yet, it is simultaneously a must-win scenario.

If he wins, the Rockets were always supposed to win this series anyway, and it’s only the first round anyway. If he loses, it’ll somehow be a testament to his legacy as an elite regular-season player who choked, who wasn’t clutch and whose game didn’t translate to NBA playoff basketball.

There is zero in-between, no matter what the Beard does on Wednesday night.

Never mind that his Rockets won the exact same number of games as the Thunder this year with 48. Never mind that Houston’s playing style and ultra small-ball lineups give them the league’s largest gap between their ceiling and floor on a night-to-night basis. And never mind that the greatest sin of Harden — a routine MVP candidate and one of the greatest scorers the league has ever seen — was being unable to get by an all-time Golden State Warriors dynasty.

If he loses Game 7, especially this Game 7, he’ll never escape this ever-growing legacy as someone who fades in big moments. To those whom much is given, much will be required.

Harden has done himself no favors over the years to build up this unsavory reputation, of course. While his absentee performance at the age of 22 as the Thunder’s sixth man in the 2012 NBA Finals was understandable, it did little to dispel the doubts over whether he could be the best player on a contender, even as he immediately thrived in Houston.

The ugly playoff memories got worse over the years, even as he became an offense unto himself that helped revolutionize the modern NBA.

For all his iso scoring, there was Game 6 of the 2015 Western Conference semifinals, when his Rockets pulled off a crazy comeback with him on the bench for most of it. For all his foul-drawing savvy, there was Game 5 of the 2017 conference semis, when his game-tying 3-point attempt in overtime was swatted from behind by a 39-year-old Manu Ginobili. And for all his gifts as a visionary playmaker and NBA iron man, there was his no-show in an elimination Game 6 in 2017, Houston missing a record 27 straight 3s in Game 7 of the 2018 conference finals and falling short against the Kevin Durant-less Warriors in 2019.

The numbers reinforce that Harden has, by and large, failed to rise to the occasion for most of his postseason career. Just look at the dip between his regular-season stats over eight seasons with the Rockets compared to his eight playoff runs there:

-Regular season (613 games): 29.6 PPG, 7.7 APG, 6.0 RPG, 1.8 SPG, 44.3 FG%, 36.2 3P%, 86.2 FT%
-Playoffs (79 games): 28.5 PPG, 7.1 APG, 5.8 RPG, 2.0 SPG, 41.8 FG%, 32.4 3P%, 87.4 FT%

The drop-off in the base numbers isn’t too drastic, but his efficiency usually plummets, with his true shooting percentage dipping from 61.2 percent in the regular season to 57.5 percent in the postseason. It’s no surprise his Player Efficiency Rating similarly drops from 26.8 to 23.9 as well.

Those statistical dips, along with his memorable playoff failures, make it easy to forget the 31-8-7 he hung on the Clippers in Game 7 of that 2015 series after Houston’s Game 6 comeback; the unforgettable MVP season he responded with in 2017-18 after the San Antonio Spurs humiliation; or how agonizingly close the Rockets were to unseating the Warriors in 2018 despite Chris Paul being injured and the basketball gods slamming an invisible lid shut on the rim.

There’s no question James Harden is an elite player, even if he’s not always the guy who takes over late in the fourth quarter. As an eight-time All-Star, six-time All-NBA selection (soon to be seven), three-time scoring champ, one-time assist champ and MVP award winner, there’s no doubt he’ll be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.

The question is, will it be of the Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki variety? Or will it be as another cautionary, tragic tale in the same vein as Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley and — ironically enough — Chris Paul?

The distinction between those two groups, obviously, is having a Larry O’Brien Trophy.

It is not being a prisoner of the moment to say Harden is in danger of becoming the new Chris Paul. That is meant as no insult to CP3, but is simply stating facts: For years, Paul was maligned for his lack of even a conference finals appearance on his playoff resume. Despite being elite and one of the game’s all-time greatest floor generals, he was labeled as a choker and “not clutch” because he never carried teams to titles, or even the NBA Finals. People lost faith that a team with Chris Paul as its best player could win a championship and eventually accepted that idea as dogma.

Later in his career, when he thrived in Houston as the secondary star or excelled as the Thunder’s best player well past his prime with lower expectations, people loved him more than ever. The “choker” moniker from his failures with the LA Clippers faded from memory, and it became easier to appreciate his game again.

Why? Because NBA fans have a weird fixation with stripping the league’s stars down with each and every playoff shortcoming as it occurs. It happens with Harden, Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, even younger guys like Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo — until they prove they can win it all, they’ll always be doubted, nitpicked and ostracized from their place among the NBA’s true all-time greats. It’s easier to appreciate these talents once everyone’s comfortable with a player being memorable but not a threat to the established hierarchy.

LeBron James is another perfect example — we expected, almost craved greatness on par with Michael Jordan, and when he fell short in those early years with the Cleveland Cavaliers and even that first year with the Miami Heat, people relished the opportunity to tear him down. For whatever reason, there is no happy medium between “unbelievable achiever” and “straight trash” when it comes to those with all-timer potential. It was only after LeBron finally broke through that he was fully embraced among the basketball gods on the NBA’s Mount Olympus, and if that was the case for even LeBron, it’s no wonder it became the standard for every other superstar too.

Even though basketball is a team game that revolves around injury luck, favorable matchups and factors out of players’ control like ownership and competent front office maneuvers, most of that context goes out the window as soon as the ball goes up. If you’re a truly great player, your team wins, wins a lot, wins in the playoffs and, ideally, wins championships. Anyone who falls short of those lofty expectations can still be great, just not a legend. And on NBA Twitter today, that’s basically just “trash.”

Going back to Harden, it’s ironic that his legacy faces a potential do-or-die moment against Chris Paul — not just because the Rockets swapped Chris Paul (the guy currently killing them right now) to the Thunder for Russell Westbrook (the guy who’s missed all of the series except for Game 6 and was the real culprit behind that loss), but also because a first-round defeat this year might cement the Beard in that same, lesser category for NBA superstar forever.

All that separates James Harden from NBA Valhalla is a ring. He’s finished in the top-five for MVP voting a staggering six times, including three(!) second-place finishes and one first-place result. CP3 only finished in the top-five four times, with only one second-place finish and no actual hardware to show for it. Harden has reached the conference finals or beyond four times, while CP3’s only been there once, while playing with Harden’s Rockets.

Yet all anyone can ever fixate on is what happens if Harden’s team loses to CP3’s team in Game 7. Why? Because we’ve accepted Paul’s place in the NBA pantheon. Harden has the potential to climb higher, and if he doesn’t, we will hold it against him for not achieving his maximum potential.

The Beard would eventually be loved again if he loses on Wednesday, but only once people realized the years left on his career were dwindling, or if he joined another NBA alpha in that “one last quest” for a ring. But he’d never be accepted as “the guy” for a championship-caliber team.

None of this is meant to discredit Paul’s career or dispute his place among the 50 greatest players ever — he and Harden are both assuredly high up on that list, title or not. The concern is that a lack of a championship will prevent the demi-god Beard from ascending to full-on NBA god status. That’s what’s at stake now, especially given the Rockets’ current roster and salary cap situation, and its why this team is all in on its ultra small-ball approach: This could very well be the last gasp of the Harden era.

A Game 7 loss on Wednesday would only add to the humiliation of another postseason failure, perhaps closing the door forever on the title window of any team that has James Harden as its best player.

A Game 7 win means we’d get to do this same song and dance all over again in the next round against a well-rested LeBron James.

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