James Harden gets a lot flack. Whether it’s the beard, the rip-through maneuver that the league banned, or the Euro step that he perfected, most of it is noise. The one criticism that does have merit, and puts a hard ceiling on his place among the all-time greats, is his empty postseason trophy case. Harden, of course, has never won an NBA Championship. In fact, he’s only made the NBA Finals once, and that was way back in 2012 when he was still a 6th man for the Thunder. Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokic are all players from Harden’s era who are safely ahead of him on the GOAT list, and it has everything to do with playoff success, or lack thereof. While that might keep Harden from cracking the top-ten, it doesn’t keep him from running neck-and-neck with Karl Malone as the greatest player to never win an NBA Championship.
Harden’s regular season resume is among the best in the history of the league. He won the MVP in 2018, and finished second in MVP voting three times. The other players to have four top-2 finishes in MVP voting? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Nikola Jokic, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Jerry West, and Bob Pettit. Company doesn’t get much more impressive than that. Harden was also named 1st Team All-NBA six times, which is more than Curry, Kevin Garnett, and Dirk Nowitzki.
Harden became a glorified cheat code after he first perfected the aforementioned Euro step, and then paired it with a historically uncanny ability to draw fouls and make three-pointers. He took the “threes or layups” mantra that has taken the NBA by storm one step further by unearthing “threes or free throws.” Harden’s ability to score in a variety ways, and do it efficiently has resulted in a remarkable ledger of unique accomplishments:
Harden’s Achievements
1). The only player in NBA history to average at least 36 points per game in a season with a .600 True Shooting %.
2). The only player in NBA history to average at least 30 points and 7.5 assists for three consecutive seasons.
3). The only season in NBA history with at least 750 free throws made and at least 350 3-pointers made.
4). The only player in NBA history to score at least 23 points per game, accumulate 8,000 career assists, and hold at least a .607 True Shooting %.
5). The only player in NBA history to have led the NBA in assists and also in 3-point field goals made.
6). The only player in NBA history to lead the league in scoring 3+ times and assists 2+ times.
7). The only player in NBA history with 8,000 career free throws made and 3,000 3-pointers made.
8). The only player in NBA history to have led the league in total points, steals, assists, and 3-pointers.
9). Led the league in scoring average for three consecutive seasons. Over the last 45+ years, only Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant have done the same.
10). Averaged at least 29 points for six consecutive seasons. The only other players in NBA history who can say the same are Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain.
11). Finished in the top-2 in scoring for six consecutive seasons. Only Jordan and Chamberlain can say the same.
12). 4th most 60-point games in NBA history.
13). 4th most 50-point games in NBA history.
14). One of only three players in history with a 60-point triple double.
15). Led the NBA in Win Shares five times. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan did it more often.
16). Led the league in free throw attempts seven times. Only Chamberlain did it more often.
17). Led the league in 3-point field goals made for three consecutive seasons. Only Steph Curry can say the same.
18). 5th most free throws in NBA history.
19). 8th most triple-doubles in NBA history.
20). Led the league in points scored four times. Only Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, and Kevin Durant did it more often.
21). Averaged 36.1 points per game in 2019. Only Chamberlain and Jordan averaged more in a single season.
22). Averaged at least 34 points per game in two different seasons. Only Chamberlain and Jordan can say the same.
23). Led the league in Value Over Replacement Player three times. Only Jordan, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, and Nikola Jokic have done it more often.
Harden’s postseason disappointments will almost always be the headline when discussing his place in history, and that’s fair. He simply doesn’t have the postseason hardware to crack the top-ten on the all-time list. However, Harden is every bit in the conversation as the greatest player never to win an NBA Championship, and his regular season virtuoso performances put him ahead of many superstars who did win a championship. Harden also comes in ahead of the early stars of the NBA who played in the weakest era the league has ever seen. What James Harden accomplished in a fully globalized league is more impressive than anyone who dominated small leagues when racial quotas existed and segregation was still a part of the national discourse. It’s highly likely that the combination of Harden’s empty postseason trophy case along with not being a particularly popular player will keep him from ever receiving his proper due as an all-time great basketball player. Nevertheless, his historical greatness is a matter of record for anyone who cares to look.
Love James Harden, but there is no way you have him over guys like Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, and Bill Russell. On my list, I have him at 31. One of the best shooters and playmakers the game has ever seen. The concern that I have with him is his leadership and clutch skills. He has never made any finals, which is a big issue. Another one of our issues is that he only averages 19 points in game 7s. You have him over Dirk Nowitzki, who beat one of the best teams of all time in the Lebron James-led Heat. Bill Russell who didn’t have the best competition but still had 11 championships and 8 rings in a row.
Hey Declan, I appreciate the comments and opinions.
James Harden is either the greatest or 2nd greatest player to not win an NBA Championship, depending on how you feel about Karl Malone. I’ve got Malone by a small margin, but there is ammunition there to make the argument for Harden. Although I have Harden ahead of Dirk and KG, I can at least see arguments for both over Harden if you heavily weigh a single NBA Championship in an otherwise disappointing playoff career, which is the case for KG and Dirk. I don’t even mind Harden directly behind them (FYI–Kawhi will move down a few spots in the next update) right at #20. However, Harden at #31 is pretty hard to defend from a statistical standpoint. He is, by far, the most accomplished of the three in the regular season. The statistics make that an easy argument.
Dirk did win an NBA Championship, but didn’t beat one of the best teams in NBA history in doing so. Miami wasn’t even the #1 seed in the East, San Antonio had a better record in the West, the two-time defending LA Lakers finished within one win of the Heat in the regular season, as did Dirk’s Dallas team. Miami had three players on the roster who averaged over 8 points per game. That team won because LeBron was the best player in the league. It was an otherwise flawed team, which is why a sneaky stacked Dallas team rolled them in the Finals. This doesn’t really factor in my rankings at all other than to point out that Dirk doesn’t get any bonus points from me because he beat a strong team in the finals. Finals opponents should be strong. Also, Harden did make it to the NBA Finals as the top bench player in the NBA with OKC.
Dirk and KG have virtually identical resumes. They almost have to appear consecutively on a list like this. They are both unique in the fact that they largely had mediocre postseason success before eventually breaking through with a championship. I value what a player does over a 15-20 year career more than a single postseason. Now, if we’re talking about 2+ championships during a competitive era as one of the top players in the league, then the math starts to tilt the argument a bit. As for Harden’s performance in Game 7s, he’s only played in seven in his career, and four of them came after he turned 30. Nobody is going to argue that Harden was a big-game player, but that seven-game sample size is way too small to put anything into. In the three game sevens Harden played in his 20s, he averaged 27 ppg. That looks a lot different. Again, that’s way too small of a sample size to mean anything, but we can come up with all sorts of damning evidence on everyone if we’re willing to make sample sizes small enough.
The comparison between Harden, Dirk, and KG comes down to how much you weigh the fact that Harden was superior to KG and Dirk over 1,150+ regular season games, vs. how much you weigh a single playoff. Dirk’s teams were 13-14 in playoff series, KG’s teams were 13-13, and Harden’s were 15-16. IMO, the isolated success that Dirk and KG had in the playoffs doesn’t make up for Harden’s significant advantage in the regular season.
As for Bill Russell, if someone forced me to move him, it would be down on the list. I don’t take too seriously what a career .440 shooter did in an 8-team, almost exclusively white league while playing for the greatest basketball team ever assembled. The fact that Russell was one of the tallest and most athletic players in the league makes his .440 shooting percentage and career 15 points per game scoring average even more egregious. If we’re taking what Russell did anywhere close to face value, then Tom Heinsohn is a top-50 player in NBA history, as are several of their Celtics teammates.
Cheers!