![]() His true shooting in the past 20 games is an astonishing 66.3 percent. His name is still a metonym for efficiency. It’s both understandable and myopic to view him through a lens that ultimately short-sells the year he’s actually having. This makes analyzing Harden’s season a unique challenge. And his chance to rewrite the record with one brilliant, multiweek stretch this spring is all that matters. Playoff flameouts and disappearing acts have defined Harden’s reputation. Fair or not, he’s stuck in limbo: Harden could average 40-15-12 for the next six weeks and many would still shrug. There’s one metric I often use called “what people say in casual conversation,” and Harden was brushed aside there, too. There was no real uproar outside of his own Instagram story and some tweets by his teammates. Harden’s omission from All-Star Weekend wasn’t close to being received as criminal, let alone odd. He was an honorable mention on my fake team, but had that piece been published a couple of weeks later, when the rosters were actually announced, it would’ve been significantly harder to keep him off for a variety of reasons. This remains, weeks later, at the very least, pretty curious-especially after Harden was passed over several times as an injury replacement. But despite impressive stats, his historical stature, and his critical role on a championship contender, Harden in fact did not make the All-Star team, an honor previously bestowed on him 10 times. These numbers make for an ideal All-Star résumé. Only four players are logging more than his 36.7 minutes per night. In 44 games, he’s averaging 21.6 points and a league-high 10.7 assists, while making a career-best 39.3 percent of his 3s. Other nights, you can’t help but notice the 33-year-old’s hulkier frame and borderline perfunctory movement, then think back to who Harden used to be: someone who once effortlessly led the league in scoring three years in a row. At times, he’s credibly conducting an unstoppable offense as Joel Embiid’s overqualified sidekick. “How good is James Harden right now?” might be the most futile or consequential question of the entire season.
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