After multiple NBA scoring titles and an MVP win in 2018, Harden has cemented himself as one of the defining players of his era.<\/p>\n
But to this day, the Beard faces criticism from fans, especially since Harden is yet to win an NBA championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, according to Patrick Beverley, Harden\u2019s talent goes beyond accolades, even to the point that fans miss exactly how good he is.<\/p>\n Patrick Beverley recently spoke about James Harden\u2019s gifts as a one-on-one player. He believes the former MVP doesn\u2019t get recognized for his on-ball defense, even if he isn\u2019t a lockdown defender.<\/p>\n While Harden isn\u2019t known for his defense, he is extremely quick, and can cause problems for players <\/p>\n \u201cYeah, people don\u2019t understand James Harden is real crafty with his hands, like his deflections, his timing. He\u2019s really good at deflections.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not saying he\u2019s a f\u2014\u2014 lockdown defender. No, I\u2019m not saying that. But I think, if you ask James Harden to guard for, I don\u2019t know, 3 seconds mano a mano, I think he gets stops.\u201d<\/p>\n Patrick Beverley names Harden among top 4 one-on-one players<\/p>\n On the subject of playing one-on-one, Beverley revealed his list of players that he thinks are the best at playing one-on-one.<\/p>\n \u201cI gotta go, Kevin Durant<\/a>, one-on-one. I guess he said something about, you know, he would like to see one-on-one for a million dollars or something, I saw on the internet.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think that, if there are three people that I think would give Kevin Durant a run for his money in a one-on-one, I think one would be Kawhi Leonard<\/a>. I think two would be James Harden, and I think three would be Anthony Edwards<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think when it comes to like one-on-one, and before we clip this and people go crazy, I\u2019m talking people who are healthy. So I can\u2019t name Jayson Tatum<\/a>. I can\u2019t name Kyrie Irving<\/a>. I can\u2019t name Wenby.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not naming centers, I\u2019m naming a position in basketball where you don\u2019t have an advantage or disadvantage. In order, I\u2019m going, Kawhi. I\u2019m going, James Harden. I\u2019m going, Anthony Edwards.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s no coincidence that Patrick Beverley named several players that he has shared a team with as great one-on-one players.<\/p>\n It\u2019s likely that he has experience playing against these stars during practice sessions, and is using that experience to form his list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Beverley believes James Harden is so good that fans don\u2019t even fully comprehend the depth of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,1173,7236,590,66055,85,7897],"class_list":["post-120940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-james-harden","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-patrick-beverley","tag-sports","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Patrick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-1474942740-941x627.jpg\")
Photo by Tim Nwachukwu\/Getty ImagesPatrick Beverley says James Harden doesn\u2019t get enough credit as a defender<\/p>\n