{"id":650247,"date":"2026-05-18T11:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650247\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T11:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:56:08","slug":"column-im-afraid-of-james-harden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650247\/","title":{"rendered":"COLUMN: I\u2019m afraid of James Harden"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never cared for James Harden. I\u2019ve never cared for his style of aggressive, highlight reel basketball. I\u2019ve never cared for his foul baiting that irreparably damaged the game. I\u2019ve never cared for the way he disappears when it matters most. I\u2019ve never cared for his beard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s on my team.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 3, the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Darius Garland<\/a> to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for James Harden. In case you aren\u2019t in the loop, that\u2019s like trading a brand-new Corvette for a banged-up Ferrari.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Garland was a fan favorite and one of the earliest bright spots for Cleveland basketball after Lebron James left in 2018. The city stuck by him when he started his career as statistically the worst player in the entire league<\/a> and developed into an All-Star-caliber guard. He was shifty, effortlessly gliding past defenders and passing through the pockets no one else could find.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t intend this to sound like a Darius Garland postmortem, but that\u2019s how it feels. I hope he keeps balling, but playing for the Clippers is like being in basketball purgatory. He\u2019s a hardworking player who always uplifts his teammates, and I feel like the team gave up on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After taking the Cavaliers to three straight playoff appearances alongside co-stars Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, last year was anything but a fairy tale. Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers\u2019 dark magic cut the Cavaliers short after a historic regular season, and Garland barely saw the court due to a toe injury.<\/p>\n

But enter his replacement, James Harden, a man who\u2019s been an All-Star 11 times, earned three scoring titles, been All-NBA eight times and won the MVP award in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite all the accolades, he\u2019s never won a championship. His greatest claim to fame may be choking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He shot an abysmally low 18% in the 2015 Western Conference Finals and in an elimination game against the Golden State Warriors. In 2017, he did the same against the San Antonio Spurs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After 17 years in the league, Harden has yet to miss the playoffs, but he has nothing to show for it.<\/p>\n

The problem with Harden isn\u2019t that he\u2019s terrible, it\u2019s that you don\u2019t know which version of him you\u2019re getting. In his short time as a Cavalier, he\u2019s already given Clevanders a front-row seat to the Harden experience. He\u2019s put up performances that make me want to jump through the screen, and others that make me want to apologize for hating him in the span of days.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Cleveland got rid of Garland, they shortened their future. They traded a talented young guard for one 10 years his senior. It was a \u201cwin now\u201d move made after years of stagnation. If the Harden gamble doesn\u2019t pay off, they might blow everything up. It makes his unpredictability even more nerve-wracking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some players are just awful in the playoffs. I\u2019ve enjoyed watching the Detroit Pistons\u2019 Jalen Duren put up nothing but horrible performances ever since April.<\/p>\n

Harden is different; the stats don\u2019t communicate how awful he\u2019s capable of being. I can tell you he had more turnovers<\/a> than field goals in the first nine games of the playoffs, but even that doesn\u2019t tell the whole story.<\/p>\n

Above all else, I want to see my favorite team win, but Harden\u2019s legacy is on the line and I think he knows that. He knows that if he doesn\u2019t lock in now, he\u2019ll forever be known as the guy who couldn\u2019t get it done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe pairing him with Donovan Mitchell, an incredible player who\u2019s never been past the second round of the playoffs, was the right choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019re both hungry and have chips on their shoulders. I hope those chips carry them to a championship.<\/p>\n

Related stories:<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

Support Student Journalism!<\/p>\n


\n The DePaulia is DePaul University\u2019s award-winning, editorially independent student newspaper. Since 1923, student journalists have produced high-quality, on-the-ground reporting that informs our campus and city. \n <\/p>\n


\n We rely on reader support to keep doing what we do. Donations are tax deductible through DePaul’s giving page. \n <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve never cared for James Harden. I\u2019ve never cared for his style of aggressive, highlight reel basketball. I\u2019ve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-650247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}