And yet, as Paul went from being “The Guy” in New Orleans and Los Angeles to a veteran cast-off on a team looking to enter a youth movement on OKC, he embraced allowing his teammates – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dennis Schroder – to take more of the center stage and parlayed a bounce-back season with the Thunder into a fantastic opportunity to become a willing 1B to Devin Booker‘s 1A. Like Harden, Paul has watched his average attempts from the field per game go down pretty consistently with each passing season, especially since he left his playing prime back in Houston. I know, crazy, right? You’d think there would be more players born after 1990 setting up their teammates to the tune of double-digit assists per game, and I will say, the next five players on the assists-per-game list are all in their 20s, but alas, for one reason or another, that hasn’t come to be the only guards – or players, period – averaging 10 or more assists per game were both members of the 2018-19 Houston Rockets’ backcourt, which is a fun fact worth noting. There are only two players in the NBA who are averaging double-digit assists so far over the 2021-22 NBA season: 32-year-old James Harden and 36-year-old Chris Paul. James Harden needs to embrace running the Philadelphia 76ers’ offense. Only time will tell, but if the Philadelphia 76ers‘ point guard wants to have a puncher’s chance at aging gracefully out of his prime, he’d be wise to take a page from his former teammate Chirs Paul‘s book and embrace being a high IQ floor general from the point guard position. So what gives? Is Harden cooked and Daryl Morey a mark for surrendering the vast majority of his team’s assets to reunite with his favorite player? Are the Sixers going to straddle themselves with one of the worst contracts in the NBA, as more than a few ESPN personalities – like Bobby Marks – have suggested? Needless to say, it’s hard to average 36.1 points on only 14.1 shots. 9 more shots from the field overall in 2021 than he just attempted from beyond the arc in 2018-19. While he’s still been able to get things done from the line and his shooting percentages from the field and beyond the arc are all within a single-digit of his career averages, Harden’s attempts per game have dropped significantly from his final season in Houston to his first half-season in South Philly falling from 22.3 in 2019-20 to 14.1 in 2021-22. For every upper-20s or even 30-point performance the 32-year-old puts on his game log this season, there’s an alarming number of points scored with a one or even a zero – see February 2nd, 2022 – before the final digit. Unfortunately, the frequency at which James Harden looks like James Harden has become a bit fewer and further between than in seasons past. He can break down a defender like nobody’s business, draw contact at will, and juke out even the best defender with his patented stepback 3. When James Harden‘s on, he’s still one of the best scorers in the NBA.
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