We're only four games into the 2021-22 season, but Brooklyn Nets star James Harden is not playing up to the lofty standards the perennial MVP candidate has set for himself over the years. Maybe we should not be surprised. While many of us (understandably) focused on the Kyrie Irving vaccination situation, or the potential max extension Harden ultimately decided not to sign, one storyline that slipped mostly under the radar was that of Harden's health.
Recall, Harden left a game last March with hamstring tightness. The Nets took what they felt was a very cautious approach. But the issue evolved into a strain, which he then aggravated at different stages of the 2020-21 season. After returning to the lineup and balling out through the first round of the playoffs, Harden reaggravated the injury in the opening minutes of the second round. That left him hobbled during crucial second-round games.
Before this season started, we began to hear positive updates on the nine-time All-Star originally from Los Angeles:
Sean Marks said Kyrie Irving and James Harden “look great and are in good spirits” with their respective rehabs.
— Chris Milholen (@CMilholenSB) September 21, 2021
Around training camp, Harden even told ESPN's Malika Andrews that he felt better than ever:
“Just trying to get my mind and my body right that’s all I was focused on this summer. And come back even better, bigger, and stronger, and quicker. I feel better than I probably been ever felt before.”
But now that the season is underway, it has become clear that being fully healthy isn't the same as peak basketball conditioning. No matter how well the rehab may have gone, it's apparent that the Nets star is taking a gradual approach and ramping up slowly.
Nets coach Steve Nash has taken a patient approach as well. Harden is averaging 17.3 points, 7.0 rebounds, 8.3 assists, and just 3.0 free-throw attempts per game. These would be very good numbers for a handful of league All-Stars, and Nash acknowledges his guard is still an excellent player even now. But with a player this good, that near-triple-double average is actually disappointing.
Much has been made about Harden being a poster boy for new NBA rule changes. But it sounds like the real explanation for Harden's slow start has less to do with NBA officiating. Before the team's bounce-back victory over the Washington Wizards on Monday, Nash was asked if Harden's return from injury has limited his ability get to the rim.
“One hundred percent. That’s the part that is out of his hands,” explained the head coach. “It’s just the cards he’s dealt. He’s played very little basketball for, I keep saying six months, I don't know it might be seven, eight depending how far back we go to whenever that hamstring injury first happened, but it's really hard to play at the level he's accustomed to playing at when you’ve played such little basketball.”
Harden has played in 16 (non-exhibition) games since he left the lineup during a regular-season contest against his former Houston Rockets team last year. He spent the majority of the summer focusing on rehab.
“In the summer,” Nash continued, “he predominantly rehabbed and so finding that rhythm, finding that level of fitness, that burst and pop, that confidence, that’s a lot. So that’s not just something that comes back [right away]. His first day playing up and down was the Friday before training camp. … Some people say it takes you as much time as you were off to get back to where you were before you got [the injury], so that’s a challenge that he's facing. Right now we just wanna support him. … He’ll get there.”
For now the Nets appear relatively unconcerned with the way Harden is being officiated. Their focus seems to be on making sure he's healthy and not any rule changes. The Beard did play in the back-to-back set against the Charlotte Hornets and Wizards. As did Kevin Durant. If Harden starts to get that burst again, the free throws will follow.
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