Dwight Howard back
Dwight Howard back, James Harden's loudest MVP argument has already been made.
But with the race still too close to call, his campaign could still use a boost. Seamlessly welcoming Dwight Howard back to the fold after his two-month layoff could provide that lift.
That absence, of course, is what helped cement Harden's spot at or near the top of the MVP ladder. For all of the attention paid to his absurd statistics, defensive improvement and weighty offensive burden, nothing moved the needle more than the savior act he pulled off without Howard.
When a nagging knee problem forced the Houston Rockets center off the floor, Harden went from having an eight-time All-Star as a sidekick to playing without a secondary option. Defenses knew the ball was coming his way and knew where he wanted to go with it: behind the arc, in the paint or to the foul line.
Didn't matter. They still couldn't stop him or the Rockets.
Houston had a 30-14 record (.682 winning percentage) when Howard went down. The Rockets won 17 of the 26 games the big guy missed (.654 winning percentage). Throw out the loss Harden missed while serving a one-game suspension, and the Rockets were the same team they'd been with Howard (17-8, .680 winning percentage).
"Heroism appeals to voters, and the narrative attached to Harden this year is that of a lone superstar single-handedly dragging an otherwise pedestrian team to the fringes of title contention," wrote Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes. "Nobody has the me-against-the-world angle nailed down like the Beard."
Harden has expertly played the part of superstar glue guy.
The Rockets should have been fractured by now. Last summer, they cut ties with three of coach Kevin McHale's top seven rotation players (Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik). This season, their lineup has been a revolving door, with changes made due to injuries, trades and free-agent signings.
McHale has used 20 players and 14 different starting lineups this season. If continuity is the key to chemistry, the Rockets have been forced to play without both.
All of that strengthens Harden's MVP odds.
Russell Westbrook's candidacy has been constructed around his gaudy numbers (27.3 points, 8.7 assists and 7.1 rebounds). Harden's are right there with them (27.1 points, 7.0 assists and 5.8 rebounds), only his are being posted in the top half of the playoff bracket—not the bottom.
Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Chris Paul have all been deservedly praised for the roles they have played in their teams' success, but no one has had a bigger impact on winning than Harden. The bearded baller paces the entire league in both win shares (14.1) and wins above replacement (17.20).
"James Harden should be this year’s MVP," wrote Bleacher Report's Kelly Scaletta. "Stephen Curry has done more with more. Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis have done less with less. And LeBron James has done less with more. But no one has done more with less than James Harden."
Watch the Rockets with and without Harden, and it's hard to remember that you're seeing the same team.
Harden has taken an otherwise underwhelming offense and made it a force.
When he's on the floor, the Rockets play like the NBA's sixth-best offense. When he's not, Houston packs as much punch as the lowly Philadelphia 76ers.
And somehow, as all great magicians do, he makes the trick look painfully easy.
"It looks sometimes effortless the way he scores the basketball," Josh Smith said, per Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle and Bleacher Report.But everyone knows this already, and the award remains up for grabs.
"Even with all the factors in Harden's favor, this race remains tight enough that these final weeks of the regular season truly matter when it comes to the award," wrote USA Today's Sam Amick. "As for Harden's view of it all? ...He knows that there's one way to keep his name on that short list: keep winning games until the end."
Or keep playing like Harden has been despite the return of a career 18.2 points-per-game scorer in Howard. Maintain balance even as a 6'11", 275-pound behemoth steps back onto the scale.
There are obvious benefits to having the big guy back. The Rockets desperately need his rim protection, especially with Terrence Jones' status uncertain (lung).
"We're gonna be very good when he gets healthy," Harden said of Howard, per ESPN.com's Mike Mazzeo.
But Harden also knows things are different when Howard is around.
"Dwight changes the game," Harden added.
That's where the intrigue surrounding these final weeks builds. The Rockets—sitting third in the West and only 1.5 games back of the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies—don't need a dramatic change.
They need Howard's shot-blocking, rebounding and intimidating presence underneath. But the offensive flow they've found with Harden can't be disrupted by the ball-stopping post-up touches Howard has always received.
If there were questions about Houston's hierarchy before this season, Harden's prolific performances have answered all of them. This is his team now, and Howard has to recognize and respect that.Their revamped relationship is off to a promising start.
As Harden told Amick, Houston's two superstars recently discussed this dynamic. And Howard gave Harden a fluorescent green light to proceed as if nothing's changed:
He said, 'I'll be returning soon, but I don't want you to change your game.' He said, 'I don't want you to do anything different. Just go out there and do what you do, and do it at a high level every single night.' He said, 'I'll adjust to you,' and that right there gave me confidence to just play, and play my game and not worry about anything else. Once you hear that from your other leader, then you know you can just go out there and play the way that I've been playing.
Howard watched everything that happened while he was out and says it helped him identify what the Rockets need from him.
"[Hall of Fame Rockets center] Elvin Hayes called me one day. He said, 'For this team to win, you really have to make that ultimate sacrifice,'" Howard told Sports Illustrated's Ben Golliver. " I didn’t quite get it at first, but I think I really understand it now better than before. ... That sacrifice for me is going to come on the offensive end."
It all sounds as good as it possibly can. But vocally ceding the spotlight and actually giving it up are two different things. When the volume of Howard's involvement decreases, he can't let that affect him.
The responsibility of holding this team together through the transition, however, falls on Harden's shoulders. It's his job to read what the Rockets need and respond accordingly.That might mean making slight adjustments to accommodate Howard: Passing more out of pick-and-rolls, feeding the post when there's an exploitable mismatch, understanding he's no longer the lone alpha dog. Or it might simply involve ensuring that status quo doesn't change, that Harden continues on as Houston's key offensive catalyst.
He won't lose the MVP award based on his play down the stretch. His numbers speak for themselves.
But he could create the slightest bit of separation over his peers by acing the final exam on this season's syllabus. Given how tightly packed this race is, that could be enough to help win this thing by a nose.
Or, in Harden's case, by a beard.
But with the race still too close to call, his campaign could still use a boost. Seamlessly welcoming Dwight Howard back to the fold after his two-month layoff could provide that lift.
That absence, of course, is what helped cement Harden's spot at or near the top of the MVP ladder. For all of the attention paid to his absurd statistics, defensive improvement and weighty offensive burden, nothing moved the needle more than the savior act he pulled off without Howard.
When a nagging knee problem forced the Houston Rockets center off the floor, Harden went from having an eight-time All-Star as a sidekick to playing without a secondary option. Defenses knew the ball was coming his way and knew where he wanted to go with it: behind the arc, in the paint or to the foul line.
Didn't matter. They still couldn't stop him or the Rockets.
Houston had a 30-14 record (.682 winning percentage) when Howard went down. The Rockets won 17 of the 26 games the big guy missed (.654 winning percentage). Throw out the loss Harden missed while serving a one-game suspension, and the Rockets were the same team they'd been with Howard (17-8, .680 winning percentage).
"Heroism appeals to voters, and the narrative attached to Harden this year is that of a lone superstar single-handedly dragging an otherwise pedestrian team to the fringes of title contention," wrote Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes. "Nobody has the me-against-the-world angle nailed down like the Beard."
Harden has expertly played the part of superstar glue guy.
The Rockets should have been fractured by now. Last summer, they cut ties with three of coach Kevin McHale's top seven rotation players (Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik). This season, their lineup has been a revolving door, with changes made due to injuries, trades and free-agent signings.
McHale has used 20 players and 14 different starting lineups this season. If continuity is the key to chemistry, the Rockets have been forced to play without both.
All of that strengthens Harden's MVP odds.
Russell Westbrook's candidacy has been constructed around his gaudy numbers (27.3 points, 8.7 assists and 7.1 rebounds). Harden's are right there with them (27.1 points, 7.0 assists and 5.8 rebounds), only his are being posted in the top half of the playoff bracket—not the bottom.
Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Chris Paul have all been deservedly praised for the roles they have played in their teams' success, but no one has had a bigger impact on winning than Harden. The bearded baller paces the entire league in both win shares (14.1) and wins above replacement (17.20).
"James Harden should be this year’s MVP," wrote Bleacher Report's Kelly Scaletta. "Stephen Curry has done more with more. Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis have done less with less. And LeBron James has done less with more. But no one has done more with less than James Harden."
Watch the Rockets with and without Harden, and it's hard to remember that you're seeing the same team.
Harden has taken an otherwise underwhelming offense and made it a force.
When he's on the floor, the Rockets play like the NBA's sixth-best offense. When he's not, Houston packs as much punch as the lowly Philadelphia 76ers.
And somehow, as all great magicians do, he makes the trick look painfully easy.
"It looks sometimes effortless the way he scores the basketball," Josh Smith said, per Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle and Bleacher Report.But everyone knows this already, and the award remains up for grabs.
"Even with all the factors in Harden's favor, this race remains tight enough that these final weeks of the regular season truly matter when it comes to the award," wrote USA Today's Sam Amick. "As for Harden's view of it all? ...He knows that there's one way to keep his name on that short list: keep winning games until the end."
Or keep playing like Harden has been despite the return of a career 18.2 points-per-game scorer in Howard. Maintain balance even as a 6'11", 275-pound behemoth steps back onto the scale.
There are obvious benefits to having the big guy back. The Rockets desperately need his rim protection, especially with Terrence Jones' status uncertain (lung).
"We're gonna be very good when he gets healthy," Harden said of Howard, per ESPN.com's Mike Mazzeo.
But Harden also knows things are different when Howard is around.
"Dwight changes the game," Harden added.
That's where the intrigue surrounding these final weeks builds. The Rockets—sitting third in the West and only 1.5 games back of the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies—don't need a dramatic change.
They need Howard's shot-blocking, rebounding and intimidating presence underneath. But the offensive flow they've found with Harden can't be disrupted by the ball-stopping post-up touches Howard has always received.
If there were questions about Houston's hierarchy before this season, Harden's prolific performances have answered all of them. This is his team now, and Howard has to recognize and respect that.Their revamped relationship is off to a promising start.
As Harden told Amick, Houston's two superstars recently discussed this dynamic. And Howard gave Harden a fluorescent green light to proceed as if nothing's changed:
He said, 'I'll be returning soon, but I don't want you to change your game.' He said, 'I don't want you to do anything different. Just go out there and do what you do, and do it at a high level every single night.' He said, 'I'll adjust to you,' and that right there gave me confidence to just play, and play my game and not worry about anything else. Once you hear that from your other leader, then you know you can just go out there and play the way that I've been playing.
Howard watched everything that happened while he was out and says it helped him identify what the Rockets need from him.
"[Hall of Fame Rockets center] Elvin Hayes called me one day. He said, 'For this team to win, you really have to make that ultimate sacrifice,'" Howard told Sports Illustrated's Ben Golliver. " I didn’t quite get it at first, but I think I really understand it now better than before. ... That sacrifice for me is going to come on the offensive end."
It all sounds as good as it possibly can. But vocally ceding the spotlight and actually giving it up are two different things. When the volume of Howard's involvement decreases, he can't let that affect him.
The responsibility of holding this team together through the transition, however, falls on Harden's shoulders. It's his job to read what the Rockets need and respond accordingly.That might mean making slight adjustments to accommodate Howard: Passing more out of pick-and-rolls, feeding the post when there's an exploitable mismatch, understanding he's no longer the lone alpha dog. Or it might simply involve ensuring that status quo doesn't change, that Harden continues on as Houston's key offensive catalyst.
He won't lose the MVP award based on his play down the stretch. His numbers speak for themselves.
But he could create the slightest bit of separation over his peers by acing the final exam on this season's syllabus. Given how tightly packed this race is, that could be enough to help win this thing by a nose.
Or, in Harden's case, by a beard.
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Dwight Howard back
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