A leading candidate for the MVP award, James Harden is having one of the best seasons of his career and has his Houston Rockets third in the Western Conference. Harden has really stepped up his play this season and is averaging 29.4 points, 11.3 assists (which leads the league) and eight rebounds. He is also shooting 44.8 percent and 35.2 percent from three. But while Harden has been sensational offensively, he is still dogged with criticism about his defense.
Harden's defense was questioned a lot last season as clips of his lackadaisical effort on the defensive end became viral videos and were fodder for his failure of being a complete player. This season though, Harden has been more focused on the defense and he is no longer as heavily criticized as he once was. But Harden hasn't been able to completely shake off the criticism yet he isn't too worried, because he personally knows that he's a good defender.
From Texas Monthly's Chris O'Connell:
When I asked Harden about it, he said that was the biggest misconception about him: “Last year I had some bad plays, ball watching or whatnot. The focus wasn’t there. You can pull bad clips from anybody and make a highlight tape. Then it’s like”—he adopted a generic critic’s voice—“ ‘He can’t guard.’ Yes, I can guard. I’m a really good defender.”
OK, before you start laughing at Harden's confidence in his defense, O'Connell crunched the numbers and the Rockets All-Star is actually right about his impact on defense.
YouTube clips aside, the numbers reveal that Harden isn’t quite the terrible defensive player he’s made out to be. In real plus-minus, an advanced stat used to measure a player’s impact when he’s on the court, Harden leads the league in offensive output, at just under 7. This means that when Harden is leading the Rockets down the floor, he adds, on average, 7 points to his team’s net scoring margin per 100 possessions. On defense, he is, according to the same metric, worth negative 1.47 points to the Rockets’ net scoring margin. That’s slightly better than fellow star guards like Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving, but nearly a point and a half per 100 possessions worse this season than Westbrook and the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry. Of course, Harden’s prolific offense far outweighs his defensive shortcomings.
O'Connell's last point is especially key. Harden is such a dominant force offensively, that despite his defense being the weaker part of his game, his offense makes up for it. Plus Harden is no slouch on defense. He's actually made some key defensive plays this season in crunch time moments and is averaging 1.5 steals a game. Harden is much more focused on defense this season and his effort is quite evident.
Of course Harden is still not a two-way player. But the Rockets don't need him to be. Houston needs Harden to run their high powered offense, score at will, set his teammates for three-point bombs and get to the free throw line. Harden excels in all of these areas and is just brilliant on offense. Sure his defense may not be stellar but Harden is a solid enough defender for Houston and that's all the Rockets need from their All-Star point guard.
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