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Houston Rockets guard James Harden has quickly climbed up to put his name in the record books, currently in the midst of the most ambitious scoring barrage of his career. His 35.7 points per game average is the most since 1987-88, when Michael Jordan averaged 37.1 points to win the scoring crown, surpassing Kobe Bryant's 35.4 average from 2005-06.
A recent run of 20 straight games with 30 points or more has tied him with Wilt Chamberlain as the only two players to ever accomplish such scoring dominance — a feat that has him among the greatest to ever play the game.
“Kobe and Wilt and Jordan — now we’re talking about the elites of the game, the greatest to ever touch a basketball,” Harden said, according to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. “It’s honorable to be up there with those names. Honest, I have a long way to go. I’m not even close to what they accomplished in their careers. But it’s pretty cool to be in that conversation and almost there. But I have a lot of work to do.”
Harden won't deny his intent for a back-to-back MVP award, and neither will he underhand the importance of chasing history and building his legacy.
“That’s one of the reasons you play the game of basketball: to be, when it’s all said and done, mentioned as one of the greats, the greatest that ever dribbled a basketball, whether it’s Wilt, whether it’s Jordan, and the list goes on,” Harden said. “Obviously, you want to win championships and want the individual accomplishments, but every day (when) I’m in the gym and work on moves, I think about that.
“When I’m done, whenever that is, I want my name up there with them. It’s a good place to be in.”
Harden has perhaps singlehandedly brought a Rockets team mired in the penultimate spot of the West and spearheaded the charge for a fifth seed — a miraculous turnaround after the team was hard-pressed to get over the .500 mark through the early part of the season.
With that in the rearview mirror, Harden's only option is to keep putting up shots at a maniacal pace in hopes to keep his team in playoff contention, chasing the names of the legends of this sport while doing so.
