Sixers star James Harden opens up on playoff failures, recent dark times
Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden is one of the best players the game has ever seen. He is, quite frankly, a basketball genius being able to see things that others don’t and he has shown an incredible ability to score the basketball as well as rebound and distribute the ball as well.
There is a reason why he has won three scoring titles, he’s been an All-Star 10 times in his career, and he won an MVP award in 2018. He was also one win away from guiding the Houston Rockets to the NBA finals in 2018 before falling in Game 7 at home.
Throughout his career, Harden has taken criticism. It comes with the job of being an NBA superstar and a future Hall of Famer. When a player is as talented as he is and he can take games over in the blink of an eye, taking some heat comes with the job.
Harden sat down with Fox Sports’ Yaron Weitzman and he opened up on his playoff failures:
“I’ve had a few bad games in close-out games. Not all of them have been bad,” he said. “Quite frankly, a lot of the times our team wasn’t good enough to compete for championships, if you want to be honest.
“There’s only so much I can do.”
One will immediately say “Harden is making an excuse”, but he’s just answering a question that Weitzman asked him.
On top of the playoff failures, Harden has had some dark times. He discussed it a bit at media day back in September, but he opened up to Weitzman a bit more about having to overcome the recent nagging hamstring injury as he was not able to get to the basket as easily as he once did.
Harden told Weitzman:
“I don’t want to even think about it,” he said. “I don’t need people feeling sorry for me, and I don’t want to even bring it up anymore because I’m past it. And I do a really good job of not listening to what people say because at the end of the day, it’s their opinion.
“But it was definitely that you hear people talking and it was just one of those motivational things where I don’t need motivation, but it definitely motivated me to go out there and put in the work.”
Harden and the Sixers still have a long way to go in order to truly compete with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference, but that championship is the only thing missing from Harden’s incredible resume. He’s going to the Hall of Fame regardless of if he wins a title, but it would be more satisfying for him to go with a ring rather than not.
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