Early in the final quarter of the final game of the NBA season, Jrue Holiday took a shot that was unremarkable in 2021 but would have driven a coach apoplectic a decade earlier: Holiday raced up the court in transition and flung up a triple without appearing to think of passing. But his audacity gave […]
If the NBA is a star-driven league, the Brooklyn Nets might be the supernova of basketball. In Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden, the Nets have a pedigree of a combined two MVP awards, seven scoring titles, 18 All-NBA selections and many, many more opposing players’ broken ankles. Rarely in the sport’s history has […]
When legendary Brooklyn-born rapper Notorious B.I.G. implored listeners of his debut album to “Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way,” it’s likely that he had bigger things in mind than a Brooklyn Nets point guard spreading the basketball around to his teammates. But James Harden is doing just that — and plenty more — for his […]
For almost a decade, the Houston Rockets lived at the forefront of innovation in the NBA. Since 2012, when they acquired James Harden, the Rockets have tried to solve basketball by both shifting the foundation over which the game is played and acquiring complementary talent to suit those ends. Those quests brought the Rockets to […]
When James Harden arrived in Houston on Oct. 27, 2012 — via one of the most second-guessed trades in NBA history — he instantly transformed the Rockets into a perennial contender and changed how basketball was played. Several times in the Harden era, which saw Houston make the playoffs in each of his eight full […]