The Oklahoma City Thunder fans will have nightmares with James Harden for a while. Harden debuted yesterday with his new team and had perhaps his best game as a pro, dropping 37 points and 12 assists. A small sample to those skeptical about Harden's ability to take the role of being the man of a team. Now do not expect Harden to drop eye popping numbers like this every night, but its the perfect way to remind the world that James Harden is a star and is only 23 years old. Yes they played the Detroit Pistons, but so what? When Kobe Bryant dropped 81 points against the Toronto Raptors nobody said anything about it being against the raptors, 37 is 37 no matter which team you play. Harden and his new backcourt buddy Jeremy Lin looked great today, finding each other, highlighted by a backdoor cut by Harden which Lin found for an open dunk
Consider this, only three players in the last 25 years have put up the same numbers or better, than Harden put up yesterday, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Dwyane Wade. Three hall of famers, and people want to say that this was a bad trade by Houston? Kevin Martin is a very good player, but he is not James Harden. Coach Kevin Mchale believed it was a challenge for Harden to figure out what the team is doing, after all he just got there. So what will happen when Harden does know what he's doing within the context of the offense? Harden is coming signing his 5 year 80 million extension, and he's determine to show everybody that he's worth every cent.
There rockets are still players away from even making the playoffs, but its a very good start. Should OKC not make it back to the finals this year, they'll look back to this trade and how things could have been different. After all, they could have just waited it out and see how far OKC got this year before making such a hasty decision. Meanwhile Harden will continue to show night in an out that OKC made a mistake and it started last night, in the tune of 37 and 12.
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