HOUSTON – Thirteen years ago this week, the Toronto Raptors were moving props for the most impressive single-game scoring feat in NBA history not involving Wilt Chamberlain, who – you might have heard — once scored 100 points in a near-mythical effort in Hershey, Pennsylvania in 1962.
Chamberlain’s is the mark that we’ve always been led to believe will stand forever — an unblemished, perfectly round, seemingly unattainable number; the shining beacon atop the NBA’s Stats Mountain.
Which is why the 81 points Kobe Bryant hung on an over-matched Raptors team on an otherwise ordinary January night in the middle of the 2005-06 season resonates. Unlike Chamberlain’s explosion of which there is no video evidence and took place in a half-full, minor-league arena, Bryant’s was under the bright lights at Staples Center, forever accessible on YouTube to every Raptors fan’s chagrin.
It is the second-highest single-game scoring total ever and the only time in the modern era that anyone even got within Wilt’s shadow.
But could things be changing?
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On Friday night, the Toronto Raptors will take on the latest NBA history maker as they are next in line to get snowed under by the blizzard of threes and the hail-storm of free throws that is James Harden, the Houston Rockets guard who has honed in on the modern NBA’s pressure points and – like a one-man Moneyball machine – leveraged them to unanticipated extremes.
As basketball steadily embraces the notion that threes are better than twos, Harden has been at the forefront of the kindergarten math takeover.
He is averaging 43.1 points a game over a nearly unprecedented 20-game stretch since a rash of Rockets injuries forced him to shoulder a greater scoring load than the defending MVP ever has before, which is saying something. He’s scored at least 30 points in every game since Dec. 13, the longest such streak by anyone not named Wilt.
Over its course, Harden has turned his already profligate game up to 11, getting to the line more and taking more threes than anyone thought possible even a couple of seasons ago. Right now, he’s on pace to set records for three-point attempts and free throws made per game.
He lives outside the arc, baiting defences with his ever-deepening range and either lets it fly or dives past over-committed defenders on his way to the rim, and he’s always playing for fouls.
In a league where freedom of movement for offensive players has become legislated, Harden has mastered the black art of forcing referees to make calls.
In putting up a career-high 61 points under the theatre-style lighting at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, Harden showed what can happen when you push the modern game to its logical extremes.
No one has ever taken at least 20 threes and 20 free throws in a single game before and guess what?
It works.
A bad night from deep (Harden was only 5-of-20 from three) can be offset by steady numbers at the line, where Harden went 22-of-25.
“That’s not even fair. That’s crazy,” said Raptors rangy forward Pascal Siakam who will likely be among a conga line of defenders who head coach Nick Nurse will employ in an effort to somehow deflect the thundering Harden waterfall.
“He’s just so good. He can shoot the basketball and you know the ball is coming to him, but he’s just so talented and I’ve never seen someone on [a roll} like this before; it’s amazing to watch.”
The modern NBA shot spectrum is set in stone. Like baseball embracing statistical certainties of walks and homeruns, basketball has codified the notion that free-throws, lay-ups and three pointers inescapably generate the most points per possession.
In that context Harden is the NBA’s bottom-line driven CFO, squeezing profits out of efficiencies that were always there if someone was contrary enough to exploit them. If threes, free-throws and lay-ups are the best ways to score, why take any other shot?
And Harden largely doesn’t.
In particular, the broad-shouldered 6-foot-5 lefty has used his dual threat as an off-the-dribble three-point shooter and big-bodied paint penetrator to draw fouls at an unprecedented rate.
Among NBA players who can shoot, dribble and score, it’s Harden’s mastery of getting fouled that inspires both wonder and envy. He’s averaging 10.3 free throws made per game, which is tied for third-most ever, and fractionally behind the all-time single-season leader (Jerry West) at 10.6. During his streak, Harden is averaging 13 made free throws a game, which would blow past West’s record. His 15.6 three-point attempts per game during the streak also puts him on pace to break the single-season record.
“For me as a young guy in this league who doesn’t really get a lot of calls, it’s amazing the calls he gets,” says Raptors guard Fred VanVleet who will also likely see some of Harden in the Raptors defend-by-committee approach. “He does flop a little bit, but when he gets fouled he does get fouled but he’s found a way to manipulate the rules to his advantage and figure out how to shoot 25 free throws in a game. You have to give the guy credit for that, that’s the most impressive thing.”
Like a disciplined slugger with long track record of drawing walks Harden seems to have earned the benefit of the doubt from referees, too.
“He’s great at using his body, he knows how to draw fouls in the sense that you can’t use your hands the way you want to,” said Raptors shooting guard Danny Green, sounding exasperated just thinking about it. “It’s hard to play defence without your hands … referees look at him and how he attacks the basket and how he uses his body different than they look at someone like Kawhi [Leonard] or Kyle [Lowry] attacking the basket. [Referees are] going to look for those little reach-ins, those little tickity [fouls], so you have to keep your hands out. [Harden is] good at exaggerating it when he does get hit with the reach in. You have to be less aggressive, for sure.”
So, what are the upper limits? What heights can Harden reach?
Could Harden surpass Bryant as the NBA’s leading sub-100-point scorer?
It seems doable, but – believe it or not – it would require Harden to shoot more.
His 38 field goal attempts against the Knicks were a career high. Harden scored 60 this time last season on just 30 shots. When Bryant scored 81, he took 46 shots – the fourth-highest shot total since 1983-84, which is how far back Basketball-reference.com tracks that number.
What kind of damage could Harden do on 46 shots?
Based on his shot profile over his 30-point scoring streak, it would breakdown as roughly 21 two-point attempts and 25 shots from three.
In his five 50-point games this season, Harden is shooting 67 per cent from two, 33 per cent from three and generating about 18 points on free throws.
The math suggests that on a good night, Harden could comfortably shoot 67 per cent on 21 two-pointers, yielding 28 points. If he hits 33-per-cent of his 25 triples he would have about 24 points from beyond the arc. Combined that’s 52 points; mix in 18 points at the line and Harden is at 70 points – the fourth-highest scoring game in history.
Too easy.
But those are pretty conservative estimates – it’s basically just Harden playing like he does on any good night. Catching Kobe – let alone Chamberlain — would require a particularly special night, it seems fair to say.
So what if Harden ever got hot for deep and went, say, 13-of-25 from three? That’s 39 points. What about a big night at the line – 21 points seems doable. Now Harden’s at 60 without making a lay-up. A 14-of-21 night on twos in those circumstances and all of a sudden, Harden is at 88 points, blowing past Bryant with a shot at the 90-point barrier.
Do that and suddenly Wilt would be in view; the impossible would seem at least remotely conceivable.
Clearly we’re way down the hypothetical rabbit hole here, but it doesn’t seem so far-fetched because Harden is doing things that were viewed as far-fetched almost every game he plays at this stage. He’s already taking us to places we’ve never been.
Lots of things would have to line up for Harden to crack the 81-point mark, let alone anything beyond that, but then again they always do on special, historic nights – the perfect wind assistance for a 100-metre record; then-Raptor Jalen Rose and his wooden legs guarding Bryant way back then; or Chamberlain – a career 50-per-cent free-throw shooter – going 28-of-32 from the stripe on his way to the century mark.
Harden is doing things almost no one has ever done, almost every night.
Why put limits on him now?
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