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NEW YORK – According to James Harden, “everything is a flow”. Some evenings, he said in his introductory press conference on Friday: “I could be a facilitator.” Other nights he could score at a high clip. Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant “could score 10 possessions in a row,” he said, “and I’m okay with that because we’re going to win and it’s going to be good.”
Harden will make his Brooklyn Nets debut on Saturday, provided all players in Wednesday’s trade pass physical exams. Irving will be out of training, by Malika Andrews from ESPN, but could be back from his absence on Monday. Whenever all three stars are found on the field, the world will look at them to see what it looks like. Harden said that “this is going to be fun”, inadvertently channeling an infamous Illustrated sports cover line, and that he cannot predict how it will turn out from game to game.
“It’s the beauty of being versatile and being able to do more than one thing,” he said.
The counterpoint is that since 2012 he has been doing the same. Throughout his tenure with the Houston Rockets, Harden was unequivocally the centerpiece of offense and organization. The teammates changed, the coaches changed and the style of play evolved, but he had the ball in his hands, in full control. Nets coach Steve Nash admitted on Friday that “it will be an adjustment for him,” but said Harden was excited about the novelty of the situation. Harden said it was exciting to hear Nash, “one of the best at it,” explain his place in the attack when they spoke earlier today.
“As long as I improve my teammates, whatever the points are,” said Harden. “I think everyone knows I can score at a high score, and that’s where the sacrifice comes in.”
On several occasions, Harden has made it clear that he wants it, and so have his new co-stars. Nash and general manager Sean Marks, who spoke on Thursday, said the same. It sounded a lot like what everyone was saying about Durant and Irving’s coexistence with playmakers Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert, an experience that had barely started before Dinwiddie partially tore up his ACL and the Nets traded LeVert in the Harden accord. This partnership is different, however. Brooklyn has three All-NBA-caliber players, all aged 28 to 32, and Harden isn’t set to return to the role of the sixth man of the year he played in his early twenties.
Neither Harden nor his new coach have offered a quote on the fit that may match the line Klay Thompson delivered after Durant joined the Golden State Warriors’ 73 wins: “There’s a ball. we’re going to do – we’re going to put the hoop on. ” Nash did his best to reframe the “one ball” discussion, however, calling it the cliché “big problem” for the coaching staff and, more convincingly, a “big opportunity” for the trio. (Thompson also said, memorably, that he “doesn’t sacrifice shit.”)
“Look, these guys, they want to win,” Nash said. “If they really want to win, they’ll find a way to play together. I think my role, our role as coaches, is to create a really, really nice, challenging and competitive environment, but fun.”
It’s hard to imagine a more interesting coach for this particular challenge. Nash is one of the best leaders in NBA history, a Hall of Fame point guard who personifies altruism. He’s also in his first year on the job, and he was on this infamous AND cover, posing next to Dwight Howard. Helping the man he is, when goofy Howard belted “I Love LA” during the photoshoot, Nash joined in. In this story, Grant Hill describes Nash as a “conductor,” but this super-team has never listened, doomed by personality clashes and injuries.
“Having played on teams with other talented players, you can see the pitfalls, you can see the difficulties and you can build on those experiences,” Nash said. “And I think part of that is just to start off by really just stripping our motivations here together. Like why are we here? What do we want to accomplish?”
In this regard, Nash believes they are on the same page. Harden, Durant and Irving all know they will have to “take a slightly less bulky approach to play now,” he said. “There are still a lot of plans to be made, there are still a lot of opportunities to make games, but it won’t be the same format as before when they were largely the No.1 focal point. be a lot more split between the three. “Nash said the attack doesn’t have to be perfect next week, but they’ll find out how to improve on each other – and their non-teammates. stars.
Harden describes himself as “an elite player, an elite teammate and just a guy who is willing to do whatever it takes to rack up as many wins as possible, sacrifice.” He hasn’t spoken to Irving about how they would share responsibility for handling the ball, he said, but he didn’t seem worried about it.
“Depending on what happens throughout the game, that will determine who gets the ball and who plays,” said Harden. “We’re all selfless, we’re all willing passers-by and we play basketball the right way. And that’s all that matters.”
Harden said the Nets were at the top of his list as he planned his exit from Houston. “It was obvious to me,” he said, because all he wants at this point in his career is a chance to win a title.
However, it’s always easier for a star player to talk about sacrifice than to actually do it. Durant has certainly adjusted with the Warriors, but even dominance on the pitch couldn’t maintain that arrangement for more than three seasons. Irving said all the right things when he joined the Boston Celtics, but it got untenable in second year. One could look at the recent history and usage rates of these stars and conclude that this is all going to explode in the collective face of Brooklyn. One could also assume that they understand exactly what is in front of them.
“We know what’s at stake,” said Harden.
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