James Harden WAS just what the Clippers needed

The Clippers are 21-4 in January and February behind the best offense in the NBA. In this enhanced segment from the Thinking Basketball podcast, Ben and Cody break down James Harden’s role as a point guard for Ty Lue’s offense and why his pass-first style has fit so well with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.

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Ben Taylor is the author of Thinking Basketball, a Nylon Calculus contributor, creator of the Backpicks Top 40 series & host of the Thinking Basketball podcast.

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Footage in this video is owned by the NBA and its partners. It is intended for critique and education.

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Let’s talk about James Harden James Harden yeah James Harden who has really embraced this sort of point guard role that we saw him play in Brooklyn is like point guard James Harden where it’s no longer Harden ball not the entire offense doesn’t run through him but you

Still start with all these pick and roll progressions and in his case in Los Angeles we’ve seen this kind of synergy that he’s developed with a zubot on the pick and roll where he can hit them with lobs he can hit zubats in the middle of

The paint and Zoo can kind of Spin and find a finish that way and you know Harden had this I think in the past with certain players like Clint capella where you have the vertical threat but you also have the timing of just how to hit

Him in the lane and set up that player to do his thing and then once defenses start to say like okay we’re going to pay a little bit more attention to zubot as a roll threat with Harden he can start skipping it to the corner to open

Three-point shooters or run the pick and roll and swing it to you know one of the other Clippers out on the wing or something like that he’s been able to develop this and it’s really started to kind of Kickstart the Clippers offense into a more organic position where

Harden is the guy at the center of the ship but again it’s not Harden ball he can initiate and just let plays unfold where you’re hitting Paul George you’re hitting Kawhi Leonard all this stuff and the Clippers offense has has taken off yeah some of those quick hitting actions

Like it’s not as much as you know what are we 2017 Rockets pound pound to pound screen get some switches and he’s going to attack there is some like up yeah these two guys are maybe going to be in a horns action and then somebody cuts to

The basket and he throws a lob to them or even if he does get downhill off a pick and roll I think something that’s really helped him as he’s aged and maybe lost a step in his speed is he’s a really strong dude right so he can get

Down low he’s kind of bouncing off guys as he goes down there and then you know they see the zoo lob coming but nope skip it to the opposite corner and he’s going to hit somebody for a three we know that he can do some of this like

Primary creation kind of thing but like you look at some of the lineups when he’s on the court with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard and I know you know I didn’t see some of the granular stats but his usage percentage when he’s on the court with those two is is the

Lowest of the three his scoring per 100 is the lowest of the three it’s a lot of this like secondary type of passing that he’s doing right you see some of these beautiful game possessions from the Clippers and he’s sort of at the center

Of it like he gets a step on his guy and you know maybe throws behind the back pass somebody cuts he catches the ball and immediately like touch passes it to the corner and then all of a sudden he gets the ball again he gets a little bit

Of space instead of like dancing and doing like the step back three thing he drives into the paint draws some more attention kicks it to the corner bam Paul George quter pocket 3 right and so he’s at the center of a lot of this beautiful smooth ball movement that you

Know we were extoling the greatness of guys like Joe Engles or like or Kyle Anderson Nick patum and he’s sort of flowing in between like I’m an on ball pick and roll type of Creator but also I’m over here and I’m ready to do some of the second side quick sort of passing

And above anything else I’ve seen from James Harden those are the passes that make me the most impressed yeah I think an interesting wrinkle there as well is what you mentioned about his size and strength so part of this Clippers offense that we’re seeing is using him

As a passer from the elbow a little bit like those elbow passers that we talked about earlier so in Harden’s case they throw him at the elbow and he can hit Cutters uh or let the kind of offense unfold out of that area and so Paul George and Kawhi Leonard naturally can

Do their off ball thing and I think it’s kind of lubricated some of the offense without playing Harden ball necessarily they had this really cool sequence where Harden’s at the elbow and I think it’s Paul Jorge who runs across the court on an Iverson cut from one side of the

Floor to the other and then gets back door and Harden snaps it to him beautifully for a layup right then they run the same thing in a different game and the defense switches so Paul George isn’t open on that back door he can turn and reuse the same screen and

Pop back out and hit a three at the top of the key because that’s Paul George’s game that like movement shooting kind of stuff um even one more in that set is they throw it to harden at the elbow and this is not an easy pass to make but the

Clippers create space by emptying the corner so George is now the only guy on that side of the court next to harden at the elbow Harden throws this beautiful entry pass over the top to George and they get uh really good offense out of that so I think this all ties together

In terms of using him as a point guard and sort of also being able to maximize the other players on the court and let everybody kind of do their thing in a way that fits together and I think it really helps that neither Paul George or Kawhi Leonard really seem like guys that

Want to be like these Mega creators like they don’t want to be a guy that’s like I’m going to have the ball and have you know 50 pick and roll possessions I’m going to isolate this many times they like moving off ball a little bit more Kawhi Leonard likes NE nestling into the

Post and waiting for the pass Paul George can battle a little bit spin Baseline try and go for a lob and James Harden like I said the diversity of his passing is is just so much more expansive than I’m remembering you talk about the high low passes I’m seeing a

Lot more kick ahads like really pushing ahead to these other guys and he’s really great at just just bouncing it beneath a defender’s hands to get to a guy that’s cutting to the basket you know James Harden’s not a perfect passer right I don’t think by any means he’s

Like the best passer in the league you still see a couple of times where somebody’s open for a split second in the paint and you’re like okay I can imagine somebody else making this pass he misses it uh but like in terms of like the array of passes he can make

Like we said using his strength be positioned in these different parts of the floor um to me he’s definitely a top what seven passer in the League based on all of that yeah one thing I’ve mentioned before is some of his limitations with like right to left passing or being dominant as a

Left-handed passer and even lately I’ve seen a couple nice right-handed passes from Harden out of pick and roll and things like that so let’s go back to what you just mentioned about his unselfishness when all these guys are out there on the court together Cody in 895 minutes with Paul George and Kawhi

Leonard Hardon is just averaging 17 points per 75 that’s it 17 points per 75 65% true shooting so very low volume higher efficiency very very high efficiency in fact and the uh raw assists go up in that case I think it’s like 13 assists per 100 possessions or

Something like that so really playing this theoretical role of like the ballast and the on ball playmaker and handling all this decision making around players like kawhai and Paul George where they don’t have to do all the heavy lifting but you still end up with an offense where everything kind of fits

Pretty well uh with each player playing their role thanks for listening you can find the full episode of this thinking basketball podcast on Apple podcast Stitcher Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts