Will James Harden make the NBA change its rules?

Just as 3x3ballers was planning to write this post, game 6 of the NBA Western Conference semi-final happened between Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs. Bear in mind this was an elimination game for Houston and it was taking place on their home court. Also, add that both San Antonio’s point guard, Tony Parker, and two-way machine, Kawhi Leonard, were both out injured.

So the scene was set for a marauding Rockets fast break, 3-point machine to run over a hapless depleted Spurs, right? Wrong! To our utter disbelief, Harden went missing and Houston crashed out.  He had more turnovers than points in the first quarter and did not take a shot till the second.

He had 2-for-11 shooting for the game and wasn’t even there at the end, as he fouled out of the game with over 3 minutes to go. A spectacular meltdown. His points total of only 10 was shocking. To add insult to injury, he was spotted doing the rounds of Houston’s night clubs afterwards which will no doubt infuriate the season ticket holders.

We also wonder how this will affect his MVP voting. Strictly speaking only his regular season record should be considered for league MVP. But we can’t help thinking that he has lost a few votes after such an abject performance.

But back to the real point of this post, The Beard’s uncanny ability to draw fouls behind the 3-point line. If you are a long standing NBA fan you will be aware of the LA Clippers, Jamaal Crawford, who over the course of a season will get fouled a few times from behind the arc. But Harden has taken things to a new level, drawing almost 130 of them. His team mate, Lou Williams, is in second place with ‘only’ around 55. No one else on the list reached 35.

Oklahoma Thunder’s Taj Gibson looks genuinely perplexed with the way Harden drew the foul on him. And 3x3ballers think he has got every right to as it looks to us like Harden is initiating the contact. In the game vs the Thunder, he drew a 3-point shooting foul eight times! And as he is such a good free-throw shooter, he has been racking-up the points this season from all the visits he has made to the line.

There is a lot of whispering around the league by various unnamed coaches and GM’s talking about how the Rockets have been “gaming the system” and the “league is getting played”. One anonymous rival team executive has even claimed he has witnessed Harden and Williams practicing drawing this type of foul drawing during pre-match warmup.

Far from us to suggest that there may be an element of jealousy out there as other teams don’t have players who are as adept at drawing fouls in this way. Oh excuse us, we just did!

This all reminds us of the controversy surrounding the ‘rip-through’ move Kevin Durant used to use to draw fouls before the league pretty much outlawed it.  A move the Spurs Tim ‘Big fundamental’ Duncan dined out on for years.

So we reckon Harden and co are going to have their foul drawing moves referred to the NBA competition committee over the summer and wouldn’t be surprised if there is a rule change before next season.

But even before that we can’t help thinking that for all Harden’s foul drawing trickery, maybe justice was served anyway with the way he and Houston crashed out of the playoffs.