Former Houston Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni recalled James Harden’s remarkable scoring performances during his prime, admitting that the guard was playing at such an exceptional level that he worried about how the team would perform once his production returned to normal.
D’Antoni, who coached Harden in Houston from 2016 to 2020, explained that the former NBA MVP went through a stretch in which he appeared capable of scoring or creating opportunities for teammates whenever he wanted.
“He had a period where he went through about 20 games that literally, I’m thinking this guy’s mastered the game. He can score and set up somebody whenever he wants.”
Harden established himself as one of the NBA’s most productive offensive players under D’Antoni, regularly recording high-scoring performances while also serving as Houston’s primary playmaker.
The former Rockets coach specifically remembered a stretch when Harden repeatedly scored 40 or 50 points, including several games in which he exceeded those totals.
“He probably gets 55, 54, 60 one time. And he had a stretch of 40s and 50 games that went on forever.”
Despite Houston’s success during that period, D’Antoni admitted that Harden’s extraordinary production actually caused him some concern.
He questioned whether the Rockets had become too dependent on their star guard maintaining a scoring level that seemed impossible to sustain over an extended period.
“I’d go home worried as hell because I’m thinking, ‘How we going to win?’ Because that’s not normal what he’s doing. And we’re winning, but that’s not normal. When he goes back to normal, how we going to win? But he stayed with that.”
Harden averaged 36.1 points per game during the 2018-19 season, the highest single-season scoring average in the NBA since Michael Jordan averaged 37.1 points in 1986-87.
He also recorded 32 consecutive games with at least 30 points that season, demonstrating the consistency that made his scoring performances particularly difficult for opposing defenses to contain.
