This is also the age of the unicorn in the NBA. Seven-foot, condor-armed sui generis freaks hatched in genome labs all over the world keep landing in America on draft night, with names that terrify Trump voters, like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kristaps Porzingis. But Harden is nothing like those guys. He’s more like a human record scratch. He’s six feet five, thick as a tree trunk, and fucking maddening to chase around. Send a unicorn to cover James Harden and he’ll just dribble around its legs and float teardrop jumpers over its pointy horn.
Harden isn’t that tall, he doesn’t jump very high, and he isn’t crazy fast. But there is one very particular, newly quantifiable skill at which he is the best in the NBA: deceleration. P3, an athletic-performance firm based in Santa Barbara, California, actually studied this, and that was its conclusion. At a moment when everyone in the league is trying to go faster, Harden is the best at slowing down. “No—stopping,” he clarifies. “That’s why it’s so hard to guard me—because I’m able to get you off-balance, use my body, then stop on a dime and still get my shot. That’s tough, you know?”
- James Harden Isn’t Playing Around, GQ.com, April 12, 2018.
About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
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