James Harden certainly has his detractors, but there are few players in NBA history more effective than the Los Angeles Clippers star at putting points on the board. He reached a major milestone there on Saturday.
In the third quarter of a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the 36-year-old Harden passed Carmelo Anthony for 10th place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list with 28,290 points. LeBron James (first) and Kevin Durant (eighth) are the only active players ahead of him.
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Fittingly, given his style of play, Harden did it with a free throw.
Harden finished the game with 34 points on 10-of-18 shooting, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals and 4 turnovers. That big night wasn’t enough to lift the struggling Clippers to a win, as the Timberwolves took the game 109-106.
L.A.’s record now sits at 6-18, second-worst in the Western Conference. Between the scandal around Kawhi Leonard and the dysfunction from the Chris Paul situation, it’s hard to think of a worse start for a team that entered this season planning to contend.
Harden has scored in droves ever since his trade to the Houston Rockets, who turned him into an analytics monster via a focus on generating 3-pointers and free-throw shots. It’s an unwatchable style of play for many fans, and one that was emulated by many around the league, but it also turned him into an MVP and perennial All-Star
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Fittingly, Harden is already second on the all-time 3-pointer list (behind only Stephen Curry) and fifth on the all-time free-throw list (Karl Malone, James, Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant). He’s also 13th on the assist list — and fourth on the turnover list.
When trying to explain James Harden, you could do worse than just reeling off where he ranks in the above stats.
Where could Harden end up on the list? Since leaving the Rockets, he’s averaged 21.0 points per game and 68.5 games in four full seasons. If he were to average that pace for another three seasons, that would work out to 4,321 points, enough to get him past Michael Jordan for fifth place and within striking distance of Bryant for fourth.
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All-time NBA scoring list
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 38,387
