The All-Star substitute name was announced alone, and the public opinion was deep-fried pot. The 76-player star James Harden became a relic and failed to enter the All-Star for 11 consecutive years.
Harden averaged 21.4 points and 11 assists this season, ranking 76th in the east. During the offseason, he made salary sacrifices. The transition this season was smooth and the team’s overall record was good, but Harden could not enter the All-Star substitute?
The disrespect (disrespectful).
Harden only sent two words on social media after hearing the news, and he couldn’t see how strong anger and dissatisfaction were. Probably, after being rejected again and again, Harden’s heart was already a pile of ashes after burning, losing the ability of anger. Why do you increase mental internal friction for things beyond your control?
Harden has never said clearly, but he regards this season as a season with the meaning of “recovering lost ground”, and his attitude of eager to save the wind is obvious.
Harden disappeared for some time to cure his heart injury after 76 people were kicked out by the heat in the eastern semi-final last season. According to the news that Troy Payne, the business manager of Harden, even he couldn’t contact harden once after 76 people were out. Over the past two years, trading, injuries, and playoff outs have made Harden physically and mentally miserable. Harden lamented that the past two years had been the lowest point of his career. He had never dealt with so much in a short period of time and had experienced too much both physically and mentally.
Harden started hard training early during the off-season, and strengthened leg stength while losing weight. Harden jumped out of the contract to reduce the salary and renew the contract. He accepted a two-year contract worth 67 million dollars. The salary reduction in a single season reached 15 million dollars. 76 people got the full middle-class special signing PJ-Tucker, he also signed Dannell house with a special case for two years.
There were but not many voices praising Harden’s sacrifice. The Alliance also launched an investigation. While investigating whether 76 people recruited Tucker and House in advance for violation of regulations, while investigating whether Harden and 76 people had yin and yang contracts, these two investigations are actually two different things.
The Athletic expert John Hollinger specially issued a document attacking The league’s treatment of Harden’s double standard. He believed that Batum and Portis both signed a one-year contract with The team at a lower market price during The offseason in 2021, in 2022, Batum got 22 million dollars for 2 years and Portis got 49 million dollars for 4 years. Why didn’t the league investigate whether Batum and Portis had a yin-yang contract with the team when they renewed their contracts at a low price for one year.
Harden has become accustomed to double standards. Taking this year’s vote of all-star substitute coaches as an example, it is really impossible to see what the logic coaches follow.
The eastern side followed the logic of “high attendance”, but the western side couldn’t get stuck. Little Jaron Jackson missed 17 games and had one more than Harden. However, according to the standard of little Jackson’s high-order data, Harden’s high-order integrated data (measuring player influence) dumped hollerdi, Randle, DeRozan and Adebayor two streets.
Many fine energy saving shows that Harden is not popular. In the previous All-Star vote, Harden got 35 players to vote, ranking 5th among the Eastern defenders, behind Owen, Mitchell, Jay Brown and DeRozan. Harden was the fourth behind Owen, Mitchell and Brown in the voting. The media vote was even more pitiful. Harden got three votes, ranking fifth behind Mitchell, Brown, Halliburton and Owen.
ESPN held a round table interview after the All-Star substitute list was released, and only one of the five famous names chose Harden among the biggest remains.
To a certain extent, two forced Palace events, two seasons of general performance due to injuries, two seasons of playoff lack of representative work affected Harden’s style review, which is part of the reason why he failed the all-star.
Over the years, Harden has also experienced the cold and warm world. In the 2015-16 season, Harden played 82 regular season games with 29 points, 6.1 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 1.7 steals in 38.1 minutes. As a result, Harden didn’t even make the best three teams.
In 2015 and 2016, Harden lost to Stephen Curry in the MVP battle due to record problems, which is understandable. It can be selected by MVP in 2017, and the standard is “changing with boarding”. The 55th victory of the rocket was 8 more than that of thunder. However, because the average number of Wei Shao’s games became the second in history, the judges attached importance to “the historical significance of data” and the MVP was taken away by Wei Shao. In the vote, Harden got 22 first votes, and Wei Shao was 69.
In the 2013 MVP Battle, Ha scored 36.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, 7.5 assists, 2 steals, and many high-end data giants on the stage, moreover, Chris Paul’s attendance rate was not high due to injuries this season. Harden was ranked 4th in the West with a 53-win rocket. This time, the judges did not consider the high-level data and sympathy factors, but only considered the record. Adtokunbo, who led the team to win 60 wins, won the prize.
Since all-star launched the captain selection system, Harden has been quite embarrassed. Harden was selected as the starter in 2019 and 2020, and James was selected as the starter at the end. Of course, compared with kenba Walker and Trey young who were not chosen to fall to the alphabet team automatically, Harden was not the most shameful.
In 2022, the All-Star candidate appeared. At that time, Harden had left basketable nets to switch to 76 people. James and Durant did not choose Harden, and finally only Gobel and Harden were left. Everyone was waiting to see if Durant would choose harden. As a result, Durant chose Gobel seriously and Harden automatically fell into James.
In addition, in recent years, Harden’s jersey sales are far less than the peak. In addition to a wave of jersey sales when he joined 76 people, it is difficult for Harden’s jersey sales to enter the top 15 at other times. In January this year, the league just announced the sales of jerseys from the season to now. Curry, James and adtokunbo separated from the top three, while Harden did not enter the top 15.
There are many reasons leading to these phenomena.
Harden used to play with the big core of the ball. Many people labeled him “selfish” and “bullies”, Kobe, mcGrady and others have pointed out that it is difficult to win the championship with this style of play.
Harden’s cooperation with Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Wei Shao, Durant and Owen all ended with chicken feathers. Coupled with the problems of “Touching porcelain” and defense, Harden was repeatedly rejected.
The shaping of Harden’s image by The media is also a reason. ESPN and The Athletic are The American media with The largest traffic today, and their reports affect countless people. In the works of the two media, Harden had too much privilege during the rocket period, lacked discipline and loved playing. Harden was not professional in the basketable Nets era and still indulged in nightclubs. I like to complain about teammates and coaches and seldom find reasons from myself.
Harden said that he was unwilling to respond to these through interviews, because whatever he said would be interpreted as “excuses”, and the social media era was too easy to take things out of context.
“So I don’t accept interviews very much.” Harden said. As for whether he got a fair evaluation, “it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. They don’t understand me. I also don’t care whether I am underestimated or overestimated. These comments can’t affect me.”
Harden, including his teammates enbide, has already understood with his personal experience that competitive sports are the winner-take-all. It is useless to say more. As long as they win the championship, they don’t even need to say anything, praise, honor comes naturally.