James Harden, by his own admittance, is in pain. He’s dealing with a left wrist injury, one that visibly factored into his 5-of-20 shooting performance during the Houston Rockets’ Tuesday night loss to the Golden State Warriors.
Perhaps it’s a good time for him to take a few games off and get right for the playoffs.
Or maybe not.
From ESPN.com’s Calvin Watkins:
“It’s pretty tough, man, I’m not going to lie,” said Harden, who has played in all 74 of the Rockets’ games this season. “I don’t like to feel sorry for myself at all, but just the shot is short and frustrating when you can’t really follow through and whatnot. I’m going to continue to go out there and do my best, and honestly, we gave ourselves a chance — not making 3s, we still fought fought, fought. We cut it to six and they hit some big shots.” …
“Nah, nah,” he said when asked about missing a game or having reduced minutes.
He’s against rest, because playing is what he says he believes he should be doing. He gets paid to play 82 games, so he says he believes that’s what he should do, barring injury. Harden doesn’t get injured — he leads the NBA in total minutes the past three seasons.
Missing games with an injury is different than sitting out for rest-and-relaxation purposes. Harden and the Rockets have to take that into account. He’s played in all 74 regular-season games, and Houston has the Western Conference’s three-seed under lock and key. Neither the Los Angeles Clippers nor Utah Jazz are within five games of the Rockets’ position.
Head coach Mike D’Antoni, per Watkins, noted that sitting Harden was a possibility. But he also pointed to the MVP hopeful’s triple-double on Tuesday night as evidence he’s going to be fine.
Still, if the wrist is bothering him that much, there’s no incentive for Harden to risk further injury when his team won’t have anything to play for until the postseason. His MVP has been made. Now it’s time to make sure he reaches the playoffs in MVP form—or at least in one piece.
