While Harden’s goals evolve, his results remain frustratingly stagnant

Michael Wilbon looks at how the Rockets’ defeat to the Warriors this season could put an end to their title hopes. (2:50)

HOUSTON — James Harden headed straight for the tunnel as the final buzzer sounded at the end of Friday’s Game 6, not giving so much as a nod or glance of acknowledgement toward the victors.

It’s hard to blame Harden for not wanting to see any more of the Golden State Warriors, the dynasty that keeps dooming his Houston Rockets.

Harden will have to wait at least one more year to chase his first championship after the Rockets were eliminated from the playoffs by the Warriors for the fourth time in five seasons.

“Keep fighting, man,” Harden said after the Warriors rallied for a 118-113 win to knock out the Rockets. “Obviously, they’re a very, very good team. They’re a great team. They’ve been in the Finals the last four or five years. We’re not losing to some scrubs. We’ve got to find a way to keep getting better, keep growing, keep getting better and keep putting ourselves in position to keep playing them.”

The long-running quest to host an NBA championship parade in downtown Houston, as Hakeem Olajuwon and the Clutch City teams did in back-to-back summers a generation ago, is an all-hands-on-deck mission for the Rockets. But after bowing out in the Western Conference semifinals Friday, Harden’s Rockets have taken a pronounced step back from a year ago, when they were one win away from going to the NBA Finals.

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“People say, ‘I want to make it to the NBA,’ and then your goals change. ‘I want to be a really good player in this league,’ and then it’s like, ‘All right, I want to be the best player in the league,'” Harden told ESPN recently.

“I want to be one of the best that’s ever touched a basketball. Obviously, I’ve got to get the other accolades and things like that, win a ‘chip and all that good stuff. But why not? What am I playing for? Why not?”

“I think he’s already one of the best players to not have won one,” Rockets general manager Daryl Morey told ESPN earlier in the playoffs. “Let’s hope we get him off that list very soon. … I think we’re going to rectify that in not too long.”

At this point, though, Harden’s postseason shortcomings are a smudge on his legacy, preventing him from being widely accepted as belonging on one of the premier tiers of all-time greats.

His postseason accomplishments are overshadowed by his playoff failures. Harden has already had eight 40-point playoff games, a total exceeded by only 11 players in NBA history, but his most memorable postseason performances have been miserable exits — a 10-point, six-turnover dud when the Kawhi Leonard-less Spurs ended the Rockets’ 2017 run with a rout in Houston; a 2-of-11 shooting, 12-turnover nightmare in a 2015 elimination game against the Warriors; even a subpar showing in the 2012 NBA Finals as the Thunder lost to the Miami Heat.

“I don’t really pay attention,” Harden said. “One of the best parts about being in the situation, I don’t focus on it, I don’t pay attention. People are always going to have something to say. Good and bad. Like I said, until you’ve been in this position, you won’t understand it. No point in me trying to explain it to you.”
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