Ironman Harden
Considering how much contact Houston Rockets’ star guard James Harden initiates, it’s a miracle that he almost never gets injured. Whether it’s due to well-masked smaller bumps and bruises and his high pain threshold, or an uncanny ability to control his body, Harden missed just a few games in the past three seasons, making himself available for his Rockets team at all times. If there’s a game, Harden’s ready to play.
While his endurance is impressive so far, it also gives punters very little past data to work in his absence. Same applies to other two parts of the equation. The books have nothing to base their estimations on, and the Houston Rockets coaching staff will have to go back to the drawing board to help ease the pain of not having him around in the next two or three weeks.
Harden was injured with less than a minute to play in regulation of an overtime victory over the Lakers a few days ago, coming up limping and dragging his left leg after a drive to the basket. Further medical reports revealed Grade 2 hamstring strain, meaning that some tear is involved, and he’ll be reevaluated in two weeks. Hamstring tears are tough to read but usually take a while to heal completely, so you can expect him to miss another week or so before he returns if there would be no setbacks. This means that Harden should be targeting some date around January 20th and that he’ll probably miss about 10 Rockets games. Doesn’t seem all that much when looking at the big picture, but for the Rockets backers, it’s one eight of the season, so we decided to cover this injury right away to help you set accurate numbers.
Harden’s impact
Not only has Harden became an undisputed leader of the Rockets team in the past few season, but has been very much in the MVP talk in 2017. If not for Westbrook’s statistically impressive season, Harden might have won it last season, and was the frontrunner to get it this season before the injury.
In 35 games played this season, Harden increased his load but has also become even more efficient. He’s averaging career-high marks in field goal attempts, three-point attempts and maintained the lofty standard of getting to the line about 10 times per game. His career-best 32.3 points per game is a 3.2-point increase over the last season and a result of hitting about an additional trey each game. The last time Harden shot 39 percent from the deep, he was 22 and in OKC – he’s not launching them at an incredible rate, the shots are falling.
Of course, Paul was not in the mix, but you should also consider that Harden averaged just 36.3 minutes this season, slightly fewer than last season, as he’d sit out many fourth quarters when the Rockets pull out ahead early.
It’s not just the stats. He’s been grandfathering all Houston’s half-court sets and is the solution in one-on-one, pick-and-roll, drive and kicks and diversion actions. Harden has been probably the best individual on offense in this generation off the dribble, generating so much attention of the opposing defenses that the Rockets shooters get wide open after a single pass. Even pass-first Paul used the extra space to practice his shot in some games, and it’s this simplicity and the hectic tempo that has driven the Rockets to the top of the conference and the NBA’s best offense this season.
Harden’s impact on the defensive end is negative but not as bad as it used to be, as they have more specialists to step in and mask his inability to play that side of the court.
Changes and effects
Without Harden, the Rockets will roll with a Paul-Gordon backcourt pairing while the recently signed Gerald Green will use the vacated backup minutes. Gordon has become one of the very few players in the history of the league that attempts more than ten triples per 36 minutes, so the Rockets will continue to rely on the deep shot. But it’s impossible to fill Harden’s shoes, as he creates so many shots of his own. Gordon needs his shot to be created, so the Rockets will use more of Chris Paul’s playmaking and character to find quality attempts. In the first game sans Harden, Green went off for 27 points off the bench, hitting 7-of-10 shots behind the three-point line, but he’s never been consistent and the Rockets bench is now short on players able to put the ball through the hoop on regular basis.
The Rockets won in Orlando, quite convincingly. However, they did it with their defense. The Magic give up 110.2 points on average, so 116 points the Rockets have dropped on them isn’t overly impressive. As much as D’Antoni will try to play the same way (he doesn’t know any other way), the Rockets offense will suffer without Harden. Fewer freebies, more bad shots that clank of the rim in the half court, a slight decrease in tempo and most importantly, worse efficiency due to missing Harden’s percentages and offenses not needing to stray off their primary defensive roles, all this will result in the Rockets offense slipping. Sure, there’s going to be nights when they drop 125 or 130 again, but much less frequently.
It’ll affect both the spread and the total points market. The Rockets have been winning by an average of 8.6 points even with the bad stretch leading to the game Harden got injured. They wouldn’t cover the spread in any of their last six games with Harden, as the bookies faded any value on them after a big winning streak prior to it. The Rockets were still a 7.5-point road favorite last night in Orlando, but this speaks more of the opposing team than about the Rockets. For comparison sake, healthy Pistons were the 4-point favorite and the Heat were just 1.5-point favorite last week in the similar setting. The Rockets will clearly still hold public appeal, even among betting advisors. Also, the market often overreacts to superstar absences evidenced by the obvious money flow on the Magic in the last game. The Rockets play the Warriors tonight, so you have half an attempts to guess which side will the most spread wagers go to.
Even with very few games that Harden missed in recent seasons, the bookies will compare his impact to similar players of the past and adjust their numbers by about 3-3.5 points on most nights, leaving the market to judge on whether it’s enough. They are counting on the Rockets splitting those 10 games ATS, so it’s important to pick your spots. Houston is nowhere a 5-point winning margin team without Harden in the long term, but not all the opponents can show it.
The public will fare better going after the unders, so expect the bookmakers to adjust their total points lines more aggressively. Even with the Magic defense being known to be very bad, the smart money was going for the minus points, and will likely to follow the same approach in the next few games. The average adjustment will be about 9-10 points, and we believe that Harden’s worth probably about 15 until the Rockets find solutions. You can bet this with more regularity but keep in mind that the bookies are going to try and close the window more quickly if the early results show an obvious trend.
