How James Harden foreshadowed his basketball future during his time at ASU

He wore No. 13, just as he does now. The beard? There was some foreshadowing, but like his game, no one could’ve predicted it would become something so big, so identifiable.

No doubt, James Harden was a national talent during his two years at Arizona State – he was a 2009 consensus All-American, after all – but he wasn’t so much a national brand. Even his college coach, Herb Sendek, didn’t see all this coming.

A perennial All-Star. An Olympic champion. An ascension to the NBA’s highest level, where this season he's the leading candidate for MVP, taking the Houston Rockets into the Western Conference finals, a must-see series against the Golden State Warriors that tips off Monday.

“I certainly expected him to be a first-round draft pick and a really good NBA player who could have a long career,” Sendek said, “but I certainly didn’t see him at that particular point becoming arguably the best player on the planet.”

BACKSTORY:How did James Harden end up at Arizona State?

To be fair, few also saw the college versions of Russell Westbrook or Stephen Curry elevating to such heights. Greatness in anything is difficult to predict, especially sports. In basketball, the college and pro games are so different, and talent is just one part of a complex equation.

But if you go back, to the years in which he dominated what was then the Pac-10, you can see Harden showed enough to suggest something like this might be possible. After all, there’s a reason former UCLA coach Ben Howland calls his recruitment of Harden one of the “biggest disappointments” of his career.

There’s a reason former Washington coach Lorenzo Romar watched every one of Harden’s summer AAU games, enjoying the guard dissecting defenses so much that he sometimes felt more like a fan than coach.

“I wouldn’t have told you he’d be the MVP of the NBA,” Romar said, “but I would’ve told you he could’ve been an NBA All-Star. He's just one of those guys that I call an offensive scientist.”

What made Harden so good

Let's go back.

The exact date is lost on Jamelle McMillan, but it happened sometime during Harden’s sophomore season. It was after midnight, and several ASU players were in Wells Fargo Arena without permission, shooting, dunking, horsing around.

At one point, the conversation turned to Kobe Bryant, then in the prime of a Hall of Fame career with the Los Angeles Lakers. McMillan and fellow guard Ty Abbott knew Harden soon would turn pro, so they put it to him straight.

“Dude, Kobe is going to destroy you next year. He’s going to put up 40 on you.”

Harden was unfazed.

“If he scores on me, I’m going to score on him,” he said. “He’s going to have to guard me, too – and that's going to be a problem.”

Harden’s reaction surprised McMillan.

“The way he talked, that’s when I realized how for-real he was about his game,” said McMillan, today an assistant coach with the New Orleans Pelicans. “That conversation, for whatever reason, just had me look at him a different way. He understood where his game could take him.”

Let’s not waste time with numbers. During his two years in Tempe, Harden shot the ball with decent accuracy. He excelled in transition and exploded to the rim. All of that made him good, but not special.

What separated Harden: instincts. There was a simplicity to his game that was hard to describe. Although not ultra-quick, Harden could get to where he wanted to go. He had a pace to his game, a confidence. Perhaps more important, he was unselfish.

Sendek knew that he could give the ball to his star, and that Harden wouldn’t have a predetermined plan. The 6-foot-5 guard would read and react, understanding he didn't     have to do everything himself.

“The two things that separated Harden from everybody else,” said Howland, today the coach at Mississippi State. “Number 1, his ability to get to the foul line. It was amazing how good he was at getting to the foul line. And the other thing was his ability to create for others.”

During his sophomore season, Harden and the Sun Devils twice beat UCLA. They beat Arizona – stuck in a rocky transition coming off the Lute Olson years – three times, once during the Pac-10 Tournament.

Washington, however, gave them problems.

There’s a reason.

In the winter of 2009, tired of watching Harden abuse smaller guards, Romar tried something different. He assigned 6-8 senior forward Darnell Gant on him.

“It was just throw something on the wall and see if it sticks,” Romar said. “It was too difficult for anyone else to guard him, so we said, ‘Well, let’s try a bigger guy on him, gap him, make him shoot and maybe just try to contest his shot at the rim when he drives.’ Because this other deal, where you’re getting up on him, he’s just driving around everybody and (scoring).”

It worked. Gant held Harden to 15 points – seven below his average – in an 84-71 win in Tempe. Three weeks later, Romar tried the same strategy during the rematch in Seattle.

First play:

Harden catches the ball at the elbow. He sizes up Gant, drives around him and gets fouled. Then, as he walks to the foul line, Harden delivers a message: 

“Not tonight, Darnell. Not tonight.”

The ASU star battled foul trouble but still finished with 19 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals in an overtime loss.

Romar left impressed.

“Great scorers can do this – you put them in a small space and they can still get around you without other defenders being able to help,” said Romar, today at Pepperdine. “In other words, you can put a guy like that on a table, and he can go around you without falling off the side.”

In the NBA, Harden has developed those skills (and his body), increasing his shooting range and improving his ball-handling. At times, this has made him nearly unguardable, especially in coach Mike D'Antoni's pace-and-space system.

“Watching him over the years, I think in college he used to use guys’ balance points against them from his jab step,’’ said Rice coach Scott Pera, who coached Harden in high school and in college as an assistant on Sendek's staff.

“He'd get the ball on the wing and he’d just jab, jab, shot fake – and the minute you lifted up one inch, he was gone. Now he does it from his dribble. He just feels and measures your balance and the second you’re off balance – BOOM! – it’s over.”

Building a relationship with Hurley

Nearly a decade after his final college contest, Harden's number – that famous 13 – hangs in Wells Fargo Arena, but much has changed. 

Sendek is gone, coaching at Santa Clara. His assistants have scattered across the basketball landscape.

For that reason, coach Bobby Hurley took a cautious approach when first introduced to Harden. He let Harden know that he was welcome. If he wanted to stop by when the Rockets were in town to play the Suns – great. If he wanted to work out in the Weatherup Center over the summer – awesome.

“My whole strategy with James was let’s gradually build it,” Hurley said. “We’re not asking for anything. We just want to have a place here where you’re comfortable coming back. I know from when I was in my hey-day as a player, people are trying to come at you in a million different directions, and his situation is probably 100 times what mine was. But I do remember what that was like.”

Throughout his NBA career, Harden has visited Tempe over the summer. He works out with strength coach Rich Wenner. He scrimmages with the team, which Hurley conveniently slips in during conversations with recruits.

About those pick-up games: Most of the time, Harden simply tries to get everyone involved, said senior guard Shannon Evans, who just completed his college eligibility. But one day, a team of ASU players took the lead and a few brave souls started talking trash to the six-time All-Star.

Result: “I think he scored every point the rest of the game,” Evans said.

In January, with the Rockets in town, Harden, 28, sat courtside – not far from Gov. Doug Ducey – for ASU's game against Oregon.

“I know how much that meant to our players,” Hurley said. “And he’s so down to Earth with them, they even like him more because of the time he’s been willing to invest in getting to know some of the guys in the program.”

As a former teammate and opposing NBA coach, McMillan has seen it up close and from afar, which is why so many approach him during his NBA stops. With Harden marching toward the MVP – an honor McMillan thinks he deserves – they all want to know the same thing.

“It happens ALL THE TIME,” McMillan said. “League-wide, they always ask me: Did you see this coming? Did he have all this in his game in college? And the answer is, 'Yeah, he did have it.' But at the level he’s at now?

“No.”

Contact Doug Haller at 602-444-4949 or at doug.haller@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/DougHaller. Download the ASU XTRA app.

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