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With the first half of the season exhausted, the debate on the performance of James Harden continues to find a central point in the refereeing actions. After the Nets lost to Minnesota, a reporter asked the player again about his frustration with the fouls he gets and not getting called. The statements are very similar to those of three months ago. “I don’t know, I don’t even want to talk about this. But definitely, the contacts I receive when I go to the basket are the same ones that other players are called [y a mi no]» declared at a press conference.
Much of James Harden’s infamy stems from his sneaky techniques when it comes to cajoling the whistle. The Nets point guard has always had a special sensitivity when it comes to drawing fouls that take him to the free throw line. Which made him one of the main affected by the changes introduced this season in that regard. The arbitration scale began very permissive and since then it has once again restricted contact in a similar way to that of past seasons. Yes, a large part of those unnatural movements of the attacker that the regulations sought to eradicate have been eliminated, but little remains of the defensive physicality of the beginning of the course.
What Harden is complaining about is not the general regulations, but the inequality in applying them. «You can not whistle everything, but there are actions that are very clear. There is no consistency with what is called on the other side of the court. His coach Steve Nash took the opportunity to emphasize again that sometimes his player has become the target of too many sights. “There are nights when too much emphasis is placed on looking for the foul, when it is not always the case.”
Harden is far from averaging the free throws he made in his most prolific stretches in Houston. But the 8.1 attempts he throws represent a better mark than the previous year and place him as the third player who goes to the line the most times per game. This course began by registering the lowest averages for fouls, free throws and scoring in the last five years. But it is already on the way to matching figures with respect to last year. Which again invites us to think that Harden’s complaints are the result of a momentary frustration.
(Cover photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
