Houston Rockets: The impact of James Harden’s injury

The Houston Rockets were dealt a significant blow when it was revealed James Harden will miss at least the next two weeks. How will the team hold up?

When James Harden left in the fourth quarter of the double overtime win against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Houston Rockets and their fans were hoping it was just another nagging injury that Harden could play through, or at worse, miss a couple of games with.

However, as the Houston Chronicle‘s Jonathan Feigen revealed, it has turned out to be much worse than that. Harden suffered a grade 2 hamstring strain, and will be reevaluated in two weeks. This comes just as Chris Paul is getting back into the lineup, and the Rockets were hoping to have Luc Mbah a Moute playing within the next week or so.

Things were finally looking up for Houston, a team that has been hit hard by the injury bug so far this season.

As Feigen points out, the recovery time for this injury could be longer than initially expected/reported:

There is serious potential that Harden misses up to three or four weeks, which would have numerous effects on the Rockets’ season. First, that would put a lot of strain on Paul, Eric Gordon, Trevor Ariza, etc. to shoulder the minutes load and offensive burden the team misses from Harden.

This comes at a time when Ariza has averaged over 40 minutes per game in his last 10 games, and Paul is just coming back from an injury and is expected to receive no more than 32-33 minutes per game to make sure he stays healthy.

Second, this legitimately puts a top-two seed in doubt for Houston, as they are just two games ahead of the San Antonio Spurs. Additionally, the Rockets are just four games ahead of the fourth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves, and with a relatively difficult schedule coming up, it’s very possible Houston could fall even father in the standings.

Speaking of that schedule, here are the games the Rockets have in that two-week timeline for the reevaluation:

While there are certainly some winnable games, it wouldn’t be crazy to see the Rockets go 3-4 or 2-5 in that seven-game stretch. And those are just the two weeks until Harden is reevaluated. There’s a real shot that he isn’t back for an additional week or two after that reevaluation.

The Rockets have to take things one step at a time. First, they need Luc Mbah a Moute to get healthy and Paul to remain in the lineup (along with Clint Capela, who has missed some time recently). Then Mike D’Antoni must focus on not overextending key players, especially Gordon and Paul in the backcourt. If the Rockets can go .500 in the time that Harden misses, they still have a good chance of being the second seed in the Western Conference.

Next: 2018 NBA Mock Draft: End of 2017 edition

Plus, an injury is a way to give Harden a “rest” as we near the halfway point of the season (in terms of games played). While this injury hurts the Rockets’ chances at getting a top-two seed in the West and puts a significant dent in Harden’s MVP chances, this isn’t the end of their season. They just have to weather the storm in the next couple of weeks to remain a real threat for the Western Conference Finals.