Houston Rockets: James Harden will get out of slump soon

The Houston Rockets’ star shooting guard James Harden has had a rough last five games. How much longer will his shooting woes continue?

Mike D’Antoni‘s Houston Rockets have been one of the better teams in the Western Conference for years. After adding star point guard Russell Westbrook into the fold this year in exchange for an aging Chris Paul, the hope was that life would be easier for James Harden.

Through 40 games, though, Houston is the No. 5 seed in the conference and Harden’s numbers are about the same as they were a year ago.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. On the season, Harden is averaging a whopping 37.2 points per game to go with 6.2 rebounds and 7.5 assists. He’s doing so on a 44.6 percent clip from the field and 37.3 percent from deep. While his turnovers remain high (much like Westbrook’s), Harden has mainly picked up where he left off a season ago as an MVP-caliber player.

More from Hoops Habit

• 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
• NBA Trades: The Lakers bolster their frontcourt in this deal with the Pacers

The past five games have been a different story, though. The team is 2-3 in those games, and Harden has been a big reason why.

This recent stretch has featured a pair of contests with at least 34 field goal attempts, and two featuring 19 or more shots from 3-point range. Harden’s never been afraid to fire away, but nothing has been falling over the last week.

Overall, in this recent slate of games, the superstar shooting guard has averaged 7.6 made shots on 23.4 attempts, good for a 32.5 percent efficiency rate.

That would be unplayable over the course of a full season. On top of that, the 3-point shot hasn’t been much better. Connecting on just 27.7 percent of his shots from range, Harden can’t seem to buy a bucket.

After dominating the Minnesota Timberwolves en route to a 30-point win last Saturday, Houston has lost back-to-back games. Against the Memphis Grizzlies, Harden took 37 shots — making just 13 of them. He made five of the 19 threes he hoisted up. The following night at home vs. Portland, he took 12 shots. This was the second-lowest total of the year for him, and it showed. He made only three of them, scoring a season-low 13 points in 36 minutes played.

Harden, one of the greatest scorers of this century, is too good to continue this much longer. The Rockets are one of the best offensive teams in the league when he’s going. He serves as the engine behind the D’Antoni locomotive. A Saturday night home contest vs. the LeBron James-led Lakers would be a perfect time to snap out of a slump on national television.

Give things two or three more games. If Harden is still struggling immensely after that, then there could be something going on worth thinking twice about. Until then, let’s consider this just a rough week for one of the league’s best players.