30 most unguardable moves in NBA history: 9. James Harden, stepback jumper
There were multiple moves in consideration for one of the single most dominant offensive forces in the history of professional sports. During his career, James Harden revolutionized the way that the Euro step is implemented during the course of NBA games. He also changed the way that fouls are drawn by manipulating contact and forcing the referee’s whistle.
We’re not going to talk about either of those in great length because one of Harden’s signature moves specifically changed the way that we look at isolation basketball.
His step-back 3-pointer is something that up-and-coming players are trying their best to replicate. Some younger studs like Luka Doncic and Devin Booker have learned their own variations of Harden’s stepback 3-pointer, but no one has perfected it like Harden has. There’s a reason why the league-leading scorer and former MVP takes as many isolation possessions as he does.
The Beard hunts mismatches off of screens and switches, hoping to force a lumbering opponent into his trap. When he does, Harden breaks his defender down with a flurry of dribbles before leaping back and entering his shooting form in one fluid movement. By doing this, he catches his opponent off guard and creates enough space for the historic shooter to get a jumper off with ease.
During the 2018-19 NBA season in which he averaged a career-high 36.1 points per game, James Harden took an alarming 613 step-backs and led the league in isolation plays by an alarming rate. It’s a scoring formula that no one has figured out how to crack yet and it’s one that may lead Brooklyn to a championship victory in the near future.
Though maybe Harden doesn’t have the longevity of his Hall of Fame cohorts near the top section of this list, we’re going to look back on him as one of the greatest scorers of all-time. He’s a one-man scoring army whose presence strikes fear in an opponent’s eyes — His signature stepback accounts for a historic number of points and it deserves recognition amongst the best.