{"id":10021,"date":"2025-05-05T07:22:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T07:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/10021\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T07:22:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T07:22:14","slug":"six-years-before-losing-to-nikola-jokic-kobe-bryant-predicted-why-james-harden-will-retire-ringless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/10021\/","title":{"rendered":"Six years before losing to Nikola Jokic, Kobe Bryant predicted why James Harden will retire ringless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant\u2019s 2019 statement about James Harden was proven correct once again.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> failed to close out their opening-round series against the Denver Nuggets<\/a> as they suffered a blowout Game 7 defeat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While it was an overall underwhelming performance by the franchise, James Harden, in particular, received a lot of flak from fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After all, the Beard finished the night with just 7 points and 5 rebounds. He also had 13 assists, but they were overshadowed by his abysmal 2-of-8 shooting from the field.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Ezra Shaw\/Getty ImagesEvery season James Harden proves Kobe Bryant was right<\/p>\n

When it comes to the debate of the best shooting guards of all time, many believe Harden is up there with the likes of Dwyane Wade<\/a> and Kobe Bryant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Harden is a phenomenal scorer and an elite performer in the regular season. Unfortunately, Harden has struggled in the playoffs throughout his career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Keeping that in mind, here\u2019s Bryant talking about why Harden\u2019s playing style will never lead to championship-winning basketball in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a fan of \u2014 in terms of winning championships \u2014 I don\u2019t think that style is ever gonna win championships,\u201d Bryant said on The Jump. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the same time, you have to keep your team\u2019s head above water to win games. So you have to do what you have to do to win games, and he\u2019s doing it, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take one player, you put them at the top of the key, or you put them on the wing and you\u2019re running screen rolls, you\u2019re always in front of the defense,\u201d Kobe added.<\/p>\n

So what happens when this situation occurs?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defense can key on that, particularly in the playoffs. And that\u2019s easy to defend,\u201d explained Bryant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Bryant still praised Harden<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Harden\u2019s brand of basketball has abandoned him when it matters the most. After all, there\u2019s a reason he has lost Game 7s with four different franchises in his career.<\/p>\n

But does that take away from what he has accomplished? Even Bryant didn\u2019t go that far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he\u2019s doing is absolutely remarkable, though. It\u2019s a testament to how remarkable it is because people are now trying to minimize what it is that he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s doing some phenomenal stuff,\u201d Bryant concluded.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, Harden is on the path to go down as one of the best individual players<\/a> that the league has ever seen. But as far as playing winning basketball is concerned, Harden is yet to crack that code.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant\u2019s 2019 statement about James Harden was proven correct once again. The Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,560,1536,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,4106,11,574],"class_list":{"0":"post-10021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-james-harden","11":"tag-kobe-bryant","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-clippers","14":"tag-laclippers","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-losangelesclippers","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-nba-legends","21":"tag-nba-playoffs","22":"tag-western-conference"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114454026381110473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}