{"id":696098,"date":"2026-04-03T16:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T16:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/696098\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T16:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T16:07:15","slug":"james-harden-thought-mike-dantoni-was-crazy-for-making-him-play-point-guard-ive-never-played-the-position-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/696098\/","title":{"rendered":"James Harden thought Mike D\u2019Antoni was crazy for making him play point guard: “I’ve never played the position before”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking at his game in recent years, there is no doubt that James Harden<\/a> fits seamlessly into the point guard position. Though some might know it, The Beard started his career as a shooting guard. This had a lot to do with his role as a Sixth Man for the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the one-time MVP managed to find his groove at the 2. Traded to the Houston Rockets<\/a> in 2012, James appeared to have a lot of untapped potential. A star on the rise, he had found his sweet spot, signing max contracts and making millions through endorsements and other investments. Nonetheless, his next challenge also lay ahead, slowly approaching him.<\/p>\n

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Coming off a first-round exit against the Golden State Warriors<\/a> in 2016, the Rockets named Mike D’Antoni<\/a> as their new head coach. Preparing his blueprint for the 2016-17 season, the veteran coach made quite a few heads turn when he decided to play Harden at the point guard.<\/p>\n

A strategic call that had James perplexed, too. During a 2017 interview with TIME, the Rockets guard described in detail what he went through when he was first informed about it.<\/p>\n

“I thought he (D’Antoni) was crazy. Point guard? I can make plays, obviously. I’m very unselfish. But point guard, that’s a lot of responsibility. I’ve never played the position before. That first day of training camp, I remember having possession of the ball, and I’m like, ‘What I am I supposed to do here?’said<\/a> James, recalling his initial reaction on hearing the news.<\/p>\n

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Rather than being nervous about it, the former Rockets superstar took it as an opportunity to learn. Talking about rewiring his thought process as a point guard now, Harden admitted that scoring came naturally to him, but he was inculcating the habit of passing the ball as well.<\/p>\n

His biggest hurdle with the shift\u00a0<\/p>\n

One can imagine Harden having his fair share of concerns about his new role as PG. Something that was also evident from his high turnover rate. At the time, he was leading the league in turnovers at 5.8 per game. That said, James was aware of it and had been working on it.<\/p>\n

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When asked about the challenges he faced, The Beard was as raw as it gets.<\/p>\n

“Overthinking it. I’m still going through road bumps to figure out how to limit my turnovers. The coach told me, ‘Honestly, I don’t care how many times you turn the ball over. You have the ball in your hands 90 something percent of the game. So you’re going to turn the basketball over more than most people. But as a team, if we have only 13 turnovers a game, but you have 7 or 8 of them, that’s a good game.’\u2026 He put it in my head. After he told me that, I just go out there and play,” revealed James.<\/p>\n

As months progressed, D’Antoni’s decision made more and more sense. The two-time Coach of the Year once also explained in detail why he permanently moved Harden to point guard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Related: Patrick Beverley believes LeBron James should earn $50M annually from the NBA: “I just feel like the NBA owes LeBron so much”<\/a><\/p>\n

Get to the point<\/p>\n

After studying how Houston’s offense always ran through The Beard, Coach Mike felt the 6’5″ guard didn’t need to wait for the ball to reach him. Oddly, while he had his doubts about playing PG, D’Antoni was actually building a system that catered solely to Harden’s strengths.<\/p>\n

“Why camouflage it? You know that’s where it’s going. You know he has to make plays. So why not do it? And it gives him a sense, also, of purpose for the team that he understands: to get everybody involved to a certain degree without losing his identity,”said<\/a> the former Rockets coach back in 2016.<\/p>\n

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His gamble certainly paid off, with Harden having his career-best run from 2018 to 2020, marked by an MVP, three scoring titles and an assist title. Unfortunately, Coach Mike’s offense-driven system, with James at its core, never produced a ring, especially in the playoffs and eventually led the player-coach duo to go their separate ways.<\/p>\n

Related: “Luka Doncic is nothing but James Harden with a right hand” – Iman Shumpert says James Harden helped shape the modern NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Apr 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking at his game in recent years, there is no doubt that James Harden fits seamlessly into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,164,194,560,87643,6,179,4163,87644],"class_list":{"0":"post-696098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state-warriors","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-james-harden","12":"tag-mike-d39antoni","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","15":"tag-point-guard","16":"tag-the-beard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116341640098967267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696098","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=696098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}