Sixers: What to watch for in James Harden’s debut

It’s happening y’all. Shams Charania with The Athletic announced that James Harden will be playing Friday night for the Sixers. I’m so excited to watch this game, and there are a few things in particular that I’m going to watch for, which I list and explain below.

Fair warning, the Sixers have a relatively good chance to lose tonight against the Wolves. In 2016 the Warriors debuted their “Death Lineup” with Kevin Durant for the first time. In that game, they were blown out in a 20-point loss to Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs. If one of the best teams of all time can lose their first-ever game together, then the same goes for this Sixers unit and James Harden. That said, here are three things to watch for in James Harden’s debut.

What to watch for in James Harden’s Sixers debut

• Who controls the ball?

If you read my pros and cons post, as well as my most recent James/Joel fit post, you’ll understand how interesting it’s going to be to watch who has the ball for the Sixers on offense, James, Joel, or Tyrese.

Joel Embiid has the highest usage of any player with over 10 minutes of playtime this season. Because of that, he’s also averaging the most points per game in the league. NBA.com has Joel Embiid listed at 37.6 percent usage this season, an incredibly high number. For reference, Russell Westbrook holds the record with the highest season usage rate EVER, with 41.65 percent in 2016-17. This current season from Joel is currently on track eighth highest of all time, or it was until we added a ball-dominant superstar point guard. That same superstar point guard, James Harden, also holds the second-highest usage rate of all time from his MVP season in 18-19.

So now we are pairing the highest usage center in NBA history with a guard with three seasons in the top-15 of the highest usage seasons in NBA history. And it all starts Friday night.

• How does the defense look with James Harden?

This Sixers team hasn’t been as dominant on defense as we have been in the past, but it’s still been a good year. We’re in the upper portion of the NBA defensive rating at 11th. We also hold a Top-10 spot in both blocks and steals per 100 possessions. None of our other stats are that incredible, but we get the job done defensively, most of the time anyway.

Now add in James Harden, whose defense is still a significant question mark for me. In an analysis by Nets Daily’s Alec Strum, he describes Harden as such.

"Harden, however, has shown promising signs as a defender. Despite being a traditional guard in the offense, his quickness and physicality allows him to go for steals and body up with bigger wings and forwards, adding up to a unique style."

Later in Strum’s post, he discusses how Harden averages a relatively high amount of steals for a guard, but how he does, it is risky for his team. That sounds a lot like another guard for the Sixers, our own Matisse Thybulle.

So how does this translate to the game on Friday? Well, here’s a list of things to watch for on just defense.

1) Pick-and-Roll switches

2) Matchups — who does James take?

3) Does James ever move into the post to take on bigger wings/guards?

4) How often are we switching to avoid mismatches?

• Passing

If you’ve watched any Sixers basketball this season, you know there isn’t a lot of passing in the halfcourt. That’s because Joel dominates the ball, and our offense moves around him in a heliocentric (like planets revolving around the sun) fashion.

Now that we’re adding in James Harden, our offense will have to change to fit him. There has to more a ton more off-ball movement by the three guys that are on the floor that aren’t James and Joel. Another thing to watch for is the James-only or Joel-only lineups, how they play when they can take complete control of the ball.

That segues beautifully into my next point, lineups.

• What lineups are the Sixers going to run?

Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, Danny Green/Matisse Thybulle, Seth Curry, Tyrese Maxey.

This is the most played lineup for the Sixers this season, with Matisse and Danny switching for different offensive and defensive scenarios. Now with Seth in Brooklyn, James will take his spot in that lineup, but the real fun starts with the lineups that Philly is going to run 12 or 13 minutes into the game.