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James Harden, the NBA's unlikely MVP
《運動畫刊》(Sports Illustrated)封面人物專題報導

http://i.imgur.com/bn7icyc.jpg

作　　者：Lee Jenkins
原文連結：http://ppt.cc/jEdk
日　　期：Feb. 18, 2015 (雜誌出刊日期為2月23日)

※文長慎入，此篇為節譯。全文請參照連結。

[...]
That GM, Daryl Morey, had pursued Harden for three years and mined a plethora
of statistics that indicated he would be a megastar. A point guard by nature
and a shooting guard by trade, the 6'5" Harden excelled at almost every
offensive element prized in today’s NBA: orchestrating the pick-and-roll;
getting to the rim; getting to the free throw line; creating and making
three-pointers, especially the corner threes. But there is still no way to
project whether even the finest part-timer can sustain such performance for
40 minutes over 82 nights against an array of bespoke traps and double teams.
So when Morey sent Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, two first-round draft picks
and a second-rounder to Oklahoma City for a package headlined by Harden,
the GM was betting that a star lurked inside. And when Harden boarded the
jet for Houston, having rejected a contract from the Thunder that fell
$6 million shy of the maximum, he was making the same bet.


每場40分鐘的嚴防與包夾，卻是任何數據分析都無法預估的。當莫雷送出小馬丁、



I’m talented, but what if I’m not talented enough? Harden asked himself. I’
m smart, but what if I’m not smart enough? Then he eviscerated the Pistons,
and two nights later put 45 on the Hawks, and some of his uncertainty
evaporated. He made his first All-Star team that season, recorded his first
triple double, had career highs in almost every category. But Houston
finished eighth in the Western Conference, OKC first, and the Thunder took
their first-round matchup 4–2. “I still had Oklahoma City in my head,”
 Harden says. “Did I make the right decision? Was it my fault? They were
still winning. It felt like they didn’t need me anymore.” Scoring and
playmaking came naturally to Harden, but a star’s other duties did not.


「我依然常常想到雷霆。我的決定對嗎？還是我錯了？雷霆仍然在贏球，感覺他們
不再需要我了。」得分和組織對哈登而言在自然不過，球星的其他責任則不然。

Two years and four months have passed since the trade, and Harden is now a
25-year-old supernova, not only the most prolific scorer in the NBA and one
of the most productive passers, but suddenly a stopper and a leader to boot.
“Our best player since Hakeem Olajuwon,” says Rockets owner Leslie
Alexander. Houston sits tied for third in the West, Oklahoma City ninth. The
Thunder did need him after all. “I still think a lot about the ifs,” Harden
says. “But I’m good now.” A star does not reminisce about former employers
who withheld max contracts. He haunts them without remorse. Welcome to the
year of the Beard, the Mohawk and the Step Daddy, the year that slow became
fast, that Compton became Euro, and that drawing a foul became an art form.


繼歐拉朱萬之後，最優秀的火箭球員。」火箭隊在西區排名第三，雷霆則位居第九

（註：目前已升至第八）。「我還會常常想到那些『如果』，但我現在覺得好多了。」
一個明星不會懷念吝於給頂薪的前東家，而是讓他們追悔莫及。歡迎來到屬於
鬍子、莫西干頭、與後撤步的年代，在這裡慢即是快、歐洲步是美國土法煉鋼、
買飯成了一種藝術。

Houston has unleashed what Morey calls “the modern player,” an exemplar of
efficiency who actually scored 45 points in a game this season on 18 shots, a
line that sounds mathematically impossible. Harden averages 27.4 points, but
more impressive, accounts for a league-high 44.2 when including his assists.
If Morey built a player’s operating system, it would perform a lot like
Harden, who turns up his nose at midrange jumpers while generating foul shots
and corner threes at remarkable rates. “If I knew then what I know now,”
 Morey says, “I’d have given up five more first-round picks.” Never mind
that Harden’s supposed sidekick, center Dwight Howard, has already missed 21
games and is out another four to six weeks with a right-knee injury. The
Rockets survive with a starting front line of Joey Dorsey and Donatas
Motiejunas. “James makes it easy,” Motiejunas says, “because he gets us so
open.”

休士頓火箭隊莫雷所定義的「現代籃球員」，講求的是效率。可以繳出18次出手

莫雷說：「如果我當年能夠預見今日，我願意再追加五個首輪給雷霆。」
儘管哈登的搭檔，中鋒DH本季已經缺賽21場，接下來由於右膝傷勢還要缺陣4~6週，
但在多西和D-Mo先發的情況下，火箭仍然維持住戰績。「James讓一切變得容易，
他總是能給我們海一樣大的空檔。」D-Mo如是說。

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※圖二：打蛋器轉動手勢

When Harden is rolling, he twirls his left index finger, like an egg beater
on the fastest setting. “That means something’s cooking,” says his
housemate and former high school teammate Greg Howell. It could be a number
of specialties: one of his four variations on the Eurostep or his lurching
straight-line drive or his super-slo-mo “step-back of death,” so named by
teammate Jason Terry because the move leaves defenders staggering as if they’
ve been shot. It could also be another leisurely stroll to the stripe. Harden
invites abuse, stretching his body and extending the ball when he approaches
the rim, baiting opponents to reach and slap. He proudly displays the scabs
along his forearms. He jokes about affixing name tags of his assailants, who
have helped shove him into the stratosphere previously occupied by Durant and
LeBron James. “I see an opportunity to become one of the best players in the
world,” Harden says. “I could be the best player in the world.”


也許是歐洲步、也許是大搖大擺的直線切入、或是有如慢動作重播的「死亡後撤步」。

這是隊友Jason Terry起的名號，因為這會讓防守者看起來像中槍般地腳步踉蹌。
當然也可能是輕鬆地站上罰球線。哈登不迴避肢體碰撞，切入籃下時，他會伸展身體、


Fans look at the overgrown beard and expect a similarly outsized personality,
but Harden must be comfortable to reveal it. He often speaks in a convoluted
lexicon that no one outside his inner circle can decipher. A standard
salutation is “Woowoo.” Goodbye is “Curtains.” Harden is protective of
the beard—not even his barber trims the stray whiskers—but he is also weary
of the attention it commands. He can’t exactly slip on a baseball cap and
disappear. “Sometimes I want to rip it off and be a kid again and hang
around quietly,” Harden says. Brand managers everywhere would go ballistic.
“To be honest,” he adds, “I’m scared of what I’d look like without it.”
 Then again, he notices the suspicious glances he receives, and experiences a
different kind of fear. “People think I’m mean,” he says. “But if you
spend some time around me, get to know me, you fall in love.”

球迷看到哈登茂密的鬍子，往往會認為他的個性也同樣囂張。哈登對此泰然處之。
他常會自創一些密語，只有和他親近的人才懂。例如打招呼的時候說「嗚唔」，
再見則是「簾子拉上」。哈登很寶貝自己的鬍子，甚至不讓髮型師幫忙修剪。
但他偶而也會嫌大鬍子過於招搖，讓他沒辦法戴個棒球帽就能隱身於人群。

壞蛋，但如果你和我相處過、了解我後，就會喜歡上我。」

Monja Willis raised three kids as a single mother in South Los Angeles, but
James is the youngest by eight years, so he was easily mistaken for an only
child. Willis lost two brothers in 1993, murdered in unrelated events, and
after that she saw danger around every corner. When James grew old enough to
explore his neighborhood, Willis rented out their house and bought a mobile
home in a gated park in Rancho Dominguez, on the Compton border; most
residents were senior citizens who complained about the noise when James
rolled his portable hoop into the street.



Harden arrived at powerful Artesia High a set shooter and little else. “I
just stood in the corner,” he says. “I didn’t dribble. I didn’t move. I
didn’t do anything. I was lazy, really lazy.” He came with a recommendation
from Derrick Cooper, president of the L.A. City Wildcats, who met Harden when
he was a kindergartner trying out for an AAU team of 12- and 13-year-olds. “
He was small, obviously, and not that fast,” Cooper remembers. “But when
the big kids tried to double him and steal the ball, he understood how to
kick it out and set up an open shot. He knew the game.”

哈登剛加入籃球名校Artesia中學時，只是個定點射手，其他什麼也不會。「我只會
站在底角。我不運球、也不跑動。我什麼也不做，那時我很胖、非常胖。」[註1]

的球，他知道怎麼把球傳出去，也知道怎麼製造空檔投籃機會。他懂得怎麼打球。」


註1、根據2009年的一篇SI報導，哈登不喜歡他的中學隊友說他胖(fat)，所以他們
     協議用懶(lazy)這個詞來取代。

Scott Pera, then the Artesia coach, recognized in Harden the same instincts
that Cooper did. “Great athletes learn to play in the air,” Pera says. “
James learned to play on the ground. He knew how to jump stop, how to pump
fake, how to see time and space.”

Scott Pera，當時擔任Artesia中學的籃球教練，同樣注意到了哈登與生俱來的籃球
本能。「優異的運動員學的是如何飛天遁地。James則學著腳踏實地，他知道怎麼
接球墊步、怎麼作假動作、更懂得掌握時間與空間。」

To turn Harden from a sniper into a driver, Pera put him through daily X-out
drills, in which Harden had to convert eight straight layups while Pera
punished him with an arm pad. They made a standing bet: If Harden shot more
than six free throws in a game, Pera owed him a hamburger; if Harden shot
fewer than six, he owed Pera sprints. Harden discovered ways to contort his
limbs through and around defenders, collecting whistles and patties. “He
played like he was 30,” says Frank Burlison, who covered Artesia for the
Long Beach Press-Telegram and now runs the scouting service Burlison on
Basketball.

為了將哈登由定點射手改造為切入型球員，Pera規定哈登每天必須練習左右上籃，

肢體在防守者陣中穿梭，不僅賺到了哨音，也賺到了許多漢堡包。「他打球有30
歲的老成。」當時負責報導Artesia中學賽事的記者兼球探Frank Burlison如是說。

Harden’s mother was his motivation. Willis worked 28 years as a maintenance
administrator for AT&T, commuting up the congested 110 North to Pasadena,
then returning to help care for her own mom, who was dying of cancer. Willis
earned enough to afford the mortgage and utilities, spending anything left
over on cold cuts, ramen and milk. A luxury was a membership at L.A. Fitness,
the health club where she exercised while her son joined pickup games with
middle-aged men.

母親是哈登奮鬥的動力。Willis在擔任AT&T維修員的全職工作之餘，還要照顧
罹癌的母親。她努力養家餬口，給孩子們溫飽。在哈登和公園阿伯打鬥牛賽時，
她會去健身中心運動，這也是她生活中的唯一的奢侈。

He developed a playing style that matched his disposition. “I like to be in
my own world, at my own pace,” Harden explains. “Once I’m comfortable,
once I know what’s happening around me, then I can attack.” When he
dribbles atop the key, he looks as if he might nod off, and when he drives
through the lane, he slams the brakes more than a cabbie at rush hour. He
gets where he needs to be. He just takes a while, and occasionally, he
requires a little push.

哈登的打球風格與他的性格如出一轍。「我喜歡在自己的世界裡，掌握自己的節奏。


Midway through his junior season at Artesia, Harden was taking as few as
eight shots per game, and Pera begged him to let fly. From then on he was the
best high school prospect in Southern California, more acclaimed than
contemporaries such as Westbrook and Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Paul
George. As a freshman at Arizona State, Harden was again reluctant to fire,
until coaches gave him their approval. A year later he was an All-America,
picked third in the 2009 draft by Oklahoma City. Keeping with his pattern,
Harden failed to crack double figures as an NBA rookie, deferring to Durant
and Westbrook. But he adjusted again, mastering Manu Ginóbili’s Eurostep in
one summer and mimicking Paul Pierce’s step-back in another. Harden expanded
on the originals—“Step Daddy,” he calls a new version of Pierce’s move—
while discovering another maneuver all his own.


之前的模式，菜鳥年場均得分不到兩位數，總是把出手機會讓給KD和西河。但他


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※圖三、哈登的招牌後撤步

“Oklahoma City taught us to chin the ball, so when you lay it up, no one can
strip it,” Harden recalls. “I did that for a while, but it didn’t work for
me, so I started putting the ball out instead. People kept reaching for it
and hitting my arm. It was like finding treasure, finding gold. Everyone
thinks I’m looking for contact, but I’m not. It’s bait on a hook. You have
the option to reach for the ball. But if you get my arm, it’s a foul.” This
may not sound like a revelatory technique, but Harden has 127 more free
throws and 125 more attempts than anybody in the NBA this season.

「雷霆隊教我們將球收在下顎，上籃時才不會被拍掉。我試著照做了一段時間，
但這招對我不管用。於是我開始把球往外伸。對手想撈球，結果打到的是我的手臂。
這感覺就像是如獲至寶。大家都覺得我在尋求身體接觸，其實不是這麼回事。
那比較像是姜太公釣魚。你有機會搶到球，但如果你碰到我的手，那就是犯規。」
這聽起來沒什麼了不起，但哈登這季的罰球次數領先聯盟第二名有百次之多。

His entire offensive approach is counterintuitive. When he wants to shake his
man, he slows down. When he wants to protect the ball, he sticks it out.
“He’s a boxer,” Terry says, “getting you off balance, luring you into
a mistake and then going right at it.” In 2012, Terry played for the
Mavericks, who were defending their title in a first-round series against
OKC. “It wasn’t about stopping KD,” he remembers. “It wasn’t about
keeping Russ out of the lane. It was, ‘What do we do with James Harden?’"


你犯錯，然後擊垮你。」2012年Terry還在小牛陣中，季後賽第一輪對上雷霆，

他回憶道：「我們擔心不是怎麼阻止KD，也不是怎麼阻止西河上罰球線，我們
最擔心的是『怎麼防住哈登？』」

Three years after Morey started his pursuit for Harden—Houston feverishly
tried to acquire the No. 4 pick from the Kings in 2009—he called Oklahoma
City. Morey was searching for a cornerstone, and the only ones available
either weren’t cornerstones anymore or weren’t cornerstones yet. The
Thunder seemed to have two ways they could go with Harden: They could give
him the maximum deal he sought, exceed the salary cap and pay the luxury tax
for a clean look at multiple championships. Or they could do nothing, let him
become a restricted free agent the following summer and decide then whether
to match what would likely be a max offer sheet. They chose a third option,
proposing a contract below the max in hope that Harden would accept it. But
by the fall of ’12 he had found his elusive comfort zone and felt ready to
attack. He just needed that little push.


他欠缺的只是臨門一腳。

On Oct. 27, Morey watched his son’s soccer game from inside his car, a
vantage point that allows him to writhe in private. “All the way to the end
I thought they’d pay James the max,” Morey says. “I did not think they’d
move him.” Oklahoma City extended a final four-year, $54 million offer and
gave Harden an hour to mull it over. “I’m not the kind of guy who makes
quick decisions,” he says. “I had to go too fast, way too fast.” The
next morning he was on the plane.

10月27日接到消息那天，莫雷獨自坐在車子裡看兒子的足球比賽，當時的內心澎湃
只有他自己知道。「從頭到尾我都以為他們會給James頂薪，沒想過他們會交易他。」


Willis has followed her son from California to Arizona, Oklahoma to Texas,
and everywhere they move she carries a note he wrote to her in the ninth
grade. In it Harden asks for a couple of dollars so he can buy a snack after
school, but that’s not why Willis framed it. At the bottom is a bold
prediction: “P.S. I’m going to be a star.”



http://i.imgur.com/TAF31Ex.jpg
※圖四、哈登與休士頓的天際線

In the NBA everybody wants to be the face of the franchise, but few want to
fulfill the responsibilities. Besides the points and assists, which can never
wane, there are alphas to defend and appearances to make, team meetings to
call and free agents to recruit. “I had to figure out how to be the main guy,
” Harden says.



During his first two years in Houston he came across as slightly aloof,
ducking out after practices and skipping treatment sessions. “I was being
lazy, being tired, wanting to just go home and relax,” Harden says. “I let
my body wear down.” He threw all his energy into offense, because that’s
what he thought the team needed, and slipped badly on the other end. “I put
defense on the back burner,” he admits.

在休士頓的前兩年，他顯得淡漠疏離，練完球就閃人，有時還跳過賽後的治療。
「我有點懶、有點累，只想回家放鬆。我任由身體疲累不堪。」他將全副精力
放在進攻端，因為他認為那是球隊需要的，防守則拋在腦後。「我那時覺得
防守是次要的。」他承認道。

Morey believed the Rockets could contend this season if Harden became a
two-way player, but no one knew how to accelerate the process, and rushing
him is risky. “To get there,” says coach Kevin McHale, “you have to go
through some stuff.” One of McHale’s former assistants, Kelvin Sampson,
worked daily with Harden over the past two years. “He’ll do it,” Sampson
said, “when he decides it’s important.”

莫雷認為如果哈登能夠在攻守兩端發揮，火箭本季有望加入爭冠行列。但誰也

he landed an assistant’s job at Rice and stayed in Harden’s guest house for
seven weeks. One night Pera asked about the upcoming season. “LeBron, KD,
the best of the best, they play both ends,” Harden said. “I’ve got to do
it too.”



First, he had to prepare his body. He went home to Los Angeles and hiked in
Runyon Canyon, ran the dunes in Manhattan Beach, took spin classes at Cycle
House. He joined pickup games in L.A. and also at the University of Houston,
where Sampson is now the coach. “He is treating every possession like the
playoffs,” one Cougar reported. Sampson wondered if his star pupil had made
the decision.

首先，他要鍛鍊好體力。回到洛杉磯後，他會去Runyon Canyon健走、去Manhattan
Beach的沙丘跑步，去Cycle House上飛輪課。他不僅在加州打鬥牛賽，也會去Sampson
任教的休士頓大學打球。一名校隊球員說：「他把每個回合都當成季後賽在守。」
Sampson心想，或許他的明星高徒已經下定了防守的決心。

On Aug. 7, Harden was sitting in the parking lot of a Houston bank when news
flashed on his phone: Durant was withdrawing from Team USA in advance of the
FIBA World Cup. “I’m going to be alone,” Harden told Howell. “Maybe I
should drop out too and get some rest.” He could kick back and roll a few
hundred more frames at Bowlmor, where he is so prolific they gave him his own
pin to take home. “Are you joking?” Howell asked. “This is the best thing
that could have happened. LeBron’s not there, KD’s not there. It’s your
time to lead.” Howell provided the final push. In Spain, Harden was the one
who huddled teammates when opponents were making a run, and Harden was the
one who spoke when coaches asked for players’ opinions. “The way he
practiced, the way he was in meetings, he’s grown quite a bit,” says Bulls
coach Tom Thibodeau, a Team USA assistant. “He led us.”


該退隊、好好休息？」或許他可以繼續去Bowlmor保齡球館消磨時間，他是那裡的常客，


代表發言。「他在練習和開會時的表現，都顯示他成熟了很多。」美國隊助教，同時
也是公牛隊總教練Thibodeau說：「哈登在領導這支球隊。」

Harden will never be the loudest voice in the locker room—-especially not a
locker room with Dwight Howard—but from the courtside seats at Toyota Center
his mother can hear him getting in the ears of Patrick Beverley and Josh
Smith and Trevor Ariza. She remembers how coaches used to ask her why he
wouldn’t take charge. Go to work, she’d have to tell him. “He’s like a
different person,” Willis says. Predictably, Harden tops the NBA in win
shares this season, but he also ranks eighth in defensive win shares and
second in steals. He is locking down despite the departures of Chandler
Parsons and Jeremy Lin, whose exits left Houston even more reliant on Harden.



“You never take anything away from LeBron, but it’s similar in what we’re
asking [Harden] to carry,” says Rockets assistant J.B. Bickerstaff. Houston
is looking for another creator to help, but so far Harden is handling the
triple teams and full-court denials sent his way. “Let’s say an opponent is
showing hard on a pick-and-roll, and I beat it three or four times, they’ll
switch it up and trap me,” he explains. “So I go to my big and I tell him,
‘I’m going to hit you with the pocket pass, and you either [pass] to the
corner or attack and find another big.’”



It is sheer coincidence, Harden claims, that he creates so many layups, free
throws and corner threes at a time when front offices are trumpeting the
value of those actions. “How I always liked to play,” he says. It is also
coincidence, Harden insists, that he Eurosteps across the floor at a time
when coaches are hailing the fundamentals of European imports. “Good way to
move without dribbling,” he says. And it is yet another coincidence, Harden
maintains, that he sprouted the billowing beard in college, at a time when
hipsters from Brooklyn to Berkeley were about to put away their razors. “I
didn’t want to shave,” he says. Anybody who believes all that is
underestimating his mysterious genius.



“I do feel like I can see some things before they happen,” Harden admits.
His vision, from the sky over the state line, has come into focus: A sixth
man as the new superstar, a desert island as the new destination, emerging
with a whistle and a woowoo.



（完）

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