James Harden has been on a tour in China that’s been sponsored by his brand partnership, Adidas. During the tour, he sat down with a streamer for an interview, where he shared simple but great advice to young hoopers trying to make it to the NBA. He revealed that he’s seen several players who were better than him fail to make it in the league because of one key concept.
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Harden gets a lot of hate for his style of play. But he’s actually a genuinely cool guy who is super realistic and down to earth. During his interview with the popular streamer, he was asked about his favorite memory with Kobe Bryant. Yet, he refused to cook up a story just for views.
Instead, Harden shared what he would’ve wanted to learn from Kobe now if he were still with us. Saying that he would pick his brain for tips on business and life.
Later on in the interview, Harden was asked if he had any advice for any young kids watching at home who want to play in the NBA one day. “You gotta put the work in,” Harden stated via Lacy on YouTube.
The advice, though it may seem simple and cliché, actually makes a whole lot of sense. We have to remember, the NBA is a league that only has 450-500 players at once. In just America, that’s less than 1% of the population. So, it’s a prestigious group of players.
That’s why Harden said that kids need to put the work in if they want to make it in the NBA. And even then, nothing is guaranteed, and you still need to continue to work to get better.
“We’ve seen so many guys that were way better. Like, got handles, they can shoot, but you know they didn’t last just because you got to have that work ethic mindset,” Harden said.
There are plenty of players who come to mind who were highly touted prospects yet weren’t cut out for the NBA grind. OJ Mayo, Michael Beasley, Isaiah Rider, and Kwame Brown, to name a few. All were guys who came into the league with insane hype but never lived up to it because they coasted once they got to the league.
Maybe “coasted” is being a bit too harsh. They were players who just didn’t get too much better once they got to the NBA. Who knows if that was ultimately because of their work ethic?
What we do know, though, is that Harden was a highly touted prospect who didn’t run from the NBA grind. The Clippers star embraced it, going from the Sixth Man of the Year to an MVP with just 6 seasons in between. After that, he led the league in points per game for three straight years.
Sometimes the best advice is simple. We all want the secret recipe for what it takes to become a great athlete. The reality is, there are no shortcuts, and it takes a lot of time and effort. Harden and 449 other NBA players understand that. But the rest of us normal citizens are still trying to get it through our heads and really process that.
