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Houston Rockets superstar James Harden was an MVP finalist and a likely All-NBA First Team selection based on games played before the COVID-19 hiatus of the 2019-20 regular season. Appropriately, he’s a First Team honoree for the eight “seeding” games played after the hiatus, as well.
The traditional season-long awards, which have yet to be announced, will not incorporate results from games at the NBA “bubble” in Florida. The league made that distinction in an attempt to be fair to the eight teams who were not invited to participate in the 22-team restart.
To recognize outstanding play in the “bubble” games, the NBA created a separate awards program. Here’s how the league describes it:
Designed to honor top performers for games played July 30 – Aug. 14, the Kia NBA Player of the Seeding Games, the Kia NBA All-Seeding Games Team and the NBA Coach of the Seeding Games were selected by a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters who have been on site covering the 2019-20 season restart at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
Harden was named to the First Team by 18 of the 22 media voters (complete ballots). The remaining four voters (Doris Burke, Shaun Powell, Lisa Salters, Marc Spears) had Harden on the Second Team.
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Harden was joined on the First Team by Portland’s Damian Lillard; Phoenix’s Devin Booker; Dallas’ Luka Doncic; and Indiana’s T.J. Warren. Lillard was the unanimous selection as Player of the Seeding Games, while Monty Williams of Phoenix was Coach of the Seeding Games.
The Kia NBA All-Seeding Games First Team!@DevinBook (unanimous)@luka7doncic (unanimous)@Dame_Lillard (unanimous)@JHarden13@TonyWarrenJr pic.twitter.com/Y8gVr2iYTv
— NBA (@NBA) August 15, 2020
In seven games played at the Disney World bubble, Harden scored 34.1 points per game on 53.9% shooting from the field and 37.8% on 3-pointers. The three-time defending NBA scoring champion also averaged 8.9 assists, 8.3 rebounds, and 2.7 steals in 34.5 minutes per game.
Led by Harden, the Rockets moved up from No. 6 in the Western Conference standings prior to bubble play to No. 4 entering the playoffs.
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