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James Harden made his return to Houston last night to face his old team and while doing so he showed everyone once again that his new team, the Nets, are going to be a very big problem for the rest of the league.
Harden racked up a triple double (29 points, 14 assists, 10 rebounds), his eighth since joining the Nets in mid-January, and Brooklyn left town with an easy 132-114 win.
The Nets have now won 10 of their last 11 games and seem to be hitting a stride that we all saw coming when Harden was added. They’ve also done a lot of that without a guy named Kevin Durant, who has missed the last nine games with a hamstring injury.
In those 10 wins the Nets have beaten both the Lakers and Clippers in Los Angeles. They beat a very good Suns team in Phoenix. And now they have back-to-back wins in Texas after dropping one to the Mavs in Dallas.
Harden has been the force the Nets knew they were getting when they traded for him. Kyrie Irving has been enjoying himself and has been having big games. And Durant has been in street clothes looking on with a smile on his face because this team is stacked and ready for a title run.
I’m sure there might be a few blips when Durant does return, as this big three will maybe need some more time to figure out roles down the stretch of games and whatnot.
Or maybe they won’t have any blips and just continue this dominant run. Harden, Irving, and KD are such good players that maybe they don’t even need to worry about any of the small things.
This team became one of the favorites to win it all when Harden was added.
And it’s starting to look like they might be the favorite come the playoffs.
Just as we all expected.
Quick hits: NFL *offseason* power rankings… Brady’s thoughts on trophy toss… Parker schools Shaq… And more.
– Steven Ruiz and Charles McDonald teamed up to create some pretty awesome and interesting NFL offseason power rankings that are based on levels of excitement for each team. Check these out.
– Tom Brady broke down what he was thinking about when he tossed the Lombardi Trophy from one boat to another during the Bucs’ Super Bowl parade.
– Candace Parker schooled Shaq on ‘Inside the NBA’ and, yeah, Shaq needs to be better at his job.
– DeMarcus Ware is 38 years old but he somehow one-upped Myles Garrett’s box jumping video.
– Chris Simms ranked Zach Wilson ahead of Trevor Lawrence and Twitter predictably ripped him.
– Golf legend Nick Faldo took a savage shot at the struggling Rickie Fowler about commercials.