James Harden named one team in the early days of his career where he had “real hatred.”
The former MVP plays for the fifth team in the NBA, but has yet to win the championship.
He has once been to the NBA Finals at OKC Thunder as part of the Big 3, including Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and himself.
After a stint with Thunder, James Harden wanted to be a star on his team, so he moved to the Houston Rockets.
This proved to be a big decision when he went on to become a pure scorer, creating an All-Star and All-NBA team before winning the MVP trophy in 2018.
Despite all the success he has gained in the regular season, the NBA Championship is still escaping him, and one reason behind this is the Golden State Warriors.
Harden led the Rockets for nine years before moving to Brooklyn Net in 2021.
During his time in Houston, “Beard” faced the Warriors many times, as he was a rival to Rocket’s Western Conference.
However, the Warriors won because of the many stars such as Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and subsequent Kevin Durant.
However, the Rockets could win the game, and one such instance took place between the two sides in a 2019 regular season game.
Harden made a clutch shot with less than three seconds left on the clock to lead the Rockets to a 135-134 victory.
It was one of the best game winners, and Harden expressed why it was something special for him.
“First of all, being in Oracle, they were some hot battles and hot times. At least on my side, it was like real hatred just because we had to go through them,” Harden was talking about the dub.
“It was a regular season game, but it was always a battle between us. I felt that filming with Oracle was different.”
Harden has proven he can still perform, but he scored 50 points in his game with the Detroit Pistons this season, but the 35-year-old spent the peak year of his career with Rocket.
He won the MVP awards with them and led them to deep playoff runs several times, but the team wasn’t enough to win the championship.
Harden’s most distant playoff run with the Rockets came when he led them to the Western Conference Finals in 2019, but he was once again beating the Warriors in Game 7.
Despite this, he scored over 18,000 points for them and leads the franchise with assists, triple doubles and three pointers.
The championship is essential to solidifying the legendary status of players, but Harden is the exception as far as Rocket is concerned, as he was special.