James Harden and the Los Angeles Clippers still have plenty to play for over the final four games of the regular season. While it is unlikely that they are unseated as the 4th seed in the Western Conference, they still have to stave off the surging Dallas Mavericks if they want to keep home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. They’ll play back-to-back games against the Phoenix Suns to start the week, and Harden will be setting himself up to chase a couple of NBA career milestones.
Harden Is On The Doorstep Of Two NBA Milestones
Paul George’s 23 4th-quarter points help the Clippers rally from 26 down to beat the Cavs 🔥
PG-13 – 39 pts, 11 reb, 7 ast
James Harden – 22 pts, 5 reb, 5 ast pic.twitter.com/67VMHpwQyg— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) April 7, 2024
He is one of the most statistically accomplished players that are active in the league today. He is #3 on the list of three-pointers made all time, and should be passing Ray Allen for the #2 spot early on in the 2024-25 season. He is 20th on the all-time scoring list as well, and should pass Kevin Garnett within the first few games of the next campaign as well.
But there are a couple of marks that he is threatening going into the final week of the season. The first, and the one that he is highly unlikely to reach, is the 26,000 points mark. Harden will enter the week needing 119 points to hit the milestone, which means that he would have to average 30 points per game over the final four, a total that he has reached just once this season while averaging 16.7 per. It is likely that he will eclipse the 26k points mark in the second or third game of next season.
The Steals Mark Feels More Achievable Over Final Week
James Harden is only 26 steals shy of breaking into the top 30 all-time in steals.
“HaRdEN iS a LaZy dEFeNDeR!” 🤡 pic.twitter.com/Z4bB2ABWKX
— Sai (@LeGoatedOne) April 5, 2024
But the steals milestone feels very achievable. Harden has a while to go until he is ranked in the top-25 all-time in number of steals in NBA history, coming in at #37. But he is coming up on a personal milestone in the category, as he needs just 3 steals during the final week of the season in order to hit 1,600 for his career. He may even pass Jason Terry for #36 on the list if he somehow nabs 7 defensive takeaways over the final four games, though that will likely come next season as well.
He has averaged better than one steal per game in essentially every season of his career, and 2023-24 has been no different. Harden is stealing 1.1 balls per game this year, and should be able to hit the 1,600 mark in his 4 games to wrap up the NBA season.
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