How James Harden blocked out the distractions and locked in for a prolific season

James Harden rode shotgun in the passenger's seat of a blue Hummer H3 pondering his future. It was October 2011, during the NBA lockout. Then a 22-year-old sixth man who had averaged just more than 12 points a game for the Oklahoma City Thunder, Harden would not let the work stoppage halt his own development, so he met with trainer Irving Roland in Miami.


Roland drove Harden back to a hotel after their session. Rolling past the palm trees, villas and the pastel tableau of Coral Gables, Harden turned to Roland for some honesty.


"Do you think I can be a top-five player at my position?" Harden asked.

The question was modest then. Five years later, at the peak of Harden's ascendency with the Houston Rockets, no one debates where he ranks at his position. Harden has dashed into the conversation for the top player in the world, with averages of 28.7 points, 7.6 rebounds and a league-leading 12 assists after 19 games.

Coming off a nationally televised blitzkrieg of 29 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists to vanquish the Golden State Warriors on the road, Harden is rocketing toward one of the most prolific offensive seasons in history. He became the first player with 300 points and 120 assists through 10 games. If this magnum opus holds up, his assist average would be the highest in 21 seasons and the 57.7 points per game he generates from those assists and his own scoring will be the most ever.

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  How James Harden blocked out the distractions and locked in for a

Harden does not recall voicing self-doubt to Roland, as if the player who uttered it has never been heard from again. Though he believes he did say it.

Roland remembers it clearly.

"The best players that I've ever been around, they have this extra thing that you can't really put your hands around," Roland said, grouping Harden with his previous clients Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Chris Paul. "Because they are programed different. This was early on, when he was coming off the bench in OKC and he wanted to be great."

The moment resonated last offseason, when again Harden sought Roland to tap into his potential.

Harden was a month removed from "the worst year of my life and my career." He insulated himself and a circle of confidants in Phoenix, where Roland was located. Their training catalyzed Harden's explosive play this season.

"Multiple times we reiterated with each other if we stay on course, this was going to be an MVP-type season," Roland said.

The Rockets wound up hiring Roland in July for player development, a reward for engendering trust and proving his training acumen with Harden.

Harden downplays the incubation, preferring to credit the tumultuous 2015-2016 season for motivating him plenty. Those who swaddled him in Phoenix extol his renewed determination but disagree that another summer in Los Angeles, his usual haunt, would have had the same results. Multiple people observed that his focus was more "locked in" in the desert city. Los Angeles invited the tug of celebrity, nightlife and hometown hero worship. Instead, he pounced on Roland's availability, returned to his alma mater and began Rockets camp revitalized. In many ways he channeled the player he used to be - just without the self-doubt.

"I came back with a completely different mindset of being a leader," Harden said.

Harden and Roland both needed fresh starts after last season. Roland had coached two years in development for the Phoenix Suns and then got let go last May. He bemoaned going back to Miami for the inconsistent business of training players part-time. He coped with his first jobless day by attending the movie "Money Monster" by himself. Later that afternoon, Harden texted him.

Even the biggest NBA stars typically hit up a catalogue of trainers for brief stints. Maybe they are passing through a city during the summer or needing a refresher during the All-Star break and they call on whoever is nearby to help. Harden told Roland he wanted to spend the entire offseason with him embedded in Phoenix. They began the Monday after Memorial Day weekend. They have spent nearly every day together since then.

"We bond," Harden said of choosing Roland. "We have that connection. He's going to tell me the real, the truth."

In an age when trainers post more YouTube videos than résumés, Roland earned his credibility by working in the NBA. A Division-II player at Southwest Oklahoma State, Roland used some coaching connections to land an unpaid internship for the Boston Celtics in 2004. He pulled 40-to 50-hour weeks for the team and worked the graveyard shift delivering room service at a Westin hotel in a Boston suburb. Sometimes he would not make it home for three days: he finished up at the Westin just after 6 a.m., caught about an hour of sleep sitting in an office chair inside the Celtics' practice facility, compiled scouting videos for a day, and then did it all over again.

The next season he worked for the New Orleans Hornets, which temporarily had moved to Oklahoma City - Roland's hometown - because of damage from Hurricane Katrina. He befriended Chris Paul by attending church with him on Sundays, and from there, came to know Paul's closest friends: Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

In 2010, he started BluePrint Basketball and partnered with the Legacy Fit gym in Miami. By the 2011 lockout, he corralled 40 players to train there. Harden actually organized a Rockets trip to Legacy last August.

Sparked by Roland and inspired by Harden's impulse, the offseason operation in Phoenix was nicknamed "The Lab." They devised a simple training formula.

"Just good, old-fashion hard work," Roland said.

Cryogenics, under water treadmills, hypoxic training masks that befit Batman villains - these lavish accouterments of high-performance athletes were unnecessary. Weekdays of eating fish, running outside, absorbing fouls and playing pickup refined Harden.

Phoenix offered conveniences other than Roland. Harden eagerly reconnected with Rich Wenner, the sports performance coach at Arizona State for the last 30 years, and enjoyed the program's athletic facility, just as he had during his two years of college ball there.

"A lot of pros do that at some point in their careers," Wenner said. "You get into the league, you get money, you get freedom. Nobody's going to make you do stuff or lay out a schedule like you had in college. It's easy to enjoy life in the offseason, and you get away from what helped you get there in the first (place)."

"Taking me back to my roots," is how Harden described his reunion with Wenner. "When I got back with him for those months, it was like: here I am, let's just work. There's no All-Star James or superstar James. This is 17-year-old James coming into college."

When a starstruck wrestler ogled at Harden - arguably the school's most famous alumnus - in the weight room, Harden approached him: "Hey, I'm James."

Harden arrived to the facility at 10:30 a.m. to lift, open up his hips, sprint outdoors and revive his explosiveness with Wenner. Harden accelerated by the third week.

 

Then Roland spent 45 minutes to an hour harassing Harden in drills. Unlike coaches who instruct repetitive set shots or create a maze of cones for dribbling gimmicks, Roland gets physical when players practice their moves, actually guarding them and even fouling them so they have to create separation.

"You're constantly feeling a body, that way when you get into a game situation, it's not foreign to you," Roland explained.

He also wanted to improve Harden's mentality.

"The biggest thing was promoting positive energy to him," Roland said. "Those guys last year, playing them when I was in Phoenix, you could see the body language of the Rockets was horrible. Every time we played them, we thought we had a chance because even though we weren't as talented, they didn't seem like they wanted to be on the court together."

Harden finished his days by plucking any current Arizona State player he wanted for two hours of pickup, often toying with the youngsters to rehearse his playmaking and post-ups. Devin Booker, the precocious point guard for the Phoenix Suns, dropped in for the fun.

Harden's flow in Phoenix flooded into the Drew League when he passed through Los Angeles last August. YouTube highlights show he dominated the famed exhibition tournament that courts pro players. A tornado of cross-overs, close-range layups, step-backs and 3s, Harden was so in command at one point that he passed from beneath the basket to an open perimeter shooter and, perhaps out of boredom, proceeded to defend that teammate from getting off a clean 3-point shot.

Harden brought his childhood friends along to make Phoenix feel like home. Normally in Los Angeles the crew would make weekend pilgrimages to Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. Instead, they all ate a healthful rotation of salmon, sea bass and tilapia with rice or a veggie mash, then spent nights gaming on Xbox. Harden won the most bouts of FIFA and Halo 3, and he continues to tease his buddies about it in group chats.

"Throughout his career, he never really actually did what he did this summer," said a person who was with Harden in Phoenix but asked not to be identified. "As far as just taking his diet serious and his training. He actually put time aside for himself to really focus and lock in."

Reducing the people around Harden helped him stay committed. "It's just more of a distraction, L.A. is, because we're from there," the person said. "The majority of people that we know, people that don't get to see you during the year, everyone wants to hang out. It can interrupt your training. Everyone wants a piece of you."

"He told me he didn't want to be in L.A. for those exact reasons," Roland said. One of the few times Harden visited home, he and Roland attended a spin class that finished with an unpleasant reminder of the city's drawbacks. "We're walking back to the car and paparazzi was waiting for us. How they knew we were there, I don't know."

Harden received unprecedented attention off the court last season when he dated reality television megastar Khloe Kardashian. Grinding in a gym far beyond the reach of her gravitational fame had its benefits.

"Another one of my friends, who's also an athlete, dated a Kardashian sister," Roland said. "It was the same thing: When he was with her, he had one of the worst seasons he's ever had because his focus wasn't there."

"This year, you're starting to see the effects of what James Harden can do after a good summer of work," Roland said.

Harden's preparation helped him capitalize on a confluence this season that undeniably has leveraged his natural playmaking gifts: moving to point guard for coach Mike D'Antoni's breakneck offense, opening up more space with newly signed deep-range sharpshooters Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon and exorcising last season's disgruntled vibe that radiated from center Dwight Howard, who now plays for the Atlanta Hawks.

Harden described the cohesive roster and staff as "a masterpiece."

"This is the first time in Houston that I've had all this around me," he said.

It also is the first time he approached a season this determined. He used to wonder if he could become an elite player. Now he knows what it takes to remain one.