2 min read • February 16, 2022
Posted in
Newly-minted 76ers' star James Harden was introduced to Philadelphia media and fans ahead of his 7th consecutive missed game on Tuesday afternoon.
The 32-year-old, who is now on his 3rd team in the last 13 months, continues to draw ire from fans and former players for seemingly forcing his way out of Brooklyn. Tracy McGrady joked on NBA on TNT that "you don't rehab a hammy by doing step-backs."
While we can't know what is going on in Harden's head or heart, what our team of ProBasketballDocs do know is that the former MVP will be ready to make his 76ers debut on Feb. 25 versus Minnesota, the 1st game back from the All-Star break.
Harden is expected to miss Thursday's game versus Milwaukee, his 8th in a row, before taking the 8-day break to get his hamstring right before the final 3rd of the season.
Harden has been an ironman over the course of his 13-year career. Before suffering a serious hamstring injury last spring, the 10-time all-star hadn't missed more than 10 games in a season or more than 6 games in a row.
After straining his hamstring on March 31, 2021, and then aggravating the injury April 5, Harden missed 20 games, including 18 in a row, before again aggravating the injury in the playoffs.
Harden first felt hamstring tightness on Jan. 26, but returned on Feb. 1. After a lackluster performance against the Kings, in which Harden scored 4 points with 12 assists and 6 turnovers on 2-11 shooting with zero free throw attempts, he was listed on the injury report and hasn't played since.
We have yet to see Harden in full, open-court action since the apparent injury, so we unfortunately don't know the state of his stamina or if his hamstring is healed enough to play today.
But we certainly agree that step-backs are not good for his hammy rehab.
Written by
