Last week, the NBA named the Houston Rockets’ James Harden the Western Conference Player of the Week for games played from Monday, Dec. 26 through Sunday, Jan. 1.
It was the third time this season and the 12th time in his career, that Harden has received Player of the Week honors, all coming with Houston. That feat ties Hakeem Olajuwon for the most Player of the Week awards in franchise history.
To close out 2016, Harden posted 30 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists, and 5 steals against the Los Angeles Clippers. That feat placed Harden as the first player to post those numbers in a single game since Derrick Coleman in April of 1993.
Speaking of Derrick Coleman, he was a stats stuffer during his 15 year NBA career. Coleman averaged 16 points, 9 boards and nearly 3 assists per game over a 15 year career with the Nets, Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Hornets and two stints with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The first pick in the 1990 NBA Draft by the then-New Jersey Nets out of Syracuse University, he led the Orangemen to 26-7 season where he led Jim Boeheim’s team to a 26-7 overall record and a Big East championship after going 12-4 in the conference. Already a senior, here’s where the problem lied for Coleman: he was 12 credits short from graduating college but had a five-year $15 million rookie contract waiting in the wings; something unheard of at the time for an NBA rookie.
What to do? What to do? “My mind was made up,” said Coleman on the Scoop B Radio Podcast.
According to Coleman, in between travel and games, he made the time to take online classes and it panned out. ”As a basketball player you have idle time on your hands,” he said. Click here to listen to the interview in its entirety.
