James Harden Gets Stuck In Elevator; Finishes Last

The Houston Rockets were well-represented this weekend in New York City for the NBA’s annual All-Star Weekend festivities.

James Harden, Patrick Beverley and Kostas Papanikolaou all had the opportunity to represent our team in various competitions throughout the weekend.

Papanikolaou participated in the BBVA Compass Rising Stars game featuring the league’s most up-and-coming talent with a format this year focused on international players.

Because of the new format and his style of play, Papanikolaou was chosen to compete. He had two points, three rebounds and three assists in 16 minutes of action Friday night.

His only two points was off a backdoor pass breaking to the basket for a layup.

Beverley competed in the Taco Bell Skills Challenge last night, after a shaky first-round against Isaiah Thomas, he put the pedal to metal and beat Brandon Knight for the championship trophy!

Feb 14, 2015; New York, NY, USA; Houston Rockets guard

James Harden

(13) during the 2015 NBA All Star Three Point Contest competition at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Awesome!

Harden was selected to participate in the Foot Locker three-point contest in a new format to create a more talented field of shooters that wouldn’t disappoint.

And it didn’t.

We saw some the best pure shooting you could ever see in a contest like this!

Unfortunately, it didn’t come from the Beard.

I personally knew that this was going to happen because although Harden is extremely talented scorer, three-point shooting is not his specialty.

He does better sinking his threes in game-time situations, when he has a defender in his face because that’s what he does best with the undeniable competitive spirit that he has.

It became cringing to watch as he continued to clank attempt-after-attempt while the Splash Brothers — Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson — were swishing so many baskets left-and-right.

I was wondering if we needed to refer them as the Swish Brothers instead!

But anyway, Harden didn’t even get out of the first round with a score of 15 and Curry went on to win the championship, taking the title away from Marco Belinelli, last year’s winner.

It seemed to have been a rough start all together for him, he even mentioned that he got stuck in elevator for about 25 minutes while on the way to practice.

It was great to see Harden participate but I think he’s more focused on tonight’s All-Star Game, he has that look in his eye like he wants that MVP trophy.

Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins it!