PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia 76ers star guard James Harden has been playing an extremely large number of minutes to begin the 2022-23 season. He is averaging 37.6 minutes per game. It would make sense to think The Beard should play a bit less given he is 33 years old and is coming off hamstring and foot injuries.
Since returning from a right foot tendon strain that caused him to miss 14 games, Harden is averaging 38.7 minutes. Fortunately, in Wednesday’s win over the Detroit Pistons, he only needed to play 32:34 because the Sixers had the game in hand.
Coach Doc Rivers is not concerned by Harden playing a slew of minutes.
“Not worried at all,” said Rivers. “It’s early in the year. I’ll guarantee at the end of the year, you’ll look at his numbers and it’ll look great. It’s a whole year. That’s why we can’t overdo things when guys have a three-week spike in minutes and all of a sudden, we’re overreacting to that. No, you don’t.”
Before going out with his injury, Harden was averaging 36.7 minutes in the first nine games of the season. Not terrible, but he played more than 40 minutes twice, which probably shouldn’t happen in October when the focus should be on getting him ready for the playoffs.
Recently, the Sixers have been missing Tyrese Maxey, meaning Harden has had to play more.
“We’ve been low on guards and so guys have to play minutes,” Rivers added. “James is one of those guys that can handle minutes, but by the end of the year, his minutes will be down.”
When asked if when Maxey returns, will Harden’s minutes go down, Rivers explained that it will and reiterated they’re not concerned with how much the future Hall of Famer is playing.
“Yeah, slowly,” Rivers finished. “Honestly, there’s things on our checklist. I can tell you that’s not one of them. We’re not concerned with that, but his minutes will go down slowly once all the guards are back.”
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