There are a plethora of potent pairings in the NBA today, but none have been as productive this season as Philadelphia’s dynamic duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden. Embiid is the league’s leading scorer on the season, averaging 33.4 points per performance, and Harden is the top assist man in the Association with 10.8 dimes dropped each game. Unsurprisingly, those two skill sets have proven to be pretty complementary.
No player has assisted another player more this season than Harden has Embiid, and it’s not particularly close. At the time of typing, Harden has 210 total assists to Embiid — 194 2-point shots, and 16 triples. The next closest pairing is in Indiana, where Tyrese Haliburton has 135 assists to Buddy Hield. That’s a difference of 75 assists between Harden and Embiid and the next duo.
It’s thanks almost entirely to the developing two-man game between Harden and Embiid — and the space created for others by the attention they draw in and around the painted area — that the Sixers have the third-ranked offense in the league after finishing outside of the top 10 in that category in each of the past two seasons.
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In order to maximize their potential as a pair, Embiid has made a major adjustment to his game by becoming a prolific roll man in the pick-and-roll action — something that he didn’t do nearly as often over the course of…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/how-76ers-joel-embiid-adapted-his-offensive-game-to-maximize-pairing-with-james-harden/
Author : Michael Kaskey-Blomain
Publish date : 2023-03-15 16:32:36
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