James Harden unanimously named first-team All-NBA

We’re a little late to the party on this one, but yesterday, James Harden was unanimously named to first-team All-NBA, receiving all 100 first-place votes.

The Beard is in the midst of the finest season of his 9-year NBA career, finishing the regular season with averages of 30.4 points (which led the league), 5.4 rebounds, 8.8 assists (fourth in the league) and 1.8 steals (tied for seventh). He also led the league in scores of advanced metrics, including win shares (15.4), offensive win shares, (11.6), box plus-minus (+10.9), PER (29.8), and was near the top of the league in several others.

He also helped lead the Houston Rockets to a league-best 65-17 record, is the leading candidate for the yet-to-be-announced MVP award, and right now has the Rockets up on the defending champion Golden State Warriors 3-2 in their Western Conference Finals series.

This is the fourth time he’s been named first team All-NBA, also garnering the award in 2014, 2015, and 2017. He was also named to the third team in 2013.

He joins LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard and Kevin Durant as the complete first-team squad, with James also earning unanimous votes.

The second team consists of DeMar DeRozan, Joel Embiid, LaMarcus Aldridge, Russell Westbrook, and Giannis Antetokounmpo, with the third team named as Stephen Curry, Victor Oladipo, Karl-Anthony Towns, Paul George, and Jimmy Butler.

The Rockets’ own Chris Paul was probably the most notable snub.

But congratulations to The Beard. Well-deserved.