James Harden’s Wake

Photo by Cato Cataldo/NBAE via Getty Images “And you’ll miss me more as the narrowing weeks wing by. Someday duly, oneday truly, twosday newly, till whensday.”

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

So now we place a #13 Rockets jersey down on the three point line, and light a candle at either end.

James Harden isn’t dead, but he’s gone.

The angry, strange, possibility of the time he occupied, the idea of Rockets Versus Mundum, the idea of that succeeding despite the accidents of history, and cap spikes, has died indeed. Eight years of excellence, hope, and agony, are dead.

If you are so inclined, you might join me in a toast (the usual legal and moral caveats apply).

To James Harden, the second greatest…