Among James Harden’s many superlative talents, fighting around, through, under or over screens is rarely included. Any defense containing Harden will likely emerge, to some degree, as switch-heavy out of necessity. Harden switched the majority of picks last season with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The problem, though, is a sizable part of the rotation wasn’t designed to switch across various positions, which meant Harden’s approach left some folks in precarious spots. There was discordance between what suited Harden and what suited some of his teammates. Compounding this issue was Philadelphia’s poor wing depth often prevented the team from profitably switching because only a select few — Danny Green, Tobias Harris and Matisse Thybulle — could reliably guard 2s, 3s and 4s.