The NBA 75th Anniversary team was announced in October 2021 and Arizona State basketball was represented on the list.
Similar to the NFL 100 celebrations of 2019, this year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the National Basketball Association and the calendar is full of commemorations.
Part of the celebration was the release of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, a list of the top 75 most influential players in the history of the league.
Included on that list was probably the best-known former Sun Devil currently playing in the NBA, James Harden. A shooting guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, Harden also played his college ball right here at Arizona State University from 2007 through the end of the 2008-09 season.
The 6-foot-5, 218-pound Harden played a total of 69 games as a Sun Devil and ended his college career with a 50.6% field goal percentage including 37.6% from deep. Averaging 19.0 points per game, he racked up 1,309 total points. His 704 points in the 2008-09 season are still good for fourth-best in Arizona State basketball history and made him the leading scorer in the Pac-10 in that season.
Harden’s storied career started with Arizona State basketball but has only gotten better and better
Other mentions of Harden in the ASU record books include:
- 40 points in a single game (tied for 6th)
- 73 steals in a season (tied for 4th)
- 7 steals in a single game (tied for 5th)
Harden also won a string of awards during his time at Arizona State including:
- 2x All Pac-10 First-Team (07-08, 08-09)
- Consensus All-American (08-09)
- Pac-10 Player of the Year (08-09)
After deciding to leave ASU and enter the draft after the end of the 08-09 season, Harden was drafted to the Oklahoma City Thunder with the 3rd overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft.
His career in the NBA has been just as storied as his time in Tempe. Since entering the league he has racked up honor after honor.
- NBA Sixth Man of the Year (2011-12)
- Most Valuable Player (2017-18)
- 7x All-NBA
- 10x NBA All-Star
- 3x NBA Scoring Champion
- NBA Steals Leader (2019-20)
- NBA Assists Leader (2016-17)
- 11x Player of the Month
- 26x Player of the Week
Stats provided by basketball-reference.com and sports-reference.com/cbb/