Steve Urkel and the Rec Boys: An oral history of James Hardens college days at Arizona State -

Arizona State coach Herb Sendek was at a basketball event in Hawaii when the call came. James Harden, a five-star prospect and future McDonald’s All-American from Los Angeles, was ready to commit to the Sun Devils. At the time, Sendek knew he had just landed a program-altering talent, but he had no idea the lefty guard would turn into one of the more dominant scorers the game has seen.

No one did.

The foundation of Harden’s stardom was set in Tempe, hardly known as a hoops factory. Over two seasons, Harden traded trash talk with a Hollywood sitcom star, battled students on the university’s recreation courts and avoided the cold tub at all costs. One description of the (mostly) beardless star: “Goofball,” a teammate said.

This is Harden’s college story.

Jeff Ayres (formerly Jeff Pendergraph, forward): We were struggling that first year with Coach Sendek, and (point guard Derek Glasser) kept telling me, “Don’t worry about it, man. Next year, we’re going to be OK.” I was like, “What are you talking about? We suck right now.” He said, “We got James.”

Antwi Atuahene (forward): He played with us over the summer. I saw he had a very high IQ, but he was very soft. He didn’t like much contact, so in our pickup games, a lot of older guys like Ike Diogu, Amar’e Stoudemire and other pros like Alex Scales would play, and I would always sic the older guys on James to beat up on him a little.

Ike Diogu (former Arizona State standout, NBA veteran): I had heard all the hype about how he was the highest ASU recruit ever. This one day I didn’t go to the gym, but my high school coach who was training me over the summer went. When he came back, first thing he said was, “Man, that kid Harden, he’s a future pro.”

Ty Abbott (guard): He was obviously left-hand dominant, but he was very confident. You could tell that for his size, he was a different type of guard, one I hadn’t seen. He was just so big and strong.

Herb Sendek (coach): People may not realize that he was a year young (only 17) when he came to college, so he was still a really young player, just in the beginning stages of his development.

At first, the ASU staff had to urge Harden to be aggressive, but it didn’t take long for the 6-foot-5, 218-pound guard to show dominance. In the Maui Invitational, he scored 22 points against Princeton, and he had 23 points in an overtime win against LSU.

Ayres: I turned into a believer really quick.

Kraidon Woods (forward): If you ever guard a lefty, it’s like playing somebody backwards, because a lot of people’s tendencies are to go right and he’s going left all the time.

Rihards Kuksiks (forward): Everybody knew he was going left — and he still went left. I thought, “He’s so good left, once he picks up going right, nobody is going to stop him.”

Atuahene: His breakout game was against the University of Arizona. That’s the game he kind of broke out of his shell.

Woods: I can’t remember an exact moment when James became James, but I definitely remember that one as being up there.

Dedrique Taylor (assistant coach): Late in the game, we got him the ball right in front of our bench on the right side of the floor. Arizona has a senior, Jawann McClellan, guarding him. I could hear James telling (McClellan) that he’s going left, and the dude was so high on the left side. I mean, he was damn near half court, that’s how high he was trying to keep him off his left hand. James juked him like he was going right, then went left and got an and-1.

Jawann McClellan (Arizona guard): I was just sitting on his left hand. And somehow he gives you this herky-jerk and you jump to the right. Next thing you know, he’s taking you for a ride with his left hand.

Scott Pera (assistant coach): That was definitely his “I’m here to dominate” moment.

Was he a trash-talker?

Steve Jones (guard): He had different modes. He was never like Gary Payton with it, but he’d get really quiet, and that meant, “OK, I’m ready to go at you.”

Lamont Smith (assistant coach): James wasn’t a trash-talker, but you weren’t going to talk trash to James, if that makes sense.

Ayres: The game I remember is UCLA at UCLA. What’s that guy’s name? The guy who played Steve Urkel in “Family Matters”? Jaleel White!

Woods: Yeah, Urkel always sat courtside at Pauley.

Ayres: He and James are just going at it. I’m playing good, like 8-for-8 from the field. James is turning up — it was like a Reggie Miller-Spike Lee type of thing.

Jaleel White (actor): Nah, it was a friendlier version of that. During a free throw, James was like, “Hey, how do you want me to give it to y’all? Do you want it inside or out?” And I was like, “This dude’s feeling real good. All right, you got it like that. Go ahead and give me a 3.” Play commences. The very next play, he shoots a 3. Drills it. Looks right at me. I’m like, “Oh, shit. OK.” Next dead ball, same thing. He’s like, “You want that again?” I was like, “Nooo. I don’t want the same thing twice! Give me something different. Go to the hole.” He’s like, “OK, cool.” And the very next play, just quick step. Boom! … That day, he made me a fan.

Off the court, Harden was just as competitive, but he also liked to have fun.

Atuahene: He’s the most introverted extrovert you’ll meet in your life, meaning he’s introverted when he wants to be, but when he steps out of his box, he’s extroverted.

Jamelle McMillan (guard, now an assistant coach with the New Orleans Pelicans): When he’s in the element of basketball, he’s: “Let’s get something out of this. Let’s get something accomplished.” Then, as soon as you leave the gym, he’s the biggest class clown ever.

Woods: He was a goofball, for sure.

McMillan: He loved giving people nicknames. That was his thing.

Atuahene: Actually, that was me. I came up with nicknames and handshakes for everybody. Jamelle was Platterhead because he looked like a Platterhead. Steve Jones was Pork Chop. James was James Hardly, which was short for James Hardly Go Right because he never went right.

Ayres: He’d fall asleep in film with Herb, and for me, I didn’t like that. I was like a square. “Who is this young guy, thinking he can just come in here and fall asleep during film when we’re talking about him always going for steals, not playing no damn defense?” But whenever we needed a laugh or I needed to calm down, he’d say something stupid and we’d both laugh.

Christian Polk (guard): We enjoyed ourselves, for sure. I’m from (the Phoenix area) … and there’s a lot of resources to have a good time. And James really saw what was going on his senior year in high school. Once they all got here, the show was already going, and we just kind of turned James up another notch.

Then there was the video game “Halo.”

McMillan: “Halo” was serious business for James.

Polk: To this day, if a kid came up to James and said, “I’ll beat you in ‘Halo,’” James would drop what he’s doing and say, “Man, what do you want to do?”

Abbott: We would play hours upon hours.

Polk: The way James played, it was almost like boxing. If you made a mistake, he was going to punish you. There’s this one spot in “Halo” that if you move a certain way, James was going to snipe you every single time. If you run through a certain hallway, he was going to throw a bomb off the wall.

Nico Fricchione (guard): We had a console in the locker room, and everyone would be in there playing. This one time, Coach Sendek got so upset, he came in and literally ripped the system out.

Atuahene: This is what happened: They put the timer on the clock before practice. We had like 15 minutes, but James lost another game. We were supposed to go to the court, but they all said, “One more.” I already knew I was on the hot seat with Coach Sendek, so I went to practice. Coach Sendek said, “Where’s all the guys?” I said, “I guess they’re still in the locker room.” He goes upstairs and sees everybody playing “Halo” and just yanks the (Xbox) console out.

Polk: I don’t think he broke it.

Atuahene: He definitely broke it.

Sendek: That does not ring a bell, but I’m older than those guys. Maybe my memory isn’t as good.

Atuahene: If James can’t do something well, he’s not going to do it. Like, he would never play table tennis because he sucks at pingpong. He doesn’t want to lose.

(Left to right) Harden, Derek Glasser, Rihards Kuksiks and Jerren Shipp (Chris Williams/Icon SMI/Icon Sport Media via Getty Images)

When he wasn’t playing “Halo,” Harden was in the gym, even during his sophomore season, more than his coaches would have liked.

Polk: I could tell you a million stories when I was in the gym getting up shots and James would come in and immediately get mad. He’d ask, “How many shots is that?” Then he’d try to shoot double or triple to make sure he had the edge.

McMillan: A lot of guys like to play basketball, but there was a spirit about him that was just different.

It stretched from the school’s basketball facilities to the Student Recreation Center.

Atuahene: The reason I created the “Rec Boys” is because my last year, Coach Sendek wouldn’t play me. I was playing in practice, but I wasn’t playing in games. I still wanted to compete, so I said, “If everyone thinks they’re so good, let’s go to the Rec Center after practice.”

Abbott: Our day was pretty much: Go to class, have practice, go to study hall and then go to the rec.

Sabrina Thomas (academic coach): James always had a ball with him, and as soon as they left study hall, they went right to the gym.

Atuahene: James developed his confidence in the rec. All these moves he wouldn’t use in games, he (perfected) them in the rec.

Polk: If there had been videos and cameras and social media like the way there is now, there still would be videos to this day going viral of what went down in the rec center.

Fricchione: The coaches had been kind of getting on us about playing in there too much, so I made a joke to James about it. I just said, “Yeah, I’m going to tell Coach that we’re all in here playing.” And he just looked at me with a straight face and said, “I’m a basketball player.”

If his body ached, Harden had his own methods of recovery. He avoided the cold tub at all costs.

Ayres: I think I remember him being in the cold tub once — maybe.

Atuahene: When you’re young, the first time you go into the ice bath is like the worst thing ever, but the benefits are amazing. He always ran from that.

Ayres: He’d go, “No way, I’m not getting in there, man.” I’d be like, “What? You need to get in here.” He’d say, “Nah, I’m good, man. I just need some ice and I’m going home.”

McMillan: Herb had to get (Harden’s) mom to get him in the cold tub. James was like, “Nah, I don’t want to do it,” and then she’s standing in the training room. He’s like, “Ah, shit.”

Coach Taylor: I don’t remember that, but I remember me physically picking his ass up and putting him in the ice tub, myself and (strength coach Rich) Wenner. That happened five or six times.

Coach Pera: The funny thing is now he lives in an ice bucket.

Harden was a great player at Arizona State, but his game needed several improvements. (Harry How/Getty Images)

There was never a doubt Harden would play in the NBA, but he still needed to improve in certain areas.

McMillan: Being “the guy” is hard. It really is. Keeping guys involved and then getting your own, being this big-time guy in the mock drafts. People think, “Oh, everything’s about you.” But James never made it feel that way.

Taylor Rohde (forward): We had NBA scouts come through practice all the time. He could have talked about it a lot — everybody knew the NBA was a goal of his — but he didn’t bring it up much.

McMillan: One night we were in Wells Fargo Arena. We were actually playing dunk ball. They were throwing me up in the air as high as they could, and I was dunking. We started talking about Kobe (Bryant), and (guys) were telling James that Kobe was going to dominate him next year.

Abbott: And he was like, “Yeah, but he’s going to have to guard me as well.”

Doug Collins (NBA analyst and former coach): Coach Sendek, with the relationship we had, I spent a lot of time with James. I never tried to coach him — that was Coach Sendek — but the two things I talked with him about was conditioning and playing with a motor.

Coach Taylor: James was one of those guys where he just liked to play. That was his workout. Going to the weight room, doing extra stuff, extra conditioning — the stuff that I guarantee he would swear by now — I wouldn’t say he was committed to those things when he was in college.

Ayres: He wasn’t fat; he was just a little chunky.

Collins: I was doing a game in Boston on TNT, I think it was on a Thursday night, and James had a big game at Oregon. I called him. I said, “OK, James, Oregon State is next. We got to get that game.” And I remember he played very poorly. The next week I told him, “The one thing about greatness is consistency.” I was just trying to plant seeds. I said: “James, right now you’re talking about 30 games a year. In the NBA, it’s an 82-game schedule. Throw in the playoffs and you can play 100 games a year.”

After losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Harden finished his sophomore season with averages of 20.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists. He was the Pac-10 player of the year and a consensus All-American. He declared for the NBA Draft and changed his body within weeks.

Abbott: The first glimpse I got of it was when he went away after he made his announcement and worked out over the summer with his trainer. He came back a completely different player. I was like, “Wow.”

Coach Taylor: His work ethic had gone to a different level.

McMillan: I had heard that Oklahoma City had some private investigators in town, so I called him and told him: “Yo, this is a big time for you. Chill out. Make sure you’re smart during this time.”

The Thunder chose Harden with the third pick of the 2009 NBA Draft, adding the Arizona State guard to a talented roster that included Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

Diogu: I knew he would be a solid player. I can’t say I knew what his potential would be, but I knew Coach Sendek ran a complicated offense — it’s not an easy offense to grasp — and I knew James’ IQ was far better than most people just because of what he was asked to do.

Collins: It was a real blessing for him going to Oklahoma City. He got with Kevin Durant and he got with Russell Westbrook and he got with Jeff Green, and those guys embraced him as a young player. They showed him what it was to work and what he had to do to become a great player.

Polk: I remember watching the playoffs with my buddy Jerryd Bayless. Some of the things James was doing, we were like: “James is going to be one of the better shooting guards in the league. He’s too young to be doing this. He’s doing what he wants to do. It’s not supposed to be this easy.”

In 2012, Oklahoma City traded Harden to the Houston Rockets, where the former Arizona State star took his game to an All-Star level.

Ayres: He went from being James, this chunky little kid with no beard at ASU, to being the MVP.

Jones: I wish one day he would get the credit he deserves because he adds something to his game every single year.

Collins: He’s coming at you on the break, and he’s making contact on every play. He drags his arms across you, and he’s strong enough to create a 3-point play. I mean, he can shoot 4-for-20 and get 35 points! Think about that.

McMillan: He single-handedly has shifted the game where you are no longer allowed to play defense. You’re just not. There’s no way you can play defense — and it started with him. For you to change the league? That’s special.

White: I do wish his ass would play some fucking defense. I think that’s the only thing that’s keeping him away from a championship, because literally — and please quote me on this — that man is an offensive savant.

Despite his rise to stardom, his former college teammates insist he’s still the same James.

McMillan: It was a really cool time in my life to be around somebody like that, playing with somebody with that kind of talent, a guy that understood the human being part of it.

Polk: One summer, James was in town. I was back from playing overseas. It was me and I think Ty Abbott and Rihards Kuksiks, and we had all gotten a spot in Scottsdale together. I think James was still with the Thunder. The next morning we were supposed to play pickup, but we were still tired from the night before. I kid you not, James came from his hotel and was banging on our doors, running through the condo, saying, “No, we’re playing today. We’re getting this sweat in.”

Ayres: To this day, when he comes and works out at (Arizona State), I still see the same person. We still have our goofy little handshake. He’s still James. And then he gets on the court, and he wants to get better. He wants to destroy.

Atuahene: If you asked James right now, he’d be like, “My college years were the best time of my life.” Essentially, he didn’t leave college. He left for the NBA, but he has the same lifestyle — only we’re not going to class. He plays video games, and he plays basketball for a living. Nothing has changed.

(Top photo: Paul Connors / AP)

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