Harden has become one of the most influential offensive players of his generation by ostensibly disregarding the NBA’s rule book.
Harden entered the league in 2009, when the NBA became the first basketball league in the world, at any level, to explicitly establish language allowing a player to take two steps before stopping, passing, or shooting the ball; in doing so, it codified the idea of gathering (as well as the “zero step,” which, in ref speak, refers to the pivot foot established during the gather), a move that had been tacitly allowed since the 1960s.
