James Harden Hard Life

The Beginning “‘I mean I’m in,’” Paul repeated. ‘I want to come to Houston. I want to play with you.’” – ESPN. Those words may impact James Harden for the rest of his life, with having Chris Paul coming over to the Rockets with James Harden might increase their chances of becoming a strong and solid team. It might even get them a ring, a glorious ring presenting to everyone that there NBA champions. Wait, where did James Harden come from and how did he get there?Life in ComptonJames Harden was born in Compton, the Rancho Dominguez part of it to be exact.

Compton is a very notorious place for people who don’t know what type of place it is. Compton is filled with many bad and horrible things, it’s filled with drugs, gang violence, home break-ins, and drive-by shootings.

Today it has one of the highest crime rates in America. The violent crime rate (per 1000 residents) is about 11.

36. Today the nation is still trying to clean up, Compton. James Harden would grow up with his brother, Akili Roberson and his sister, Arnique Jelks. He was mainly raised by his mother Monja Willis. James’s dad was in the Navy, but later he would be in and out of jail. Also being a drug addict, and alcoholic. So his mother would mainly raise him and his siblings, having his dad at none of his games. Later his dad would give up the drugs and alcohol but James Harden still has trouble forgiving his father.

Get quality help now

WriterBelle

Verified

Proficient in: Drugs

4.7 (657)

“ Really polite, and a great writer! Task done as described and better, responded to all my questions promptly too! ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

When James was growing up he would love to play basketball. Basketball to James Harden was something more than a sport, it was a life saver, “By keeping them active in sports, that kept them out of gangs. Anybody can come in and try to take advantage of them.

That’s why I focused on sports for them. They ended up loving it.”- The Undefeated.  Basketball would keep him occupied from drugs and gang violence, and other things. Basketball would even do more for him in the future. “It was pretty dangerous, like a lot of environments around the world,” Harden told The Undefeated. “The more you can try to focus on the positive and stay away from [the streets], the better off you’ll be.” So James’s mom would try to enroll him somewhere else, somewhere where for half a day there would be no drugs and gang violence. She would later enroll him at Artesia high school, so then he could focus more on basketball, and school then the things around him. Growing the BeardWhen James Harden went to Artesia it was really different. He would be the only freshman to make the team, but when he got there he was out of shape, and he was very slow.

So he would have to do a lot of catching up to do. One time in his freshman year something amazing happened. He wrote a letter saying, “Could u wake me up at 7:00? And could u leave me a couple of dollars? P.S Keep this paper. Imma be a star.” After that he would start to play incredibly better than he did, it would be like magic. This note would later be used as one of James Harden shoe line quotes. After that, he would lead his team to 2 state championships, (back to back). After that, he was getting scholarship offers from plenty of D1 schools, like UCLA or North Carolina. (D1 schools mean there highest level of college basketball). Later he would choose ASU (otherwise known as Arizona State University). When he went to ASU everything would blow up, James Harden would start to get a lot of attention from the media.

After his years in college from getting many awards from the NCAA, he would finally be ready for the NBA draft in 2009. The Dream Is Here “Suddenly, Houston is getting mentioned in the same breath as the Warriors. More than the Cleveland Cavaliers or San Antonio Spurs, the Rockets are the one hope of preventing the Warriors from extending their dynasty another season.” – Bleacher Report. 8 Years later James Harden has now suddenly found his rhythm, with Chris Paul. They now can take over the NBA. The entire NBA is astonished that James Harden came from a terrible and dangerous place filled with drugs and violence is now being mentioned with the Warriors. One of the greatest teams today.