Donovan Mitchell Compares James Harden to Michael Jordan, Steph Curry and AI, He 'Changed the Game'

Donovan Mitchell had extraordinarily high praise for teammate James Harden in the wake of the Cleveland Cavaliers being swept by the New York Knicks during the Eastern Conference Finals.

"This man changed the game of basketball," he told Andscape's Marc J. Spears. "Changed the game of basketball in ways we have never seen before. We live in such a ring-dominant culture that we were willing to write a guy off, a guy that has transcended basketball. Seventy-five years, no one has done what he does. You can say the same about Steph Curry, [Allen] Iverson, [Michael] Jordan. James Harden is in there. So yeah, I can relate to not reaching a certain point. I also feel like we also don't talk about [Harden's] greatness enough."

Putting Harden in the same category of those players will be controversial to most, especially Curry and Jordan given the level of titles both accrued. The knock on Harden has always been his inability to get a team to the NBA Finals, let alone win a ring.

But Harden certainly helped usher in the analytics era, focusing primarily on taking threes or getting to the basket. And his regular-season accolades—one-time MVP, three-time scoring champion, two-time assist champion, eight-time All-NBA selection, 11-time All-Star—are impossible to deny.

Harden is a future Hall of Famer. It's more debatable whether he's reached the pantheon of the Jordans and Currys of the world.