When Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey scored two coups prior to the kickoff of the NBA 2012-13 regular season, stealing overnight star Jeremy Lin from New York and arranging a trade that landed Oklahoma City's NBA Sixth Man of the Year James Harden in Houston, it was with the expectation that these two young studs would power the Rockets into playoff contenders in the West for years to come.
Yet despite the flourishing success of Harden, things were looking turbulent in Houston for much of the first month of the season, with Lin taking fewer shots and looking less and less like the wunderkind he was during the wheeling-and-dealing days of "Linsanity" last season.
The results have been tumultuous thus far, with Houston creeping along at or below the .500 mark, with the team still trying to figure themselves out while the critics have hammered Lin's underperformance in the first month of NBA action.
And then, Lin returned on Monday to New York City, where it all began for him.
In what might one day, assuming the trend continues, be looked at as the turning point of the Rockets' season, Jeremy Lin scored 22 points and dished out eight assists while Harden, now No. 4 on the NBA's scoring list at 25.4 points per game, scored 29 points as they powered the Rockets to an impressive 109-96 win in New York.
Of course, skepticism remained as to whether Lin could repeat that showing. After all, just one game after he had a spectacular 38-point, seven-assist performance in a Dec. 10 overtime loss against the Spurs--in Harden's absence--that he scored a mere 10 points the next game and a combined 12 points over the next two games.
And yet, in the most encouraging moment of the season so far for the Rockets, both Lin and Harden scored in high double-figures again for the second straight game as Houston burned the Philadelphia 76ers 125-103 Wednesday night in Houston.
Harden was his dominant self, scoring a powerful 33 points and seven assists, while Lin picked up the pace again on offense, scoring 18 points with an aggressive 8-for-12 shooting night while dishing six assists from the point guard position.
And they did it all while getting their teammates in on the action. Omer Asik had a big night with 17 points. Marcus Morris, filling in for the injured Patrick Patterson, scored 14 points. Greg Smith and Toney Douglas, both scoring in double figures off the bench, combined for 30 of the Rockets' 34 points from their reserve corps.
Now, with a big game against Southwest Division rival and leader Memphis Grizzlies (17-6) coming on Saturday, the question must be asked: have Lin and Harden finally figured it out?
Have they solved the puzzle of how to blend their respective games--Lin's dishing and driving style and Harden's attack-the-basket mentality--into a productive system for each of them, where they can feed off each other rather than have one thrive while the other fades into the background?
If the last two games are any indication, then things are looking good for the league's No. 2-ranked offense (104.8 points per game, second only to Oklahoma City's 105.6 team points).
The youngest team in the league, Houston's success will be built around their wealth of young, up-and-coming talent in the next few years, but Harden and Lin's ability to be effective tandem scorers will ultimately decide how far the Rockets will go.
Before Monday's game in New York, the experiment had not been looking as planned, as Lin struggled to find his shot while Harden had established himself as Houston's best player. Lin had even hinted that he was becoming more focused on being a ball distributor than a scorer, which undoubtedly helps Houston's free-flowing, high octane offense, but deprived them of using Lin's unique offensive skills to their advantage.
However, Monday's game, of which Lin told reporters that he planned to have fun and enjoy, seems to have reawakened a spark in Lin that he needed to get him going. And so far, Lin's aggressiveness on the floor is neither detracting from his facilitating ball movement or from Harden's offensive game, both critical pieces of Houston's offense.
There are still a litany of things that Houston still needs to address before they can truly be a championship-level threat in the West, but if Harden and Lin have indeed solved the riddle of how they can score together, that's a big step in the right direction for them.
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