James Harden scored 27 points against the Memphis Grizzlies Thursday night — a total that doesn’t exactly jump off the page considering it’s only three points higher than his season average (24.2). However, the manner in which he achieved that output is rather bizarre. You see, Harden only shot 2/9 from the field during the game, which means, even if those two field goal makes were three-pointers, Harden would have still needed at least 21 free throw attempts to hit his final tally. In this case, Harden only hit one shot from distance, but paraded to the charity stripe 25 times — connecting on 22 attempts.
So, wanna know who the last guy was to put up a similar stat line? The one and only Charles Barkley! The Round Mound shot 2/16 from the field on December 20, 1995, in a game against the Washington Bullets (a Bullets team that featured future NBA champions Juwan Howard — even if he was only wearing a suit — and Rasheed Wallace, along with Tim Legler, Gheorghe Muresan, and the immortal Jim McIlvaine). Barkley shot 22/27 from the free throw line, en route to a 26-point performance that obviously didn’t include any three pointers, because, well, Barkley was a shitty three-point shooter (0/3 on the night, just for good measure).
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