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Normally, the kind of season that Houston’s James Harden has had would be garnering all kinds of attention and accolades. His combination of raw scoring output, relentless effectiveness, and well-rounded point creation stands with some of the greatest players of the modern era.

Yet Harden has managed to hover just under the radar.

In his first season as the primary option on an N.B.A. team, after arriving from star-laden Oklahoma City, Harden scored 25.9 points per game for the Rockets, fifth-best in the N.B.A. It was an improvement of more than 9 points over his best season as a super-sub for the Thunder.

Increased playing time explains some of this jump but not all of it: Harden’s scoring output rose more than 25 percent on a per-minute basis as well. Impressive, yes, but hardly unique. Since 1986, the list of 25 points-per-game seasons is 173 lines long and includes mere mortals like Orlando Woolridge, Jim Jackson, and Purvis Short.

What sets Harden apart is his shot selection and the attempts it takes him to generate so many points. Harden took nearly 75 percent of his attempts this season either at the rim or from 3-point range compared to less than 20 percent from between 10 and 23 feet.

This is a rarity for a perimeter player with such a heavy scoring burden; Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony, to name two notable examples, each took about 35 percent of their shots from 10 to 23 feet out. Harden’s approach, consisting so heavily of layups (and the accompanying free throws) and 3-pointers (whose degree of difficulty is recognized by the extra point awarded), gave him a true shooting percentage of 60 percent.

This number, which adjusts Harden’s field-goal percentage for free throws and 3-pointers, is a benchmark for efficient scoring typically reserved for big men and one-dimensional spot shooters.

Harden’s performance in Wednesday night’s Game 5 against the Thunder — 31 points on 16 field goal attempts and 5 free-throw attempts, for a remarkable 85.2 percentage true shooting percentage — was just the latest illustration of the value of his lethal inside/outside game.

This level of efficiency is a rarity for such a high-volume scorer: only 31 players since 1986 have averaged 25 a night while matching Harden’s 60 percent mark in true shooting. Nearly all of those players are either in the Hall of Fame or headed there.

Harden’s ability to limit misses is especially impressive given his primacy in Houston’s attack.

Although Harden’s skills were well-known before this season, some still cited his tertiary place in the Thunder’s crunch-time offense as cause for skepticism. Those concerns have been put to rest. Harden’s 29.0 percent usage rate means only eight N.B.A. players had the ball end up in their hands more frequently than he did — and only two of those players, his former teammate Kevin Durant and LeBron James in Miami, created more points per shot than Harden. Of the 31 high-scoring, high-efficiency seasons cited above, just 23 (less than one per year since 1986) were achieved with usage exceeding 27.0 percent.

This is rare air, even in the context of elite N.B.A. scorers.

Shot-making, though, is only one part of good offense; play-making and passing remain important skills for even the league’s top scorers. Here is where Harden’s 2012-13 season really stands out. Harden’s 5.8 assists per game look nice, sure, but do not seem particularly remarkable.

But given how many of Houston’s possessions end with the ball in Harden’s hands, his ability to create so many baskets for his teammates on the relatively few offensive trips that remain is extraordinary. His 25.7 percent assist rate – a statistic measuring the percentage of teammates’ baskets on which a player assists – underscores this point; only a handful of non-point guards in the league have such a high number.

Now, put all of this together: 25 points per game, 60 percent true shooting, usage on more than 27 percent of team possessions, and an assist rate exceeding 25 percent. How rare is such a combination of statistics? What does the achievement mean for any player, especially one as young as Harden? Below, I’ve listed every season since 1986 that hits all four marks.

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This is the company that James Harden now keeps.