Thanks in large part to his sinister scoring, James Harden finished second this season in MVP voting behind Stephen Curry. A pull-up three here, a Eurostep there. Harden has a variety of moves that can break a defense down, many which can be described as cruel, evil and just plain wrong. Had it not been for an injury to Kevin Durant, which led to an unleashed Russell Westbrook, Harden might have won the scoring title. That would have been historic for a reason few realize.

A variety of adjectives can be used to describe Harden’s wide-ranging skillset, but sinister fits because of the word’s roots. The English word sinister is derived from sinestra, which originally meant “left” in Latin but took on the connotation of “evil” or “unlucky.” Many Latin-derived languages, including Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, have a word for a left-handed person that also carries an evil or sinister meaning. James Harden is left-handed.

Recent studies suggest that less than twelve percent of the world’s population is left-handed, but the rate among NBA players is even lower. Only 42* of the 492 players that played in the NBA this season are lefty – that’s just 8.53 percent of the league. Being left-handed doesn’t have the allure it does in baseball, where southpaws are a highly valued asset, or in football, where the construction of the offensive line changes based on a quarterback’s handedness, but it is an interesting wrinkle nonetheless.

If Harden had won the scoring title, he would have been the first left-hander to do so since David Robinson in 1994. Robinson, who entered the final game of the regular season trailing Shaquille O’Neal in the scoring race, famously scored 71 points against the Los Angeles Clippers. The total allowed him to edge O’Neal -- 29.8 points per game to 29.3 -- for his first and only scoring crown. Before Robinson, Nate Archibald (1973) was the last lefty to lead the NBA in scoring.

A lefty hasn’t been named the league’s MVP in 20 years. Robinson won the award in 1995, the season after he took the scoring title. Only three other players have been named MVP with a dominant left hand – Dave Cowens (1973), Willis Reed (1970) and Bill Russell (1958, 61-63 & 65).

In conversations with dozens of people around and involved in basketball, a player’s handedness is something that seems trivial at first, but begins to carry more weight as the discussion progresses. Hal Wissel, who has decades of experience at the college and professional level, first thought of Lenny Wilkins when I brought up the topic of the left hand with him in March. As a college player at Springfield in the late 1950s, Wissel was asked to guard Wilkins, who starred at Providence.

Wissel’s plan was to overplay Wilkins to the left in order to force him right, the most common strategy to take away a player’s stronger side. Wilkins was a special player, so he countered Wissel’s defense with an inside-out dribble and scored endlessly with lefty runners.

While schemes have gotten more complex in the decades since Wissel guarded Wilkins, the basic concept is the same. A left-handed player isn’t going to have a significant advantage because scouting reports include numerous strengths, weaknesses and tendencies. With more than 50 years of coaching experience under his belt, Wissel points out that “some lefties like to go left, some like to go right.”

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Scientists have studied athletes for decades and determined that there is a level of hand-eye coordination that seems to favor those with a dominant left hand. Oddly enough, baseball, tennis, swimming and boxing seem to have always had a disproportionate level of successful lefties. Those sports all have one thing in common, they are much more independent than team sports like basketball, football and hockey.

That may tie into the fact that the dominant hand is cross-wired with the brain. That’s why you’ll hear left-handers tell you they are always in the right mind. The left hemisphere of the brain is closely linked to the right hand and controls speech, language, writing, math and science. The right side of the brain, however, handles more creative aspects like music, art, perception and genius.

Basketball, when played properly, can resemble art. The Spurs put together a masterpiece on their way to the title last June. It should surprise no one that Manu Ginobili, widely considered the league’s most cunning player until Harden entered his prime, is a lefty.

More than anything else, the aesthetic difference of shooting with your left hand is the sticking point for most NBA players. When defending a left-hander it’s largely a stance and arm adjustment.

“It’s unorthodox. You are used to guarding right-handed players, so guarding a lefty is a stance thing,” Wesley Matthews said at All-Star Weekend in February. “You think about which hand you contest shots with, which hand you reach for the ball with. If you contest with the same hand as you do for a righty and you aren’t bothering their shot or vision as much.” 

Coaches will point out that an opponent is lefty, or more specifically how often he goes one way or the other when driving, but sometimes is takes a possession or two for a defender to fully adjust to the placement of the basketball whether a guy is dribbling, preparing to make a move or shooting.

“If you talk to right-handed guys, they’ll say we have an advantage because when we go to the basket they’re thinking we are going one way, but we go the other,” said Morris Peterson, who played seven of his 11 seasons in the NBA with the Toronto Raptors and now works as an analyst with TSN.

When you think of handedness in basketball you immediately picture a jump shot, but Peterson insists the biggest edge comes when attacking the basket. Defenders are expecting players to attack the right side of the rim.

“When you have a hand in your face, it’s still a hand in your face when you’re trying to shoot,” Peterson explained. “There were times when people would go up to contest and they have the opposite hand out, which is at least somewhat of an advantage. Going to the basket is actually more of an advantage. I heard throughout my career, ‘Man, I forgot you were left-handed’ or they expect you to attack the rim differently.”

Chris Bosh felt as though he had an edge when he entered the league as a rookie in 2003, but people figured him out before long.

“Not anymore, I used to feel it was an advantage,” he said. “After you’ve been in the league so long everybody knows that you’re left-handed. I can’t surprise people with it anymore.”

Harden is the best current left-handed player, but if you break down players into three categories (lead guards, wing men and bigs) left-handers skew toward the paint. Greg Monroe, Josh Smith, David Lee, DeAndre Jordan, Julius Randle, Zach Randolph and Bosh are among the star bigs that have a strong left hand. Only 10 of the 42 lefties in the NBA are primary ball-handlers.

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My greatest resource when working on this piece was to ask players about defending left-handers. After all, more than nine out of every 10 players are right-handed. The responses ranged from an admission that you have to mentally prepare to do fundamental things differently to proud defensive stalwarts that don’t care how a players tries to score as long as they don’t.

“Not too much,” Patrick Beverly said of how his approach changes. “My defense is predicated on being aggressive and trying to set the tone from there. Everything else falls into place. Whether left-handed or right-handed, I just go out there and try to be the most aggressive I can possibly be.”

Jimmy Butler, who was an All-Star for the first time this season and ranked eighth in Defensive Win Shares in 2013-14, agreed with Beverly. His goal is to stop people from scoring. Period. 

“My gameplan is to try and stop guys from scoring whether they are left-handed, right-handed, both-handed or they try to kick it in with their feet,” Butler said. “I just play hard and defend guys.”

Russell Westbrook admitted that he contests jumpers with different hands based the shooter, but worrying about which hand is cradling the ball and which is guiding it isn’t at the top of his priority list. When pressed to discuss whether or not his stance changes based on a player’s tendencies, Westbrook was blunt -- “It depends if he can shoot the ball or not.” 

Most of what distinguishes players from one another is tendency. A longtime scout, who didn’t want to be identified, told me that he’s seen guys forget that a player is left-handed, or likes to go left. When several things are in motion on a single play, a defender can slip into his own tendencies. For many, that’s funneling a player to the left side.

“You just have to know your opponent. Some lefties like to go right, some lefties like to go left with the ball. You have to study tendencies based on the player and in that case it doesn’t really matter which hand they are,” Brandon Knight said just a few days before the Milwaukee Bucks dealt him to the Phoenix Suns. “I know a lot of right-handed players that love to go left, Lou Williams loves to go left.”

There are some other things to consider when looking at shooters in this context. A left-handed shooter attempting a shot from the left half of the court has his guide (right) hand protecting him on the weak side. Conversely, a lefty shooting from the right side of floor may have less protection from rotating defenders and a higher chance of obstruction. How the ball rotates out of a shooter’s hand also depends on both his dominant hand and where he is on the floor. 

“When we are going through stuff on film, sometimes coaches will point something out and say, ‘oh, you’re a lefty’ and it might change something, but more often than not everyone knows when a left-hander is on the court,” Isaiah Thomas said.

Shooting mechanics remain constant no matter the hand and implementing suggestions isn’t any more difficult for a lefty or righty, according to Wissel, who still works one-on-one with a number of NBA players.

“Mechanics are basically the same with both hands,” Peterson added. “It’s all about form and keeping your elbow up, whether you are left or right-handed. I’ve noticed that lefties for some reason, we always have our left shoulder ready to shoot. It’s hard to explain it, but it seems like we are always ready to shoot.” 

Of all the left-handed players I spoke with Thomas and Peterson were unquestionably the most proud to be in the minority. Thomas commiserated for several minutes about being lefty, while Peterson pantomimed a jumper repeatedly while we spoke.

“It’s tougher to guard lefties,” Thomas opined. “Guys have to make adjustments to guard a left-hander because almost everybody is right-handed. You’ve got to switch your defensive coverages. I know nine times out of ten, teams try to force me to go right. I’ve got to know that on my end as well.”

Harden doesn’t believe that being a left-hander is an advantage, going as far to label himself as “awkward” for not being a conventional shooter. Having a dominant left hand does help Harden draw fouls on drives to the right side of the rim, however, because the arm he goes up with is closest to a defender’s reach.

The ultimate measuring tools for a shooter are his percentages. A player’s opinion on whether being left-handed is an advantage is meaningful, but a definitive answer can be found in the numbers. During the 2014-15 season, the average player shot 44.9 percent from the field, 35 percent from three and 75 percent from the foul line.

How about the average lefty? The 42 that played this season combined to shoot 46.7% overall, 34.9% from three and 71.2 percent on free throws. That figures should surprise no one given all the big men that populate the NBA’s left-handed fraternity. Jordan led the league in field goal percentage (71%), but hit fewer than 40 percent of his foul shots. Performances like that one will skew a sample size that includes so few players.

Shooting percentages aren’t very kind to lefties on average, but they appear on the list of the league’s most efficient players often. There are 11 left-handers among the top 50 players in terms of PER this season. They populate less than nine percent of the league, but represent 22 percent of the league’s most productive players.

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“We make it look good when we shoot,” Peterson said. “When you see a left-hander playing basketball he stands out because there are so few of us.”

Most agree that a left-handed jump shot is beautiful, but proper form is a must. John Wall has shot around with basketball’s most famous fan and the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama, and was less than impressed with the Presidential jumper.

“He missed like seven or eight shots in a row,” Wall told Dan Patrick. “He had to shoot a layup because kids were picking on him. Usually lefties have pretty form. His form is not too pretty.”

You could say that Obama’s shot is a little sinister. After all, he’s left-handed. 

* The total was calculated using both Basketball-Reference and my own personal research.