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Holy hell I've never seen a player just this kind of direct language before at a manager. That's crazy. Since they're not planning on trading him now, would Harden simply just not play come the start of the season?
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Seems like he doesn't intend to play. It's a Ben Simmons situation all over again
The Sixers are truly cursed
He has to play or at least show up physically, otherwise philly can reject any contract he signs after this year. Essential, James can either retire or play out this last year. He'll probably phone it in until they find a trade partner... Which is unlikely because no one wants to give money to a player that has asked out of the past two three places he's landed. He also demanded the places he was traded to. To think two mvps from the past 10 years are essentially vet minimum players now. Westbrook and harden
I am dead inside. Thank goodness baseball and football can hold my attention through February without worrying about the dumpster fire Sixers
Haha sorry to hear that. But you know the silver lining is, Sixers will not have the albatross of a huge contract with a declining player round their neck after this season. Morey says Harden is a 1 year rental like Kawhi was.
I think this points to what everybody had speculated. James took a pay cut with the hush hush promise of a bigger deal after the season. James probably asked for that player option thinking he could just leave, but there aren't a lot of teams lining up to give Harden a 4 year $200m deal. Now he's stuck, and Morey is stuck.
If they can find evidence of that, Morey should be banned for life and Harden should be banned for multiple years (only because they probably can't actually ban him for life with the CBA).
I sincerely give zero fucks about teams making promises about future deals in other sports, but the way the NBA is set up with the entire roster construction being about gaming ways to go over the cap, future promises are straight up cheating.
But yeah, I doubt you can prove it.
We all know Harden took a pay cut last year. What we don't know is why. Something was promised to Harden and he feels he hasn't been rewarded for the pay cut. Harden, Morey, and Sixers should be investigated.
The league already investigated the Sixers for this and didn't find anything. If there was actually any sort of handshake deal, Harden was stomping on that as soon as Christmas Day 2022, not even halfway through the regular season when his camp started leaking that he was wanting to go back to Houston.
If there was a handshake deal, my guess is that it was contingent on playoff success, and Harden started getting cold feet after the really rough start to the season, so he started those leaks to try and leverage a deal early either with the Sixers or the Rockets. Word on the street is Udoka shut that down on Houston's end, and then no other team wanted him (or didn't make an offer that he was interested in) so he was essentially forced to opt in to the second year with Philly.
The way I see it, Harden is trying to save face as well as garner the support of other players by trying to put the blame 100% on Morey.
Damn, talk about burning bridges. This is blowing up the bridge.
When did real life become more like cheesy "reality TV" drama?
Oh this is just how things always are with the Sixers
Who needs nuclear ICBMs when you can host a James Harden promo?
J Harden Oppenheimer
So Hitler made the bomb.
Man it’s a good thing that Darryl Morey didn’t like, take a huge gamble on him, based on their history together.
Oh.
James Harden was a transcendent offensive talent, even though he’s never been much fun to watch. But I can’t remember a player who has had a sadder (or quicker?) descent from MVP-caliber to actively cancerous ring-chaser.
He’ll still probably get a ring, somewhere. IF (and it’s a big if, actually) he can stay healthy, stay in shape, and be comfortable actually being the third or fourth best guy on a title team.
I don't know where he would get a ring.
He clearly still wants a pretty big role in the offense wherever he is, and has now quit on 3 teams in a row. I'm not sure why any contender with a good culture would want to add that. It's not like he's some incredible spot-up shooter that could fall back into a primarily 3-point guy, his career percentages are drastically better off the dribble. It's not like you're adding the corpse of Steph Curry here, who would presumably still be able to launch 3s at a high % clip.
The last couple of years his catch-and-shoot and off-the-dribble numbers are basically identical. Actually since about 2017 he's been a better catch-and-shoot than off-the-dribble shooter - but again, it's close.
I agree with you that he's quit on three teams in a row and still wants a big role in an offense wherever he goes - but I think my point is valid, too. If he could resign himself to being the third best guy on a team, he's still got enough in the tank to be value added.
He's not washed - he's just an asshole. 😂
Real talk, though - you're getting at least a 50% chance he shows up out of shape, a 100% chance that he'll quit on you at some point, and even if those two things don't pop, he's never exactly been a lock down defender. But he can still create shots and hit 3s at a decent clip. He's basically the better version of Seth Curry, if Seth insisted on having the entire offense run through him.
I don't think he can still play.
The Celtics series this year was a great example. He did have one great game to keep them in the series while Embiid was out. But the consequence of that was so much fatigue he couldn't make a layup the rest of the series (and while they played good defense overall, he had his share of good looks that he just missed hard)
Maybe he just retires. I think that'd be a very sad way to go, but at the same time it'd be a gigantic slap in the face of the 6ers. IDK if holding out/putting on the fat suit is a better option but well.
I don't think he's going to retire. The reason he's unhappy is he doesn't have the long term contract he wants. He'll play this season as per CBA rules and get his contract next year with whomever.
This ain't looking too good
Holy shit lol.