Ramona Shelburne, ESPN Senior Scribbler
FOR A GUY who had an off evening, James Harden is in a just right temper as he leaves Crypto.com Enviornment. It’s Jan. 17, and his Philadelphia 76ers have simply completed a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers and the LA Clippers in a two-game prepared over the Martin Luther King Jr. Time vacay weekend to toughen to 28-16 at the season. Extra importantly, regardless that, upcoming fellow famous person Joel Embiid ignored 11 of the Sixers’ first 42 video games and Harden 15, the crew is in spite of everything in place to gauge what it may well be.
“This team is definitely the best chance I’ve had to win,” Harden tells ESPN as he walks out of the sector. He’s isolated and unhurried, regardless of having the remainder of the evening detached in Los Angeles. “It’s still not perfect,” he says. “It’s still constant communication.
“The quicker we will start out and catch a rhythm, we were given a actually just right probability.”
Harden says all of this on a night he shot 1-for-6, with just six points and nine assists, snapping a six-game streak in which he had posted double figures in both categories. He was fine, he insisted throughout his time in Philadelphia, with sacrificing his offensive game. In doing so, though, he wanted to make sure everyone understood: This was a choice, not a result.
Back in the arena, Harden continues. “Clearly I’m in a position to [scoring] extra,” he says, making eye contact to emphasize his point. “However I’m taking part in the correct manner, simply doing no matter’s important to win. That’s what it’s all about.”
The Sixers won the game because the Clippers had no answer for Embiid, who finished with 41 points in 33 minutes and after the game credited Harden for “making it simple” for him.
In terms of momentum and messaging from Philadelphia’s two superstars — any two superstars, really — this is as good as it gets. Both players talking about how much they appreciated each other. One, after a dominant performance, recognizing the other’s role in making it so.
But the line between positive self-talk and talking yourself into something is a fine one.
Harden teetered along it all season. He came to Philadelphia thinking Sixers general manager Daryl Morey would help him recreate his best years with the Houston Rockets, this time with an MVP-caliber center alongside him and a championship coach in Doc Rivers guiding him.
Morey built his reputation by believing in Harden and wasn’t about to stop now. Embiid respected Harden’s game and knew he needed him. Rivers did, too, but understood it isn’t always about talent or belief. Championships are borne out of a special alchemy of timing, sacrifice and alignment that’s hard to predict, much less engineer.
But Harden had also come to Philadelphia thinking he would be compensated like he used to be. After his first season in Philadelphia, Harden took approximately $14 million less than what he was due in a player option so the team could sign veteran forward P.J. Tucker clear of the Miami Heat.
It was once bought via the Sixers as “sacrifice” to both Harden and the public — a line he dutifully repeated throughout the season.
“It’s a must to sacrifice to get to the place you’ve by no means been,” Harden said that night in Los Angeles. “I’m in a actually just right field at the courtroom and stale the courtroom.”
But Harden was savvy, too. He knew the reason he was “sacrificing” was that the Sixers didn’t feel comfortable offering him a new maximum contract worth upward of $270 million, sources said, after the way he played following a midseason trade from the Brooklyn Nets. They were still evaluating him, much like he had been evaluating the Nets a year earlier when they offered him a max deal and he said he wanted to see how things went.
This wasn’t so much a sacrifice as mutual unspoken recognition. The dream of recreating the glory days in Houston had probably already passed them by. But they played it out anyway, the Sixers never quite sure Harden was worth the max he sought, and Harden suspecting they felt that way.
So the “sacrifice” narrative was created. And it worked for everybody — until it didn’t.
What Harden didn’t realize was how little he’d be left with when it all came apart.
THE FIRST HINT that Harden’s “sacrifice” wasn’t being appreciated, much less rewarded in the way he hoped, came in late January when he wasn’t voted to be an All-Star. Harden, who had made 10 consecutive All-Star games, was dismayed at the snub, sources said.
It didn’t help that his former Nets teammates Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving had both been voted in as starters by the fans, media and players, while Harden was a distant fourth among Eastern Conference guards behind Irving, Donovan Mitchell and Jaylen Brown.
Still, NBA commissioner Adam Silver was prepared to name him as an injury replacement, sources said. Harden just had to give assurances that he would show up and play in the game.
Days went by without Harden’s answer. He was pouting.
By the time Harden sent word that he would accept the invitation, Silver had moved on, naming Toronto Raptors ahead Pascal Siakam as the replacement for an injured Durant.
Because of the way Harden handled the situation, the Sixers did not engage in much damage control afterward. They spoke up for him publicly, calling attention to the snub. But they were walking a fine line, too.
On the one hand, they knew Harden needed to be treated like a superstar to play like one.
On the other, the thinking went, he had never won a championship playing that way and had expressed a desire to be pushed by a coach like Rivers.
That all takes time and trust, which the Sixers never really developed.
A coach has to earn that trust and respect. A player has to believe in what’s being said and the person saying it. Things come apart quickly when that doesn’t happen.
In mid-December, Rivers lit into Harden for taking the final three shots in regulation of a double-overtime loss to the young and lottery-bound-again Rockets, sources said. It wasn’t that Rivers didn’t trust Harden to take the final three shots — he had allowed him to run the offense and call his own number on the final play of regulation by not calling a timeout following a defensive rebound. It’s that the Rockets had no answer for Embiid (39 points) all night and Harden wasn’t shooting well (4-for-19).
When questioned in the film session, Harden demurred, saying he just couldn’t get the ball to Embiid, sources said. These flare-ups between Harden and Rivers continued throughout the season.
On Feb. 27, Philadelphia lost 101-99 at home to the Heat — the team that had knocked the Sixers out of the playoffs a year ago. On the surface, there was nothing all that remarkable about the loss, except that it was the second in a row to a team they would likely have to go through in the playoffs. Two nights earlier they had dropped a 110-107 game to their other playoff nemesis, the Boston Celtics.
For a team with championship aspirations, it was a good moment to refocus. Especially with the next game being a rematch in Miami two days later.
But Harden didn’t travel with the team to Miami, sources said. He traveled separately, with permission from the front office, to enjoy the nightlife. This is not uncommon in the NBA, or for Harden, but it didn’t sit well with Rivers and several players on the team, sources said.
Days later, Rivers brought it up in a team meeting, sources said, specifically mentioning several of the players who expressed concerns about Harden’s actions.
The whole episode was “uncomfortable,” one team source said. Even if they agreed with the substance of Rivers’ message to Harden, and the idea of holding him accountable, it was awkward for the players who were named.
It did not affect their play on the court, however. If anything, it had the opposite effect, as the Sixers walloped the Heat 119-96, despite Embiid sitting out because of a left foot injury.
If the Sixers had gone on to win a championship, or even contend for one, this could’ve gone down as some kind of turning point. But they didn’t. Not even close. Again.
BY NOW THE ugly details of their breakup are well known. After the Sixers flamed out in the second round of the playoffs yet again, there was a reckoning.
Two days after the Game 7 loss to the Celtics, Rivers was fired — officially because he had fallen short of a championship. Unofficially, sources said, because the team knew Harden did not want to play for him again.
Morey made it clear that re-signing Harden to a new contract was the team’s top priority. But there was real debate internally about how much and how long of a contract they should offer him, sources said. Was he worth as much as the three years and up to $126 million that 31-year-old Irving ultimately received from the Dallas Mavericks?
Harden was eligible for a four-year, $210 million contract if he declined his $35.6 million player option and became a free agent. And he was expecting a contract in that range, sources said, having taken less the previous summer and having left a $161 million extension on the table from Brooklyn in August 2021 and turned down a two-year, $100 million extension from the Rockets in February 2021.
But Harden had little leverage to extract that kind of offer from Philadelphia. The Rockets’ interest in reacquiring him as a free agent cooled after they hired Ime Udoka as their head coach in late April, sources said. Udoka was trying to set a new culture in Houston, not bring back the past. He wanted to target defensive-minded players like Memphis’ Dillon Brooks and Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez.
With no other strong suitors, Harden was in a difficult position.
His best leverage was a loyalty play with Morey, who made his career in the NBA by seeing Harden’s brilliance early and then empowering him throughout an eight-year run in Houston. Morey had signed Harden to three contract extensions in their time together, including the richest contract in NBA history at the time. He tried to trade for Harden almost as soon as he took the Philadelphia job in November 2020.
But now, when it mattered most, Morey wasn’t taking Harden’s calls.
“James felt like Daryl was once ghosting him,” one source close to Harden said. “He felt betrayed.”
Rather than wait for Morey and the Sixers to present whatever offer they had come up with once free agency opened July 1, Harden and his representatives, Mike Silverman and Troy Payne, decided to pick up his $35.6 million player option before the June 30 deadline and ask for a trade.
Better to take the guaranteed money for the 2023-24 season than be forced to accept whatever offer the team made him.
The Sixers were stunned at Harden’s decision, sources said, insisting to him and his representatives that they had been distant only because they were just hit with the largest tampering fine in NBA history and that they had every intention of re-signing him, as soon as the rules allowed.
But Harden was already too far gone.
“James takes issues very in my view,” another source close to Harden said. “When he appears like he’s been wronged, he can also be very cussed.”
FOR THE NEXT few weeks, Morey left Harden alone. He said he would make a good faith effort to trade Harden and had initial conversations, league sources said, with Harden’s preferred team, the Clippers, as well as the New York Knicks.
But by mid-August, it became clear none of the teams that expressed interest in Harden had any intention of giving Morey the kind of return he was looking for — namely, a player or assets to keep the team in championship contention. On Aug. 12, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Philadelphia decided to end talks with the Clippers and expected Harden to report to training camp.
Harden was informed of the team’s decision before the report came out, sources said, and he was not happy.
On Aug. 14, while at a promotional event in China, Harden announced, “Daryl Morey is a liar and I can by no means play games for a corporation he is part of once more.”
The message was meant to hurt, and it did.
Harden later told NBA investigators that the lie he was referring to was his belief that Morey had gone back on his word after telling Harden he would trade him. The NBA fined Harden $100,000 for his comments.
Very little has happened since. The calendar has turned to September. Training camp begins at the end of the month.
Nothing is resolved.
“The status with James Harden is extreme,” Sixers majority owner Josh Harris told ESPN. “I need this to figure out for both sides, together with James. However we need to conserve our visual at the large image, which is that we’re nonetheless a contending crew and maximum groups within the NBA would trade parks with us in 5 mins.”
HARRIS IS RIGHT. The Sixers still have the look of a contender, with or without Harden this season. Although they certainly have a better chance with him.
Morey even went so far as to say “we’d all be extremely joyful” if Harden rescinded his industry request, right through a radio interview with 97.5 The Fanatic in July.
“James is a Corridor of Famer, one of the most absolute best gamers offensively to ever do it,” Morey said. “We both are moving to advance him for a participant that is helping us win now, we’re moving to get property that permit us to advance get a just right participant within the scale down word, or we’re moving to proceed to attend and proceed to search for alternative gamers like a [Tyrese] Maxey or a Joel [Embiid] to pluck a step ahead in that status.”
Both of those players have been in this position way too recently: when disgruntled guard Ben Simmons sat out of training camp in 2021 rather than play for the Sixers again.
Each stepped up in that status, too. Maxey poor via as a shining younger megastar; Embiid established himself as an MVP candidate.
This may advance the similar manner. Or now not. Which raises the stakes even upper for the Sixers.
Up to now, Embiid has given the franchise word of honour he’s OK using out the tide drama with Harden, assets mentioned. How lengthy he offers them to get to the bottom of the subject remainder to be not hidden.
Maxey has performed the similar, even ready on a guarantee extension this summer season so the franchise can saving its skill to perform below the wage cap and toughen the crew going forward.
Each had been involved with Harden all over, keeping up their private relationships. Embiid even invited Harden to his wedding ceremony in July, assets mentioned.
What’s sunlit to all concerned is this has grow to be a non-public subject between Harden and Morey. An emotional one, borne out of frustration and a perceived wrongdoing via a person who had lengthy been Harden’s champion.
Harden didn’t wait to peer what sort of deal Morey and the Sixers would’ve made him when they had been allowed. He sensed it wasn’t moving to be what he was once hoping for, and that it was once by no means moving to be anyplace related to the cash he had up to now been introduced in Houston and Brooklyn that he both unwelcome or left at the desk.
Harden may have value himself much more cash via selecting up his participant choice for this season, which successfully took away his skill to signal a fresh long-term guarantee till he turns into a detached agent upcoming summer season at occasion 35.
Most likely it was once simply hubris. Endmost self assurance and religion in his personal skills and that the cash would nonetheless be there for him.
Most likely guarantees had been made, at the file or off, sunlit or smart. The NBA investigated the status terminating summer season and located the Sixers in violation of a number of facets of tampering laws in regards to the timing of Tucker’s and Danuel House Jr.’s detached company selections and rescinded the team’s 2023 and 2024 second-round picks. This summer season, the league’s investigation discovered Harden’s feedback in violation of the principles regarding community industry calls for.
Most likely it was once simply hardened for Harden to just accept there wasn’t a strong marketplace for his products and services, on the worth level he was once anticipating.
In negotiations, this is named anchoring partial. When anyone will get caught at the first worth they’re quoted and compares each and every next deal to that quantity. Proficient gross sales public know the way to milk this partial. They begin prime so the client appears like they were given a offer when the associated fee comes indisposed.
In Harden’s status, the associated fee began prime — max do business in from Houston and Brooklyn in 2021 — and has drop down each and every week. Most effective he’s now not the client on this equation. The crew is. And it’s making him really feel affordable.
For see you later, it was once a great marriage — an government with a desired taste of play games, and a participant brilliantly in a position to executing it.
Morey and Harden have been each and every alternative’s anchors.
Now they’re each adrift. The dream of reigniting what was once, for now, is over.
