FanPost

My thoughts about a James Harden trade...

So I just finished reading up this great read on James Harden opening up on his interest in joining the 76ers, you can go read that yourself by clicking this link; https://www.libertyballers.com/2020/12/8/22162935/report-james-harden-open-to-being-traded-to-sixers-rockets-nba#post-new-comment

But there was 1 small thing that I didn't agree with, so much so, that I wanted to write something about it, the reference is below which is the last sentence of that article...

"Houston appears to hold the leverage right now and they could create a bidding war between the Sixers and Nets..."

While I agree with the fact that there is going to be a bidding war for James Harden between the 76ers and Nets (Maybe even teams like the Heat or Jazz join in too?), I do not 100% agree that Houston has "leverage" over any deal with willing teams.

Yes, obviously they hold leverage over any deal simply because the Rockets have rights over James Harden and can ask any price they want. But that will not last long if the Rockets are unable to find a deal that suits both teams in a possible trade within the next few weeks. In their best interest, they need to trade him now before the season starts to maximize value for James Harden in the case he were to get injured, have a bad season (HIGHLY unlikely but for the sake of the arguement...), or to take advantage of a worthy offer that the other team might not feel too great offering in the first place.

And as the season gets closer and closer, and James Harden continues to hold out from training camp, the Rockets are going to be more desperate to move him to get something in return for Harden. Houston knows they will never get an opportunity to gain back multiple starting caliber players and many 1st round draft picks in exchange for a disgruntled superstar, while also having the ability to compete and grow for the future, all in one trade.

However, I thoroughly doubt the Rockets will be able to get any trade completed before the season starts, because they seem to not have as much leverage as they might've thought, since neither Brooklyn or Philly seem serious about making a deal with Houston, and both of those teams seem to have the most assets to be able to complete a trade of this caliber.

In reality, no one is probably going to bite on a deal with the Rockets, James Harden will probably join the Rockets towards the first few weeks of the season to highlight even further how truly great he is in preparation for the 2021 Free Agency, and the Rockets will be forced to rebuild, and will have to live with the fact that they were unable to win the Finals, with 3-4 prime HOF players on their roster during the Harden era...



If you were able to make it this far, THANK YOU, I am not remotely a writer (obviously...), but I really wanted to let people know how I felt about this situation. And I wanted to see if anyone else felt the same why as I did, which is why I wrote this in the first place.

A user-created LB joint. The Liberty Ballers staff does not contribute to FanPosts.