Where Does James Harden Fit?

I desperately struggled with the title of this article. This whole James Harden saga and the implications of it from a wider NBA culture standpoint are both annoying and worrisome. However I feel a bit redundant going into that as Bill Simmons went deep into the history of unhappy superstars and the current NBA culture around changing teams on his podcast just last week. If you are curious about that type of analysis I suggest listening to it. He starts with Wilt Chamberlain and ends up at James Harden and today’s NBA. 

What I want to discuss here is the more practical implications of a James Harden trade. I sincerely doubt he will be traded before the start of the NBA season next Tuesday, however I fully believe that Harden will be sporting different jersey colors (lest he go to the Chicago Bulls for some insane reason) by the end of this season. There have been four main suitors over the past couple weeks and there are roughly two to three other teams I will bring up as good fits. If I don’t discuss a team in this article you can assume one of two things. The first is that the team I did not mention simply would not be a good fit or does not have any interest in trading the assets they have in an effort to acquire Harden. The second thing would be that the team I have not mentioned does not have the assets required to trade for Harden. For example, what on Earth could Charlotte give to the Rockets to compensate for Harden? 

The four main suitors are Milwaukee, Miami, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. There is an immediate reason why two of these teams will not work. Milwaukee does not have the tradable assets to make this deal work. Their two best guys are Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday. Neither of those guys would be traded. They already overpaid for Holiday, it would be silly to flip him now. They could in theory try to package together what few draft picks in the future they have, Kris Middleton, Pat Connaughton and some mish-mash of other role players and hope to get PJ Tucker back. If you are Houston though, there are exactly zero reasons to go for this. You are trading a superstar for a bad second option or a good third option and a bunch of hope and fairy dust. Milwaukee wants Harden but so do most teams. The only reason I bring them up is because multiple outlets have been specifically reporting that the Bucks are legitimate suitors. 

Next let’s toss the Brooklyn Nets out of the picture. They are unwilling to move Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant and the rest of the pieces they have do not make enough sense for Houston. Referring back to Bill Simmons, he proposed the only way to get Harden with the assets Brooklyn is willing to move is to somehow pay up for Michael Porter Jr. from Denver and hope that the combination of Caris LaVert and Porter Jr. plus a bit is enough to sway the Rockets. In my opinion it’s not. As good as LaVert and Porter can be, and as much as Houston would like more draft picks and role players, Harden is just too valuable. 

So now we go to the first realistic option, the Miami Heat. The Heat are lucky enough to only have one piece the Rockets would conceivably need in a trade like this, and that piece is Bam Adebayo. Bam is staying put however, don’t worry Heat fans. Jimmy Butler would probably punch Pat Riley in the face if he tried something funny and the Rockets want no part in an unhappy Butler. Absolutely no NBA team does. Beyond that the Heat are open for business. They are startlingly lacking in draft capital, however if they did 2021 and 2023 first round picks, plus Tyler Herro, Precious Achiuwa, Duncan Robinson, and Avery Bradley for Harden, PJ Tucker and Danuel House Jr, there is a real shot that Houston could accept an offer like that. Trading the star player for 75 cents on the dollar literally never works, but this is probably the best shot it has at working. Houston gets more shooting, a proven scorer in Bradley, a great prospect in Achiuwa, and a potential future All-Star in Herro. The two first round picks are more icing that’s required because Houston desperately needs to make up for that abysmal Westbrook trade last year. 

So how does Harden actually fit in Miami? From a play style perspective I actually see the trade working out. Miami has to give away some of its best shooting to make the trade happen, but Harden alone almost makes up for it. You try to get Tucker back just as a spot up guy to be a less impressive Robinson. Harden comes in and immediately allows Butler to take a back seat in the scoring department which is where he is most comfortable. It gives the Heat a starting line-up of Goran Dragic, Harden, Butler, Tucker (though this one could be one of three guys that play power forward) and Bam Adebayo. It’s a smaller lineup but it scores with any team in the NBA and plays better defense than most. Harden to Miami immediately puts them into the top three seeds in the Eastern Conference and makes the Heat a legitimate contender to repeat as East champions. The place this could potentially fall apart is the locker room. Harden is not what you would call hard nosed or tough. He does not give that appearance at least, not in the basketball personality sense. We heard so much about the Miami “culture” last season and few guys seemingly fit that culture worse than James Harden. 

As for the Philadelphia side of things, my 76ers fans reading this may want to just skip ahead two paragraphs because this is where Harden needs to go. James Harden for Ben Simmons and a 2022 first round draft pick. Houston asking for three first round picks is absolutely ludicrous but Ben Simmons for James Harden straight up is a little crazy too. Harden has now led the league in scoring for three straight years. He is also averaging more than seven assists per game over that span, and despite the flack he gets, his defense has improved significantly. Simmons on the other hand is a current borderline top twenty player in the league at the current moment. He struggles more than most to stay healthy, and he literally cannot shoot outside of fourteen feet. However, he is just twenty-four years old, a perennial All-Defensive team candidate, an effortless scorer at the rim, and a burgeoning star in the league. Simmons is the kind of talent you build a team around. Unfortunately he is currently teamed with a better talent and guy that you also build a team around. You know what type of player you don’t put on a team, you specifically build around Joel Embiid? A Ben Simmons type player, that’s who. 

James Harden slots into this 76ers team like a damn glove. The way he comes in and gives the 76ers two separate options to score forty points on a whim is a luxury few teams outside the Bay area have ever had. Joel Embiid gets the space to work down in the paint while Harden gets to dominate the ball, dish to his shooters, and let Embiid work when he needs to. The Sixers spent a solid chunk of capital this offseason putting shooting in place around Embiid and Simmons in an effort to give them the space they need to operate semi-coherently together. It could work, but James Harden solves about every problem they have. Beyond the actual game planning, Harden solves the biggest playoff laden issue the 76ers have as well: who takes the last shot? Embiid takes too much time to set up. Simmons is actually just a liability, you simply cannot rely on a drive to the basket in a do or die playoff scenario. Right now their best candidate is Seth Curry and that sure as hell does not inspire confidence. With Harden you know exactly who will be jacking up that last shot and you are about 90% confident he will at least create the space required to make it a good one. 

I love James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers. The only people who really don’t like it are Rockets fans who are angry about Harden wanting to leave at all and 76ers fans who can’t get it through their skulls that Embiid and Simmons won’t ever win it all in today’s NBA. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it’s not 1993 and that brand of basketball does not exist in that way anymore. 

Harden wants to go to a contender so that rules a team like Orlando out. A team I think could have the assets to make the trade is Indiana but the odds of Harden accepting a trade to Indiana are about as high as Billy Donovan calling me up and asking me to come in for a tryout because he saw my high school tapes and thinks I would be a good energy guy for the team. 

The 76ers are the destination for Harden to go to. There is a lot finer minutiae as to why I think the fit works but this article is already too long and I can actually hear the thumbs of a couple friends and family pounding their phones as they craft their “It was all Brett Brown’s fault,” responses to this article.

The moral of the story is that I do not believe Harden will be a Houston Rocket for the 2021-2022 NBA season. I have no idea where he will land, but I do know where I am pulling for him to wind up at.