It's Fine If James Harden Wants to Go Back to Houston Next Year
He probably won't. But if he does, that means it was for the best anyway.
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The timing was amusing, gotta give 'em that much. Coming off a feel-good comeback win against the Clippers, hours before a Christmas game at MSG that Sixers fans were (finally!) raring for, on the one day a year where you'd think even the hardest working reporter in show business might go "eh, it can wait till Monday"... there it goes. A small detonation, not enough to totally derail the Sixers' momentum, but enough to wake everyone up from their righteous slumber and make them go "What the fuck was that??" James Harden, reported Woj, was considering a reunion with the Houston Rockets. Not like, immediately, of course. But soon. Soon enough to be news, kinda. Soon enough to be A Thing. You had to respect the trolling.
I don't know if you could say Sixers Twitter was thrown into a panic about this quasi-revelation -- not by Sixers Twitter Panic standards, anyway, which is a pretty high bar to clear these days, when we can go Def Con 1.5 over failing to extend an eight-game win streak to a nine-gamer. (Sorry again Mike. We tried. Maybe that was the problem.) But there was consternation, certainly, and plenty of deep diving and tea-leaf reading (tea-leaf diving?) over whether or not this was actually a purposeful Harden leak, if it really reflected his true intentions for next year (or if he was just using it for future contract leverage), and what deeper issues it implied with the team's current structure if there was any truth to any of it.
Is it true? Maybe. The venerable Dave Early at Liberty Ballers has you covered with any particularly relevant angle of this discussion you could hope to explore, anyway. My lone contribution to the discourse is to posit that if Harden does in fact have real aspirations to return to Houston next year... maybe that's an OK thing? Maybe it's something we should actively be hoping for?
This is not an anti-Harden take, or a Joel and James Don't Fit and Never Will one. They have problems to work out together, but so do nearly every star duo that have ever won anything meaningful in the NBA. No superstar we could acquire to pair with Embiid would come in and not only be instantly able to retool their game around his but also be totally fine with doing so. (If they were, chances are it would mean they weren't actually a superstar-caliber player in the first place.) In fact, Harden and Embiid have fit pretty well together -- as evidenced by the fact that, y'know, one currently leads the league in scoring while the other leads the league in assists. But the general prickliness of star players and the natural erosion of patience and trust at the NBA's highest levels means that there always be a ticking clock on the practical viability of their partnership. The only thing that buys you time there is winning. Real winning.
And that's sort of the thing for this discussion: Houston or not, winning will likely ultimately determine whether or not James Harden stays or goes after this season. He may love Daryl, but he came to Philly primarily to win, and to be seen as a player who really cares about winning. If the Sixers go on a deep playoff run where Harden plays a key enough role to change his legacy of postseason bust-outs, he'll probably stick around. If they lose early and/or if he throws another few 2-11 shooting performances in big games on the pyre, he'll probably leave. Maybe he'll join an already-loaded Boston-type squad where he can be more effective in a lesser role, or maybe he'll go back to a Houston-type smaller pond that lets him resume big-fishing -- and you can debate whether Harden really cares more about winning or about being catered to as the center of the universe. But he certainly has no reason to stick around Philly when he's not currently getting either, as a second (or third) fiddle on a sub-contender.
Which is fine! James Harden is still a great player, but he's also a 33-year-old defensive liability who has already lost the burst to get past most defenders and can barely elevate enough to clear the rim some games. His flaws and his ego are going to be increasingly difficult to work around as he ages, and if the Sixers don't have enough to get over the hump while he's still in a phase of his career that could (generously) be referred to as his prime, there's no real reason to think they'll be more equipped to as he moves from "early-mid 30s" to "mid-late 30s." Last year ended up being something of a mulligan with Joel's injuries, but if they can't make serious noise in the playoffs this year, then it makes sense for both team and player to kiss and say goodbye.
It might be the best thing for the Sixers anyway. Sooner or later, this team will need to revolve around the twin axes of Embiid and Tyrese Maxey -- remember him? 21-year-old future All-Star returning to game action tonight? -- and the latter is likely still too much of a teacher's pet to actively force his way into that kind of consideration while Harden is here and running the show. Which is fine, for now: Harden is still the better and more crucial player to the team this season and Maxey has enough to learn at his young age that it's acceptable for him to play the protégé for one more year. If Harden walks next season and Maxey takes back over, it might make for a short-term step back for Philly, but may also be the best chance they have of staying relevant in the long-term.
Really, the main goal for us with Harden beyond this year should be avoiding the outcome where we re-sign him to a big, long, cap-clogging deal, mostly because Daryl feels like he owes him and can't quite give up on him. It's certainly possible that the leak of this Houston discussion from Harden's camp is just to remind Daryl that The Beard has such options at his disposal. But it really doesn't have to be like that, on either side. It's simple, really: If Harden proves he can win big with the Sixers this year, it makes sense for him to re-sign with Philly at basically whatever number he demands, if he doesn't, it doesn't. He can get his money and his superstar treatment elsewhere if that's what he wants, he can win elsewhere if that's what he wants, but the only thing he can get on Joel Embiid's Sixers if he hasn't won yet is more of the same; he should go, and we should be happy to let him. Just tell Woj to tweet us his forwarding address.