Trading For James Harden Is The Right Thing For The Sixers
Go get him.
Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA.
The James Harden trade saga is crescendoing. Harden walked off the podium at his postgame press conference last night. He did not participate in Rockets practice today. All of the NBA’s leading reporters are indicating that a deal is expected to happen soon.
The Rockets are sifting through finalists — Nets and 76ers — for a James Harden deal that could culminate quickly, with Brooklyn preparing an offer of all its future first-round picks and pick swaps, per sources.
Story on @TheAthletic with @sam_amick: https://t.co/tTYIRVG8Xg— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 13, 2021
As the teams make their final offers and considerations, let’s be clear about two things: this is the Sixers’ sweepstakes to lose, and they should absolutely get a deal done.
The Sixers have the trump card in all of this -- Ben Simmons. The Nets have no other trade piece who can compare whatsoever to the value that Simmons, a 24-year-old All-Star who is under contract for four more seasons after this one, has. The Nets may have more to offer, but the Sixers have more value to offer.
To put it bluntly: if the goal is to win a championship, then the Sixers have no excuse for not trading for Harden. They currently have Joel Embiid, who is playing at an MVP-level, and could also have James Harden, who is a perennial MVP candidate. Any roster with two of the five or six best players in the league is a legitimate title contender, hands down.
Every title winning team, save for a couple over the past two decades has had one thing in common: an MVP-level perimeter shot creator who can be the engine of a half court offense in the playoffs. The bottom line is that the Sixers do not have that player, Ben Simmons will likely never be that player, and their only avenue for acquiring such a player is to trade Ben Simmons.
That is not to say that Simmons isn’t great, and it’s also not to say that Simmons and Embiid can’t have loads of success together. But there would need to be a truly elite perimeter shot creator on the team with them, and that player is not here, and is not coming unless they trade Simmons.
That is, really, the conundrum that they find themselves in now. There was certainly a time when a truetitle contending team could have been built with Simmons, Embiid, and an elite perimeter shot creator on it (they probably had this team two years ago), but with the Sixers’ current asset situation, their only avenue towards acquiring such a player is trading Simmons.
They have no cap space coming up any time soon. They have one of the worst contracts in the league in Tobias Harris. And while they have some promising youngins, none of them are netting a Harden-level player in a trade. Therein lies the fork in the road that the Sixers are facing currently: remain a fun, functional team with two young stars, or go all-in and use the only avenue available to become a true title contender.
I do not begrudge anyone who says that they would prefer to keep Simmons out of a desire to maintain long term stability, healthy chemistry for the team, and simply watch players that they like. But, again, if your goal is to win a championship at any cost, there is truly only one option here: go all in for Harden.
The one thing I would push back on for anti-Harden traders is the notion that this current Sixers roster is winning a title without Harden. Look, this early season stretch has been encouraging, and the East is pretty open, but they still have that fatal flaw -- a lack of elite shot creation. Imagine, for one second, that this early season success turns out to be a bit of a mirage. Can you imagine how silly you’d feel if you talked yourself out of trading for James freaking Harden because the team looked good in a couple of early season wins over the Hornets?
Again, if you’re simply a huge Simmon fan, or you hate Harden as a person/player, or simply don’t want another huge roster shakeup for the 10th time in three years, I get it. You are free to root for your team in any way you want. But if your sole objective is seeing a banner raised in the Wells Fargo Center, trading for James Harden is undeniably the correct move. The Sixers have the best offer to give here, without question. If they decide to not trade for Harden, they will be deciding to not leap at the chance for a championship.