According to a new report, Rockets superstar James Harden recently turned down a contract extension offer that would have made him the first player in NBA history to make more than $50 million in a season.
Harden declined the offer because he desires a trade to the Brooklyn Nets, where he believes he has a better opportunity to win a championship than in Houston, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Including a player option for the 2022-23 season, Harden is currently owed more than $132 million over the next three seasons. The extension offer would have payed him over $102 million for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, when he’ll be 34 and 35 years old, respectively.
However, at least for now, that wasn’t enough to dissuade Harden from his goals of rejoining former teammate Kevin Durant in Brooklyn.
Sources: After turning down an extension offer to become the first $50M a year player in league history, James Harden’s message to Houston is clear: Get me to Brooklyn. Rockets and Nets have been in contact, but there’s been no meaningful dialogue. https://t.co/qwJOQOxz5U
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 17, 2020
The problem for Harden, however, is that he lacks leverage to force a move there — since his current contract prevents him from reaching free agency until 2022 at the earliest. Confirming other reports, Woj reports that the Rockets and Nets have yet to have any meaningful dialogue.
Now 31 years old, Harden has played eight of his 11 NBA seasons with the Rockets, and he’s made the playoffs in all of them. Over the latter stages of that run, “The Beard” has led the league in scoring in each of the last three seasons (34.3 points per game in 2019-20), and he’s the only NBA player to have been both an MVP finalist and an All-NBA First Team member in each of the last four years. Harden was named MVP in 2018.
Despite the personal accolades, though, he’s still searching for his first NBA title — and time isn’t on his side, at least as far as his prime years. That seems to be pushing the situation to a head. With training camps for the 2020-21 season opening on Tuesday, Dec. 1, both Harden and the Rockets would like to find a resolution sooner rather than later.
[lawrence-related id=40417,40408]
[vertical-gallery id=39560]