CAMDEN, N.J. — The Philadelphia 76ers addressed issue No. 1 this offseason: Find a new head coach. They did that with the hire of Nick Nurse to replace the fired Doc Rivers.
Now, they must move on to big issue No. 2: James Harden.
The Beard can enter free agency in 2023, and the Sixers would obviously like for him to return. The Harden-Joel Embiid partnership was dominant at times. While they fell short in the postseason, one has to wonder what they would look like with more time together.
Nurse was asked if he had a chance to talk to Harden when he was introduced on Thursday and he simply said: “I have.”
When asked to make a pitch for him to return, Nurse kept it simple.
“Listen, I think that — we didn’t get into that when we talked,” he said. “I am going to sit down, as I am with all of the guys. I am going to sit down with all of them 1-on-1, face-to-face here shortly, but listen I think that winning is always the sell.”
The Sixers certainly have a big chance of doing so if Harden returns. They have fallen in the second round for three consecutive seasons, but they won 54 games in the regular season. Harden led the league in assists.
“Can we be good enough to win it all?” Nurse added. “That has got to be a goal of his and if it is then he should stay here and play for us because I think there’s a possibility of that.”
Nurse added he didn’t take the Sixers job because of Harden or Embiid. He took it because of managing partner Josh Harris and President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey.
“I took the job because of these two guys (pointing to Harris and Morey) and their track record of all of it,” Nurse said. “I think that I’ll get a deeper dive and deeper look of what we actually and what we’re gonna have going forward later in the summer. It doesn’t take a whole lot of sense to go deep into what we have until we know what we have.”
It makes sense for Nurse to go completely all-in at this point. The Sixers just want to be able to figure out how they’re going to move forward.
“I’ll go super deep into guys we know that are coming back and what skills they may need to develop between now and training camp,” Nurse added. “I took the job because of these two guys and the players.”
At the end of the day, Nurse wants Harden to know he’d like him back.
“I would say this is that James has a decision to make,” the coach finished. “I’d be happy if he came back.”
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