ESPN’s Tim Legler says Sixers won James Harden trade with Clippers

ESPN’s Tim Legler loves the James Harden trade to the Los Angeles Clippers for the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Philadelphia 76ers pulled off the trade everybody was waiting for in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday when they agreed to send James Harden to the Los Angeles Clippers. The future Hall of Famer had requested a trade in June and was waiting for it to be fulfilled.

After it seemed a stalemate had developed between the Sixers and the Clippers, the two sides came to an agreement. Philadelphia sent Harden, PJ Tucker and rookie Filip Petrusev to the Clippers for the expiring contracts of Marcus Morris Sr., Nic Batum, Robert Covington, KJ Martin and multiple draft picks.

ESPN’s Tim Legler hopped on “First Take” to give his thoughts on the trade claiming the Sixers got the better end of the deal:

Philadelphia got better. Now, did they get to the point where they’re looking Boston in the eye? They’re looking Milwaukee in the eye? Probably not. They’re probably on that next tier, but I think to me, this is the third-best team in the Eastern Conference because of Joel Embiid and because we are finally getting a taste early here in the year and I think now continuing that Harden’s gone of the ceiling of Tyrese Maxey and if you’re not watching Tyrese Maxey every night and thinking you are watching a star player in the making, then you don’t really know the game because that is what he is.

Actually, there’s another component to it as well guys, James Harden was a guy that dramatically affected Joel Embiid’s demeanor, body language frustration. You’d see James Harden go into these dark places in the playoff game. Take a look at Joel Embiid when that was going on. Now, I’m not I’m not gonna say he’s blameless because he had some games he didn’t play as well either, but it was obvious. He’s looking at this dude saying ‘wait a second man. You’re an MVP or All-NBA caliber player and now here we are middle of the second quarter of a Game 5, it’s 2-2, and you have two points in middle the second quarter. You’re not shooting the ball. You don’t look aggressive. You’re turning it over’ and all of a sudden here goes Embiid’s shoulders. They dropped and now you’ve got two stars in a bad place mentally. That is now gone. The black cloud has been lifted from the Sixers’ organization.

They are moving forward with Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid and now you’ve added supplemental parts that fit that roster better. I love this for Philly. I love Tyrese Maxey. Let’s move forward.

Time will tell whether the Sixers actually keep any of the pieces they obtained in exchange for Harden. While the pieces they received theoretically fit around Maxey and Embiid, they don’t necessarily put them in the same conversation as the Boston Celtics or the Milwaukee Bucks. Philadelphia will likely flip these pieces for an impact player before the February trade deadline.

[lawrence-related id=85634,85630,85620]