The Philadelphia 76ers and the Brooklyn Nets were locked in a battle all week leading up to the trade deadline on Thursday on how to get a deal done centered on superstar James Harden headed to Philadelphia. There were plenty of reports going either way about a potential deal happening or not happening before it got done Thursday afternoon.
The Sixers are now pairing up Joel Embiid and Harden who are two of the elite offensive players in the league as they look to move forward in their quest for a title. Harden is a guy who scores at every level, he is a good rebounder, he can obviously handle the ball, and he can make plays for others. This is a big addition for the Sixers as they move forward.
“A lot,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Obviously, we don’t have him yet so you have to wait and see, but he’s a guy who creates his own shots, creates shots for others, another guy on your team that gets double teamed which is really valuable so when you have all that, you like it a lot.”
What this does for the Sixers now is that they do not have to worry about Furkan Korkmaz or Shake Milton being the main ball-handler when they are out on the floor. Harden fixes all of that and he also adds being an elite scorer along with his playmaking ability out there.
“We want him to have the ball in his hands,” said Rivers. “We want Joel to have the ball and Tyrese (Maxey) and it also takes care of the one issue that we had all year which is a point guard. We should have a point guard on the floor at all times which is obviously good for the team, but I think it’s good for other guys so they can play—the Furks and Shakes now, they don’t have to do the primary ball handling. I think that will help both of them tremendously.”
Rivers admitted that he was not sure if a deal would get done. There were so many reports back and forth about getting a deal done or not and he gave credit to Daryl Morey and Elton Brand for sticking with it and getting Harden to Philadelphia.
“Probably over the last two or three days, you went could happen, could not happen, I think even up until yesterday morning, it was trending towards not happening,” Rivers explained. “Daryl and Elton, I’ll tell you, they worked their butts off. They hung in there and they kept pushing and they got this done.”
As far as a timeline on Harden’s debut, Rivers was not sure of that. The Sixers will not have him for Friday’s matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder and they probably won’t have him against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday.
“I don’t know yet,” Rivers finished. “The timeline is he will be here soon, but as far as getting him into a game, I think we’ve had three conversations on the phone. We really haven’t even talked about that yet. I want to make sure he’s right before we get him on the floor.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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