The Philadelphia 76ers are looking to continue their quest for a championship as they rebuild the depth around their star duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden. They were able to do so in free agency when they brought in PJ Tucker and Danuel House Jr. as players who can produce on both ends.
The Sixers were able to make those signings due to Harden opting out of his $47.3 million player option. They freed up some financial flexibility for Philadelphia and then The Beard even plans to take a $15 million pay cut in order to give the Sixers more freedom to improve their overall roster.
ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, who played with Harden with the Oklahoma City Thunder, praised Harden for his commitment to the team and wants to help them win a title:
I’m not a person that wanna hear words or hear player talk about it. His actions are actually speaking. When you opt out and you take less money, and I get it he already signed a lot of money and made a lot of money and making a lot of shoe money from Adidas and kudos to James Harden for getting his lettuce, but yes, his actions are saying let’s get this done. I want to win a championship. I want to go out here and I want to build. They acquired PJ Tucker, who James Harden is very, very familiar with, good friends with, and by the way, a guy that could come in and be that 3-and-D guy which you need in today’s game to got all these wings and slash forwards, power forwards out there in the game today because that’s the most important position. He’s been working his behind off. So yes, James Harden is proving that he’s all in. He’s proven that he’s lost himself in the team and I do think he will come back a better version than what he did last season in the postseason.
Harden has had a full offseason to rest his hamstring and has been able to work his way back to who he was before. Considering he is on the wrong side of 30, it is unlikely that he will ever get back to being the 30 points per game scorer he once was, but he did average 21, 10.5 assists, and 7.1 rebounds in 21 games with the Sixers.
Those numbers are nothing to sneeze at and he still has a huge impact on the game. With a full offseason to rest, the expectation is that he will up his scoring a bit again and continue to help the Sixers toward a title.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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