We’ve all gotten a full night’s sleep since the chaos of the NBA trade deadline on Thursday and it’s still unbelievable that James Harden is now a Philadelphia 76er.
The Sixers traded Ben Simmons for Harden after just a few days of speculation surrounding a swap of the two players. Now, the Sixers have their guy and the Nets lineup looks unstoppable.
But that’s the thing about all this, right? The Nets already looked unstoppable when healthy.
We’ve all seen the stat floating around. When James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were all healthy the Nets were 13-3 and had a buzzsaw of an offense. They were good. Really good.
So why would James Harden want to break that up? Well, part of the reason was reportedly Kyrie Irving, according to The Athletic’s Joe Vardon.
The two did not seem to get along, per Vardon’s reporting. And things came to a head, particularly, when Irving chose not to get the COVID-19 vaccine and missed games because of it.
“Harden has said publicly he was frustrated the Nets weren’t playing better. He saw how much the Nets need Irving on the court, all the time, and did the math on how nuts that would be to play home playoff games without Irving, even though Irving isn’t hurt…“I’mma give him the shot,” Harden once joked of Irving. Now that seems like less of a joke.”
Sheesh. That’s a really rough way to end it all — especially considering Irving wasn’t injured and could’ve actually played and contributed. It’s hard to completely blame Harden for wanting out under those circumstances. It wasn’t what he signed up for.
The feelings were apparently mutual on Irving’s side, too.
“Irving was ready for Harden to move on, too. When Irving heard Harden was in fact hoping to be traded, a well-placed source says he was eager to see it come to fruition.”
So there you have it. What a shame. The three were an incredible combination that we were only teased with. We can only imagine what they’d have done together if they were healthy.