MINNEAPOLIS, MINN-The Philadelphia 76ers convened for practice after the All-Star break on Thursday at the University of Minnesota ready to welcome a big piece to their lineup in the form of James Harden.
The Sixers acquired Harden from the Brooklyn Nets back on Feb. 10 at the deadline, but he was not able to play in any games before the break due to a hamstring issue.
As the Sixers prepare to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday, Harden will officially make his debut for the team. He is expected to join forces with Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris to make things work out on the floor.
“I expect him to play and do what he does,” said veteran Danny Green. “It’s gonna take him some time to feel comfortable in the flow of our system, but a lot of our offense is around Joel, it’s gonna be around a lot of him now so we’re gonna be flowing off how he plays. We want him to come in and be aggressive, play his game, do what he does, and we’ll kinda figure it out.”
James Harden here at practice in Minnesota #Sixers pic.twitter.com/xmdH6rIvco
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) February 24, 2022
As far as how many minutes Harden will play, the Sixers will have to figure that out. He hasn’t played since Feb. 2 for the Nets so one isn’t sure how much he can push against the Timberwolves.
“Right now, we have him scheduled for 48,” coach Doc Rivers joked. “Just throw him out there. No, we haven’t talked about it yet, but I’m sure there will be some kind of limitation. I just don’t know what it is.”
With that being said, there will be some bumps in the road for the Sixers. They aren’t just going to throw Harden out there and he magically gets it done and they take off. They will need him to get some time with his teammates and continue to grow.
“I’ll be very patient,” Rivers added. “I know this is gonna take a little bit, but we need to win now too. While we’re learning, we have to figure out a way of winning and it may not look great and it may not look great, but either way, we still gotta try to figure out ways of winning.”
For Green, this is going to be weird initially. He had many battles with Harden in the past from his days with the San Antonio Spurs and Harden’s days with the Houston Rockets.
“It is,” Green acknowledged. “We’ve had so many battles throughout the years, we came in the same draft class, 13 years, battles. One of the hardest guys to guard in the league, one of the most annoying players to guard, but it’s good that he’s on my team and he can do that for us on offense, getting free throws and drawing fouls, but also finding guys.”
The Sixers will officially have Harden debut for them on Friday at 8 p.m. EST in the Twin Cities.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[listicle id=60448]
[lawrence-related id=60550,60547,60542]