Throughout his career, Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden has had a reputation of being a “me, me, me” type of player.
He refuted that reputation when he arrived to the Sixers in February, and he made a big team-first move on Wednesday by declining his $47.4 million player option.
The move gives the Sixers cosiderable financial flexibility and allows the team to go out and sign P.J. Tucker when free agency opens on Thursday night. In addition to Tucker, the Sixers have other options to rebuild the depth they lost in the Harden trade.
Per ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on “Get Up”:
He is now taking a major core shift. Now, you could argue that he’s taking that core shift because his value is no longer $200 million to the market and his value is not even any longer $47 million, but James has not reacted in a team-first manner before and this is as much as you can be team-first on a contract that averages over $30 million a year, which is what this is eventually going to be. I don’t want to make it sound like he’s being magnanimous, but this is a major shift from the way he’s operated with his last two teams. So doing this will enable the Sixers to add at least two if not three role players around him which will replenish the roster which was depleted when they traded for him and so, from the Sixers point of view, this is a victory.
The Sixers need to add talent around both Harden and Joel Embiid to contend for a title in the 2022-23 season. This move by Harden allows the Sixers to do so and put themselves in the right position going forward in order to improve their roster.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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