James Harden Plans To Make Things Uncomfortable For The Sixers

Why can't anything be normal in Sixers' land? We had a GM who was wearing giant collars and using burner accounts to rip his own players. A first-round pick with a mystery injury who forgot how to shoot between college and the Pros in Markelle Fultz. Then there was Ben Simmons. He never could shoot, and couldn't be bothered to learn how. So instead he faked an injury and forced his way out. And now James Harden is the latest source of neverending drama in Sixers land.

James Harden is mad that Daryl Morey did not give him a 4-year Max Deal like he wanted. Morey may have made some promise, may not have, we do not know. Harden is upset though. He made that much clear at an Adidas Event in China when he called Morey a liar twice. To be fair to Morey, no one wanted to pay Harden that. He originally opted out and tested free agency, and got no offers he like. So he opted in and requested a trade, but the Sixers have yet to honor that request.

But we all know Harden has ways of forcing the issue. He was upset in Houston and made it known. He did things like showing up late to camp and being out of shape. When that wasn't enough, he openly started ripping his own teammates, saying they were "just not good enough." It worked. They moved Harden to the Nets. When he got sick of Brooklyn, he pulled the same antics. He pulled out the fat suit and eventually was pulled off the floor completely while the Nets worked out a trade.

Now Harden is using the nuclear option again. James Harden, or someone from his camp, told Ramona Shelburne that he is prepared to make things "very uncomfortable" for the Sixers. Apparently, the video of him calling Morey a liar was just the beginning.

James Harden is a 33-year-old man by the way. He turns 34 next Saturday. And he is having a tantrum like he is a little kid whose mom told him he was not allowed to get candy from the store.

Not to sound like an old man, but whatever happened to just playing? It might even help him get traded. If the season started, he came out and looked like an elite player, he may convince a team to give up what the Sixers want to trade him. Instead, he is choosing to tank his value by acting like a man baby, making it even harder for the Sixers to make a trade. The whole reason he is in this spot is because of how bad he looked in the playoffs. He killed his own value. The Sixers won't pay him like a Superstar because he has not played like one. Neither will any other team. So it is a him problem, not a Sixers problem.

The thing is, James Harden, can't make things anything worse for Sixers fans than they already feel. The mood among fans is already at a record low. No one in town has any optimism for the Sixers right now. So do your worst Harden. This isn't Houston or Brooklyn. And pulling this kind of stunt in Philadelphia may not go as well for you as it did elsewhere. We have been through worse pain. Your petty antics are nothing new to us after the last decade of Sixers Basketball.

And maybe he will finally learn that he has been part of the problem everywhere he went. His childish antics, and not showing up when it matters, have been sinking teams since back in the OKC days. He is a Hall of Fame talent, there is no doubt about that. But right now his legacy will not just be a guy who never won, but also the guy who is responsible for his team's never winning. And when things don't go his way, he has been a guy who always pouts and stamps his feet, as opposed to taking any personal responsibility.

James Harden is finally someone else's problem. The Sixers traded him to the Clippers, ridding themselves of the drama. And today James Harden had his introductory press conference and proved the Sixers right for not wanting to resign him. Not just because he was somehow an hour late to his own press conference, but because of the nonsense that came out of his mouth once he finally showed up.

You see, James Harden is a victim. Nothing that happened last year was his fault. Even though he was already making his escape plans by leaking his desire to leave mid-season to Woj, Harden was a team player last year. He sacrificed his game, according to him. And the Sixers weren't letting him be himself.

What a crock of nonsense. The line "I am not a system, I am a system," sounds like the type of thing someone would write when making a movie with the cliche selfish athlete character. But Harden is a real person and actually thinks that way about himself. Never mind the fact he tried that in game 6 against the Celtics, they let him do things his way, and it failed horribly.

Harden has always been an incredibly talented player. But now that he can't do all the things he used to be able to do, he is clearly having a hard time coping. But even when he was at his peak, he was never the guy he is painting himself as. A quick look at his history in the playoffs proves that. So let's take a look back at that history, and all the times James Harden failed to be the "system" in the playoffs. Because Harden's massive ego clearly needs a reality check.

In fairness to Harden, he was a rookie, and coming off the bench. So this was one you can absolutely forgive him for. He scored just 2 points off the bench, going 1 for 3 in an elimination game vs the Lakers that year. He did get a couple of steals, and rebounds. No one expects a rookie to step up in an elimination game. And he wasn't even the great 6th man he would grow into with the Thunder yet. So he gets a pass for this one.

Two years later, he was the guy though. Yes, he was on a team with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. But he was the 3rd guy on the team, and they were relying on him to score. Too bad in three games he couldn't even get to double digits. After averaging 16.8 pts per game in the regular season, it fell to about 12 in the Finals. While Kevin Durant and Russel Westbrook each saw their points per game improve in the series.

He was not the guy for the Thunder that time like he would go on to be with the Rockets. But he was supposed to be a guy. It would be like if Maxey was getting held to 7 points every game in the NBA Finals. He wouldn't get as much heat as either Harden or Embiid would have. But it would very much be worth criticizing. It has been his one and only chance so far to play in the Finals. And he did not show up to help his team when they needed him.

James Harden did help drag the Rockets to a few Western Conference Finals. The first of which came in 2015, vs the Warriors of course. Now beating the Warriors is a very tough task. That team was a dynasty. If James Harden went out swinging but just got beat by a better team, it would be hard to hold it against him. But that is not how it went down.

The Rockets lost in 5 games.  And in game 3, with his team already down 0-2. He was really bad. 17 points on 16 shots bad. Yes, he followed it up by being a hero in game 4 by scoring 45 points to avoid the sweep. But if he wasn't so bad in game 3, maybe they wouldn't have been in danger of getting swept. Just like this season where it's hard to give him credit for games 1 and 4 when he was so bad in the other games, it is hard to credit him in that 2015 series since he was part of the reason they were down 0-3 to begin with. And as we are about to see, it got even worse in game 5.

Harden was even more of a disaster two games later. He continued his poor shooting from game 3 and added a major turnover problem. 14 points on 11 shots, and 12 turnovers. Nearly more turnovers than points. In a game that was win or go home. Yea good for you Harden. You had your 45-point game. But if you sandwich that with two games where you are a liability on the floor, is that actually impressive?

The next season, the Rockets had the misfortune of drawing the Warriors in round 1. And once again, the Rockets barely put up a fight. Also once again, James Harden was less than optimal. Game 1 started it off on a bad note. Just 17 points on 19-shot attempts. He had 6 turnovers and just 2 assists to go with it. All part of a 26-point loss to open the series. And remember, this was his first playoff game since that ugly 12 turnover game to end the last season.

He was good to decent in the next 2 games. As we saw this season, Harden can go from looking awful to good game to game. But there is always another bad game coming up. In this series, it was game 4. After scoring 28 and then 35 in games 2 and 3, he went back under 20. Just 18 points, while barely shooting .300. Only 4 turnovers though, so that is an improvement. It dropped the Rockets to 1-3 in the series. He did play well in game 5 where they were eliminated. But again, if he played well in games 1 and 4, maybe they aren't down 1-3 to face elimination in game 5.

Next season, they got to avoid the Warriors in the playoffs. The problem is they ran into a different team that had been a dynasty. The Spurs. And it was the same story for James Harden once again. Hot one night, ice cold another. Never any consistency. He was fine in the game 1 win. But then with a chance to go up 2-0, he fell on his face. Just 20 points on 17 shots. The Rockets lost by 25. 2 for 9 from 3. 3 of 17 from the field. Sound familiar? In typical Harden fashion, he followed it up with some great games, including one where he scored 43. But it got the Rockets to down 3-2. And then game 6 happened.

10 points. 10 points in an elimination game. By the guy who is supposed to be the guy on the team. Embiid scored 15 in an elimination game, and we treated it as the worst thing ever (which he deserved blame for). Harden scored just 10. And he is the ball handler. No one needs to get him the ball. It was in his prime too. He won the MVP the next season. After 36 minutes, Harden fouled out, and his team lost by 39. The teams he is on sure seem to get blown out in elimination games a lot.

Credit to Harden, for a few seasons, he didn't have his playoff blow-ups. He was bad in a couple of games vs the Bucks in 2021 with the Nets. But he was also just coming back from an injury. So I left those games off because we don't know how bad he was hurting. But even while limited by the hamstring in his first season with the Sixers, his performance was not good enough. In game 5 the Sixers lost by 29, and he scored just 14 points with 4 assists on 13 shots.

Game 6 was even uglier for Harden. It made two straight 4th quarters without him scoring a point. In game 6, he took just 2 shots in the second half and hit none of them. He finished with 11 points on 9 shot attempts. You get James Harden thinking you are getting a guy who will keep shooting and put up buckets. The version of Harden they saw in the final two games vs the Heat, looked more like Ben Simmons. Too scared to drive or shoot.

And now we come to the games from this past season. Harden was great in game 1. Without Embiid, he put the team on his back, scored 45, and hit the game-winning shot. And many thought he finally was healthy and ready to step up in the playoffs. He followed that up with a 12-point game on a night the Sixers lost by 21. He shot 2 of 14. He was getting blocked a ton on drives, and couldn't hit a 3. It was bad, but at this point, many Sixers fans were just happy to have split the series.

He followed that up by scoring 16 points on 14 shots in game 3. Not as bad, but still not anywhere near good enough. The Sixers lost by 12, to fall behind 1-2 in the series. He did have 11 assists, which helps things a bit. But the Sixers needed someone besides Embiid to score in that game, and Harden was brought in to be that guy. They needed him to be so much better, but he could not give it to them in game 3. In game 4 he was great again. But like I have said so many times already if he was better in the games before game 4, would they have needed him to play hero to avoid going down 1-3 in game 4?

At home, with a 3-2 lead, the Sixers came up really small in game 6. And James Harden is part of that. Joel Embiid struggled from the floor, but still eventually got his points. Harden? He got 13 points on 16 shot attempts. Along with everyone else, he was missing shot after shot in the 4th quarter. It was yet another playoff game he shot under .300. You will notice it is becoming a trend.

Which brings us to game 7. When the Sixers got embarrassed and booted from the 2nd round again. 9 points by James Harden, on 11 shots. Another playoff game under .300. 5 turnovers. Oh, and yet another games where his team gets blown out in an elimination game. That is 8 times his team lost by double digits in an elimination game. 4 times by 20 or more. It is becoming a pattern. Then he did what he always does, tuck his tail and run to a different team. Great job Mr. "I am a System".

Has Harden had great playoff games? Yes. We saw two of them this postseason. But he has way too many awful playoff games for a supposed Superstar. Him and his teams have a now long history of coming up small when it matters. Yes, he ran into a lot of dynasty teams in his time with the Rockets. But he himself did not play well enough to deserve that excuse. And this year we saw what is typical of a Harden playoff experience. Looks amazing one night, and then kills you the next. Maybe it is for the best that he left.