[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

So after all that, the sixers essentially caved and gave Harden exactly what he wanted. While I personally wish morey could have figured out a way to send him to Utah or Charlotte, you have to hand it to harden who went out of his way to make things as uncomfortable as possible to get his way.
I feel like for the clippers this is more of an insurance policy than anything else. Although harden isn’t nearly the player he was, he has still proven to be a guy you can run competent offense through, particularly in the regular season. His ability to be an “innings eater” who can keep the team afloat if (when) George and Leonard miss time due to injury or rest will likely be his greatest contribution to the team. How well he will actually mesh with those guys on the court is a whole different story, but just getting those guys to the playoffs healthy has to be the top priority. If harden can help them do that, then this trade will have been worth it from the clippers perspective. They need to be ecstatic they were able to acquire a player of harden’s talent (no matter how much of a headache it could potentially be) without giving up any of their most valuable role players and the guys they did give up are likely easily replaceable. Fit issues notwithstanding, this team on paper is as talented as any in the nba.
While I hate this trade for the sixers, considering what they gave up to get harden in the first place, they were backed into a corner and tried to come out the best they could. If this were a different situation you stick it to harden out of spite, but you can’t afford to do that when you have an MVP on your roster and your goal is to win a title. They got some veterans who may be useful, a draft pick that could be valuable, and the expiring contracts to open up some cap space next summer (most of which will presumably go to maxey). This clears the way for maxey to assume the primary ball-creating responsibilities, which is something that needed to happen anyway, and rids the team of a huge distraction. While the return is in no way ideal, you kind of just have to look at it as addition by subtraction.

[employee84Participant]

You make some great points.

If Harden ever checked his ego, he’d be an awesome 6th man.

[sweaterflexParticipant]

As someone guilty of picking the Clips to win it all twice after the Kawhi/PG acquisitions, this move does not make me think higher of them. He can survive fine in their switch everything scheme but they really didn’t need another high usage guy, they would be better served using those assets to find a high volume off ball 3 point shooter. Poor Paul George, having his best start since that OKC year and he’s now gonna have the ball 4th most on the team.

[HitsterParticipant]

Charlotte passed on Scoot and they had LaMelo so would they have given up assets for Harden and would 76ers have wanted Hayward at all. Utah with Danny Ainge wouldn’t give up a lot for Harden either.

The 76ers have got cap space for next summer now so everything revolves around Embeast as far as their future goes. If he sees out his deal it gets them through a number of the traded picks and they put a team together around him. If he did want to move they’d get a load of assets back and likely be high in the lottery.

The Clippers have given away future assets when this team will be mostly well retired. But they don’t have long term cap commitments and likely assume they can follow the Lakers model of if they have cap space they can sign top FA’s in a few years time.
I assume Westbrook will move to the bench now Harden is on the team and Harden will resign as long as Kawhi and PG13 are there next season. This team maybe has a two season window to contend.

[r377Participant]

4 hof players and clippers won’t make past the first round.

If they sign him long-term they will be crippled for years to come

[Author]

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