Breaking Down Bombshell Report on Sixers Star James Harden

Tensions keep getting hotter and hotter between James Harden and the Philadelphia 76ers as the calendar turns to September. Temperatures will begin to dip to comfortable levels next week, but not in the corner offices of the city’s professional basketball team.

The Harden saga is dragging on with no end in sight. Both sides have cooled off their public comments, for now. But a new bombshell report from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne might set the pot boiling once again after the plugged-in reporter took readers “inside the feud.” She paints a picture of a contentious 2022-23 season that started with good intentions before transitioning into all-out war.

Sex, lies, and videotape? No. Promises, sacrifices, and betrayal.

Shelburne’s tale begins with a happy Harden smiling and complimenting teammates following a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers. The Sixers were 28-16 at the time. Everything was copacetic. Except James was already growing anxious about his forced role as a facilitator. The 10-time All-Star was taking a willing backseat to Joel Embiid, but the expectation was he would be compensated like the prolific scorer he has been throughout his Hall of Fame career. Shelburne sets the scene as such:

"After his first season in Philadelphia, Harden took approximately $14 million less than what he was due in a player option so the team could sign veteran forward P.J. Tucker away from the Miami Heat. It was sold by the Sixers as “sacrifice” to both Harden and the public — a line he dutifully repeated throughout the season. “You have to sacrifice to get to where you’ve never been,” Harden said that night in Los Angeles. “I’m in a really good space on the court and off the court.”"

Sometimes perception is reality, sometimes it isn’t. In this case, Harden had a much different definition of the word “sacrifice” than the Sixers’ front office did. Perhaps it is telling to revisit Harden’s comments after a 116-115 win in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Beard drilled a three-point dagger with 18.2 seconds left in overtime which proved to be the game-winner.

“I’m always motivated and fired up. It’s just that things don’t work out how I want them to sometimes,” Harden told reporters. “It’s a part of it. I’m a competitor. I always want to win, I always want to be aggressive, and I always want to do things to contribute to winning. That’s just me. There are no days off with that. There’s no turning it on and turning it off with that. Whether I have 40-something or 18 points, I always want to win the game. It’s simple.”

James Harden thought he was heading to his 11th All-Star Game back in February. He was doing things he had never done before like setting up teammates for easy baskets, grabbing clutch boards, and scoring buckets in bunches. He was playing phenomenal basketball, serving as a true floor general while averaging 21.4 points, 11 rebounds, and 6.4 rebounds and assists per game.

However, the voters didn’t respect his all-around game. It irritated him.

Harden was snubbed from the All-Star team. Worse yet, the 34-year-old finished fourth in Eastern Conference voting behind Kyrie Irving, Donovan Mitchell, and Jaylen Brown. Harden was “dismayed” at the snub, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. When NBA Commissioner Adam Silver extended him an invitation to be an injury replacement, Harden waited days to respond as he privately “pouted.”  Shelburne wrote:

"By the time Harden sent word that he would accept the invitation, Silver had moved on, naming Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam as the replacement for an injured Durant. Because of the way Harden handled the situation, the Sixers did not engage in much damage control afterward. They spoke up for him publicly, calling attention to the snub. But they were walking a fine line, too."

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1621312426821001216?s=20

The wound was open. The schism was widening. Yet check out these comments from then-coach Doc Rivers following the Sixers’ shootaround when asked about the snub a few days after the All-Star team was announced. Rivers was pretty adamant that The Beard deserved a roster spot. He (and Joel Embiid) had his star player’s back.

“I didn’t even think it would be a question [that Harden would be selected],” Rivers told The Inquirer on February 3. “I think your record should matter, I think James Harden’s numbers should matter and I do think a history of his work should matter. This is maybe something that we should consider having coaches’ votes public. … This never should have happened.”

Remember the final quote from the last slide? Wipe it from your memory. Doc Rivers did attack James Harden in a film session when he criticized him for taking “the final three shots in regulation of a double-overtime loss” to the lowly Rockets, per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.

That tongue-lashing was the first in a series of uncomfortable incidents.

The biggest one centered around Harden booking a private flight to Miami instead of traveling with his teammates. It should be noted that the front office had signed off on James’ travel arrangements. Still, Rivers didn’t like it and let the superstar know it after an off-the-record poll of the locker room showed some Sixers’ teammates agreed with the head coach. Shelburne wrote:

"Days later, Rivers brought it up in a team meeting, sources said, specifically mentioning several of the players who expressed concerns about Harden’s actions. The whole episode was “uncomfortable,” one team source said. Even if they agreed with the substance of Rivers’ message to Harden, and the idea of holding him accountable, it was awkward for the players who were named."

My take on the Rivers vs. Harden fights is they were window-dressing for the bigger issue.

Shiny allusions are meant to distract from the larger problem. Rivers shouldn’t have called Harden out in a very public setting like that, nor should he have betrayed the confidence of the other players who had voiced their displeasure. Great coaches challenge star players in private, perhaps in the comfort of their office with the door locked. It didn’t have to go down like that.

Is Harden innocent? No, he should be bonding with his teammates and riding the chartered flight. But nothing good comes when grievances are aired out for everyone to see. And that goes for every sport at any level, not just professional basketball.

Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back: Daryl Morey vs. James Harden. The fact that Harden called Morey a “liar” at a promotional event in China was the exclamation point on a months-long death sentence. Harden doesn’t want to play for the Sixers ever again. Morey doesn’t want to trade him. Things are in a stalemate.

Neither side is ready to bury the hatched. Start engraving the tombstone.

The real issue started when Morey stopped taking Harden’s calls. The savvy front-office executive wasn’t ready to show his hand and, in all fairness, why would he? Harden had largely underperformed in the postseason — save for a pair of 40-point games versus Boston, plus a game-winning shot in Game 4 — so handing him a $210 million max deal wasn’t the best business move. Yes, Morey knew it. Unfortunately, Harden knew it too.

Instead, the future Hall of Famer decided to pick up his $35.6 million. He felt Morey was “ghosting him,” per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and took matters into his own hands. Once that happened, once he felt Morey had “wronged” him, it was over. The Berlin Wall went up.

"The Sixers were stunned at Harden’s decision, sources said, insisting to him and his representatives that they had been distant only because they were just hit with the largest tampering fine in NBA history and that they had every intention of re-signing him, as soon as the rules allowed. But Harden was already too far gone. “James takes things very personally,” another source close to Harden said. “When he feels like he’s been wronged, he can be very stubborn.”"

Harden’s decision shook the basketball world on June 30. There has been no movement since that date except for verbal jabs in the media. Nothing is resolved, with no immediate plans to resolve anything almost two months after the lines were drawn in the sand. Sixers majority owner Josh Harris called the situation “unfortunate” in what may be the understatement of the year.

A rigged slot machine is unfortunate; Harden’s absence from the Sixers’ starting five was preventable. Everyone failed.

“Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of,” Harden said of Morey in August. “Let me say that again: Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of”.

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