Because Philly is Embiid's team. Aside from Lebron, how often do you see a star join another team with an incumbent star and become the top alpha?
It would be that way with Harden for the same reason you have to say "Aside from Lebron". When a top 3 player in the league joins a team, it becomes their team.
Why are we acting like superstars do not make this demand of their teams? Lebron is the master of this mantra.
That's not uncommon for an NBA superstar nowadays. Harden seems to want to have it both ways, calling the superstar shots and making trade demands without ever owning up to it in public.
Thats all subjective anyway. Like everyone freaking out about his partying ways after the guy said he'd be here "soon" and then BAM just like the guy said he showed up "soon". He is getting vilified and Im not going to continue to slander the guy until I can her from him directly. No matter what happens the team is set up nicely. If James wants out we have a generational talent to trade and if he buys in we could catch lightning in a bottle. ROX Nation always, but not to the point where im going to be a douche and forget what James has provided to me as a fan.
Yeahhh Im gonna go ahead and have to say that Embiid would be taking a back seat - dont ask me why just a hunch. If Harden is going to go anywhere to play Robin it wont be to the likes of Embiid thats for sure. I can see him doing it for Durant, Kawhi, Lebron, but not Embiid man get serious!
Lebron is on an entirely different level than Harden. You can't compare them. When Durant joined the Warriors, it didn't become Durant's Warriors.
Well yeah, and that's well in character for someone who will cause all of this BS first by forcing the team to trade for Westbrook, then by throwing a tantrum this off-season when it doesn't work only to disappear and hide behind his mommy while letting his teammates answer all the tough questions. No matter what happens, it's very obvious that Harden is a fairly pathetic person....he just happens to be one of the best basketball players ever so everyone is forced to put up with him till his play slips.
Maybe the criticisms are excessive but one thing was for sure. He sent a message on purpose that he is charge of this franchise . He can show up whenever he pleases and determine trade destinations. Tilman is playing nice because he knows he is not popular around here.
Take it up with Fertitta, only a national show he said he is the one that forced the Westbrook trade after his basketball people were not sure about it. Now that the Westbrook trade did not work out he is trying to move away from it...... but after the trade happened he was MORE than happy to let everyone know he wanted it and he forced his basketball people to do it. So I guess the proper question would be for someone to ask Tilman which is it......... did he lie on a national show and throw his basketball people under the bus back when he said he forced the trade through OR is he lying now?
Embiid is several years younger than Harden and plays in a position that has a lack of talent. I feel like you're underestimating how important he is to Philly's future success.
Terrible player to describe Westbrook is pretty harsh but I get your point. Harden helped make this bed; he’s got to sleep in it now. I go back to this time and time again - had he lived up to his superstar status and became the leader he said he was.... we’d have a chip (I.e., had he stepped up and put the warriors away when cp3 went down, we wouldn’t be having this convo today)
It wouldn't be Embid's team......... he isn't in the same class as Harden and the man running basketball operations in Philadelphia is Daryl Morey, who thinks that James Harden is the second best player in the world. Also Durant in Golden State was different, the Warriors had already won titles and won 70 games a year... and at that time Curry was an MVP. That isn't the situation in Philadelphia at all.
He did force it through.....because his star player demanded it. Would you have preferred it if he threw Harden under the bus about it at the time? What's funny is if Harden demanded it and Fertitta told him no, the exact same people who want to blame Fertitta for trying to keep Harden happy would be here whining about how Fertitta didn't keep Harden happy. It's a no-win situation when dealing with those who have irrational hatred for people.
The truth is they run the league....... there is a group of about 10 players that can literally do ANYTHING and not be held accountable and can force general managers, owners and coaches to do their will. There has never been a player as powerful as LBJ, he easily gets coaches hired and fired, he dictates not only roster spots but what players get paid, who is traded. Leonard and Harden and Giannis can force their teams into doing their bidding by simple fear. Doncic will soon have that type of power. The Mavs are trying to limit it (while Milwaukee is doing the opposite) but he will get it. Players like Westbrook and George and AD are trying to exercise that degree of power. All three of those guys not only dictated that they would be traded, but where. While it sucks to be a fan, the real anger shouldn't be directed at the players exercising the power but the owners and league that give them that degree of power. I believe that players should be treated very well, but it has gone to far at this point. These guys know that they can take the max extensions and then force teams to trade them.
No That isn't what Tilman said at all though. He said that HE wanted the trade and that he forced his basketball people to complete it. Tilman was very clear in what he said. So either he lied before and was taking all the credit when the move looked good or he is lying now with these leaks they are making to the press. Either way, it really isn't a good look and it doesn't engender any confidence in him as an owner or a leader. I don't hate Tilman, in fact I supported him buying the team.... having said that, he has had a TERRIBLE beginning to his ownership tenure.
Just saw this on The Ringer. It sums up how i feel about this mess: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/12/9/22164986/james-harden-trade-houston-rockets James Harden Is Pushing Player Empowerment to Its Limits The former MVP is very publicly declaring that he wants out of Houston, even though he had a hand in every major decision to make the Rockets what they are today By Rob Mahoney Dec 9, 2020, 8:05am EST Getty Images/Ringer illustration If there was ever a doubt as to who holds the power in James Harden’s ongoing stalemate with the Rockets, it was trampled into the floor of a Las Vegas nightclub. Houston’s franchise player reportedly requested a trade to a team that would allow him to contend for a championship in the upcoming season, and then underlined that request by making the Rockets sweat. As training camp began, Harden hit up parties in Vegas and Atlanta, leaving teammates and newly hired head coach Stephen Silas to answer for his absence. “I would just say I want him here, and I want him to be a big part of what we’re doing,” Silas told reporters on the first day of camp. Eric Gordon deflected questions about Harden while P.J. Tucker sidestepped them entirely. John Wall, in his honeymoon days with a new franchise after a yearslong rehab process from a serious injury, had to spend his time vouching for a superstar teammate who didn’t show. After days of sparse, noncommittal messaging to his team, Harden finally arrived at the Toyota Center on Tuesday at his leisure, mocking not only the Rockets but any pretense of coronavirus safety. The league office required that players quarantine themselves before and at the start of camp, as to best prevent the spread of a virus that has killed more than 1.5 million people worldwide. Harden, as evidenced by social media, couldn’t even be bothered to wear a mask as he broadened the definition of “essential activities.” That part of Harden’s latest field trip was actively dangerous and—short of him fully sanitizing the club, testing everyone in attendance, and deputizing Lil Baby as the Rockets’ league-mandated travel safety officer—completely indefensible. Everything else is within the authority that superstar players have created for themselves. NBA franchises are governed by preferential treatment. LeBron James has privileges that Talen Horton-Tucker does not. Kevin Durant enjoys a level of influence that Chris Chiozza never will. That’s the game, and in the matter-of-fact way of the sport, it’s deserved. The league office may have something to say about Harden’s last dance before training camp, but the Rockets will welcome Harden back without question and without punishment because he has a greater impact on winning than any other member of the organization. It’s Harden who wants something, but it’s the Rockets who are desperate. Player empowerment as we know it is largely drawn from the way a superstar exploits that imbalance to their benefit—most often by making it a vehicle to a team of their choosing. The threat of a star leaving in free agency remains a powerful motivating force, able to compel a franchise into deals it would otherwise be loath to make. Had Harden wanted the power to really squeeze the Rockets when the time came, he could have signed shorter contracts with options attached, as LeBron did. Instead Harden opted for the warm blanket of a longer deal, stacking extension on extension until he was committed through 2022 and hurtling toward $300 million in career earnings. Perhaps Harden felt he didn’t need to rely on a contract for clout when the Rockets gave it freely. Houston has treated Harden as a primary stakeholder since his arrival eight years ago as a matter of organizational philosophy. The front office may have done the scouting and worked out the pick protections, but Harden had an active role in steering the team toward and through its many iterations. The former MVP was never a bystander. Harden had a voice in bringing Dwight Howard to the Rockets and, particularly, in the team moving on. He helped to arrange for Chris Paul’s arrival and ultimately pushed for his exit, only to essentially repeat the pattern with Russell Westbrook. How Harden wanted to play became the way Houston wanted to play. The goal was not only to keep one of the best players in the league content, but to give him a sense of ownership of his situation. As former Rockets general manager Daryl Morey once explained: “If you’re part of everything, you’re more willing to put your ass on the line.” Harden’s trade request, when taken in context, is an attempt to extricate himself from a situation he designed. This isn’t in line with Jimmy Butler blowing up a Timberwolves practice and making a break for it after his contract negotiations with the team went awry; Butler was only a visitor in Minneapolis, a part of that franchise for all of 17 months. Even Anthony Davis, a long-term franchise player who gamed his way out of New Orleans, didn’t have the same opportunity to shape policy that Harden has. It wasn’t Davis’s call to trade for Tyreke Evans or give Omer Asik $58 million. What mistakes Davis made largely came on a more personal scale. Within the league’s current practices, it’s well within Harden’s rights to attempt to incite a trade and steer its outcome. A Hall of Fame player wants to contend but can’t. That want is entirely reasonable. But what, if anything, does a modern, empowered superstar owe to a team they helped build? If the answer is nothing at all, the league as a whole suffers for it. Essential role players like Tucker become pawns in a game that is beyond them, yet another way in which player empowerment (a misnomer from the start) prioritizes superstars at the expense of everyone else. Harden is a part of the NBA’s ruling class. Becoming more of a mercenary doesn’t change that, just as it doesn’t change the fallout he would leave behind. Considering the long-standing relationship between team and star, a little patience seems like a fair compromise. There’s quite a thick, bolded line between Harden asking for a trade and turning to more dramatic means to get what he wants. Hopefully his decision to report to camp suggests he won’t be holding out, allowing the Rockets the opportunity to actually explore the market for the player they made a partner. No matter its outcome, every one of these player empowerment test cases comes at the risk of a dangerous, escalating precedent. Harden is only one year into a four-year contract—three if he were to decline his $47 million option. If Harden succeeds in rushing Houston into a trade without even the imminent threat of free agency at his disposal, it’s only a matter of time before another superstar pushes further and faster, until the empowerment of a few select players ceases to be a market dynamic and becomes a threat to the sport itself. Many NBA locker rooms are already flooded with tensions and resentments. Who’s getting shots? Who’s getting paid? Further consolidation of power—and the freedom for a superstar to bolt at will, no matter their contract situation—could strain the team concept beyond its limits, rendering even the best teams as loose collections of players. It’s one thing for a star to have a place atop the hierarchy of a team, and another entirely for the star to exist outside that hierarchy on a plane to themselves. Who is calling the shots in the NBA is clear to anyone paying attention. Holding power, however, should never be confused for an exemption from consequence.
