John Granato: Raptors & Celtics favorites to land James Harden

Neither

 

Everyone having bad games to avoid having to play for Tilman.

 

Believe what you want but Celtics never make a serious effort for any major trade.

 

You mean like trading for Kyrie Irving?

 

Where is Ben?

 

If the Celtics Brown offer was really on the table, it sure ain't on the table now.

Brown is gonna be an all-star for sure this year, this dude is unbelievably good, might be better than Tatum.

 

Boston sports writer jacky mac along with zach lowe, boston homer bill simmons and others have consistently reported that boston would not trade brown in a deal for Harden.

Perhaps they are wrong, but after the debacle that was the irving trade, Ainge's gunshy history, browns age vs harden and not to mention the question of hardens fit, personality and a myriad of other issues, I just don't see it happening.

Boston with harden, tatum, walker and not much else isn't going to be the favorite to beat the nets, bucks, sixers, heat. It's a huge 2 year risk and taking huge risk isn't something I would associate danny ainge with.

 

Lots of guys dont look like they are ready for the regular season.

Lillard only put up 9pts tonight, Covington had 1 pt and CP3 had 8. Dallas's offense did not look good at all vs Phoenix. Luca ended up getting his points but it took him 26 shots to do it. Same with Tatum, he had to take a whole bunch of shots to get his points.

I wouldn't say Simmons had a bad game. He was 2-6 from the free throw line but shot a decent percentage from the floor. He's just a really bad shooter. Not hitting outside shots is the norm for him. Or were you referring to the knockdown that Westbrook got on him?

 

Lillard had 9 points with an L. Last time Harden scored less than 10 points in a game is almost 6 years ago.

 

Boston with Harden-Tatum-Tucker can beat anyone out East.

 

Yes and Morey has publicly said he's not trading Simmons. Do you also believe that?

If Harden, Tatum and Walker wouldn't have anything around them then what does that say about a Tatum, Brown and Walker team with the same supporting cast?

You might want to look at the Boston roster again. They've got roll players. They just don't have enough firepower to hang with the top 2 teams. Harden solves that problem. Harden is immediately their best scorer and playmaker.

 

They could really good. How are they getting Tucker though?

 

I would guess that Boston would be doing everything in their power to move Kemba with Jaylen in a wacky 3 team deal, but what do I know? I’m just an old chunk of coal like the next fella.

 

If you actually watched the game, you would notice that he had a very bad game offensively. He really killed 76er's half court offense, and made Embiid having a hard time when he is on the floor. Embiid was unstoppable at the beginning of the 4th quarter when Simmons sit.

His FG wasn't bad, but if you break it down, it's not impressive either. He scored 7 buckets this game, 3 of them were from transition; 2 of them were wide open dunks because Russ was focusing on the ball and ignored him completely (one of the dunks gave the 76ers 4 points lead with 20s left in the game, smh for Russ's defense); 1 was a free drive layup because Russ and Bryant messed up pick & roll defense; 1 was a post up 6 feet away from the basket guarded by Russ. Other than the post up, all the baskets were easy ones either from transition or being left open near the rim as a result of defensive mistakes. And even for that post up, it was a quirky shot, and you can see he is not good at making those moves.

In a word, Simmons still doesn't have any reliable way to score in half court offense. He should have the physicality to develop a post game to punish smaller defenders and blow by big defenders, but he is not good at either of them yet.

 

I get really confused by takes that underrate Harden.

Durant is great. A fantastic scorer. An extremely unique talent. A guy that cements Brooklyn as a top 2-3 seed in the East.

Harden is a better offensive player than Durant. He has more ways to beat you than any player in the history of the game. He has no weakness at all in his offensive skillset. He passes at an elite level, scores at all levels at an elite level, and does it all extremely efficiently.

I see takes like “but you have to change everything about your offense to fit in Harden” and just cringe at the extreme ignorance. They don’t see how easy the game is for everyone on the court when Harden is running your offense.

 

Well I trust Lowe and Jacky Mac's reporting/opinions on this and as i said, they MIGHT be wrong... For the record, they stated their views weeks ago, before Boston was even in the picture... don't know why anyone would expect 100% certainty on these matters.

As for Morey, I certainly don't trust his statement 100%, but at this point, I've no clue either way. Frankly i wouldn't be shock if he wasn't willing to trade Simmons or IF he did. Unsurprisingly I'm guessing how the sixers play the first month or two will be huge in Morey's calculation.

As for Bostons role player trading Smart along with Brown is a huge loss. Smart is like a mini draymond for that team. The two of them are by far the best defensive players on that team, I'm not so certain adding Harden at the cost of them makes the Celtics that much better. They'd improve offensively but would lose a lot defensively. The question about how Harden would fit with Walker and Tatum and in a totally new offense would also be real issues. He might fit fine or he might not. He might propel them past every team in the East or the Celtics might flame out in the first or second round for two years and Harden leaves in FA.

This trade is IMO extremely risky and something Ainge doesn't have the cajones to undertake. This isn't some seemingly slam dunk proposition like the irving trade was ( and even that blew up in his face). Perhaps you are certain he is and that Harden would fit perfectly in Boston and that they would be immediately be the East conference champs... Its definitely a possibility, just not one I'm incline to say is overwhelmingly likely. You are free to disagree.

 

I'll take LaVine and Lauri Markkanen and 2 FR for Harden. LaVine is nice and is only 25. This has been my sleeper deal for the Rockets for a while, I'm just not sure if Chicago would pull the trigger on it.

 

Give me Hield and MPJ ...

Harden and Tucker to Denver

EG to Sac

 

Just hoping to move on from the beard thats all. I think everyone wants some closure lol

 

So who and what do we get back worth a damn?!