From Wes Mathews to Austin Rivers to Jonathon Simmons to Luguentz Dort to Preshus Achoowa. The rich storied tradition of marginal scrub role players making a name off Harden continues. To the delusional fan club members that hate me for keeping it real and exposing the truth.
I really don't get what happened to Harden. If your argument is "he's washed" or "lol old" or "that hammy tho," he wasn't this bad in the games before the 76ers trade. He also wasn't this bad in the first few games with the 76ers. But somehow, from then until now, he's been absolutely abysmal and not even 1/10th of BKN Harden. We don't even need to talk about HOU Harden, because those days seem long gone.
He's a loser, a supremely talented loser. After that SA series, I thought we might be in trouble. After ushering off Dwight, CP3, and then Westbrook, I knew we were in trouble... He then ate his way outta Houston, pouted his way outta Brooklyn, and now this. Shocked...
I'm not sure that our present day John Wall is any worse than THIS (post-hamstring) version of Harden...get Morey on the phone...!
Years of partying and excess got to him. Years of superstar entitlement mentality as well. Lots of players have bad nights problem is Harden doesnt really do the other **** like defense and playing hard. Every single person here in CF who clowned our Front Office for "running off Harden" and "passing on young multi all star Simmons" need to apologize. Apparently they do know more than random internet posters. Imagine that.
@HP3 what happened to 76ers are but a Simmons trade from winning it all? back to 5 years of tanking again more likely
I don't think those contradict each other. He can excitedly put up a few good games after the trade to the Sixers before reality catches up with him since he likely is washed up. The dude is in his 13th season, he's been in the playoffs every one of those years, and he's been past the first round in 8 of those years(9 if the Sixers don't blow this series). That's a ton of mileage on a guy who'll be 33 in August. And that's to say nothing of the fact that he doesn't take care of his body and plays a very aggressive style of ball where he's constantly attacking the basket and getting hammered. The Rockets may not have planned to unload Harden in early 2021, but in retrospect, it was the best thing that could've happened for the organization. They got a ton of potentially great picks in return and their own collapse(enhanced by a lot of tanking, of course) allowed them to keep their pick and landed them Jalen Green who's 12 years younger than Harden.
No one in the world thought Harden would turn out like current-Philly Harden when he was averaging 25/10/5 during his first few games with the Rockets before being shipped off to BKN. And he was doing that while being out of shape to start the season. Of course the FO should know more than the casual internet poster - that's what the FO is being paid big bucks for. But don't act like the FO knew all along that Harden would turn out to be...this, two years later.
Why do you need to know how it would turn out? They just made their decision based on available information and it turned out to be the right decision. Remember at the time haters were saying Fertita let his ego get in the way and didnt discuss with Morey for the "superior deal". I also recall a lot of posters claiming the Rox got nothing out of the deal and just gave Harden away for spare parts.
