So, Jarrett Allen caris LaVert 3 unprotected FRPs 4 pick swaps FOR a player in mental protocols ??? that's not ... ideal
If I'm Nets I'm not doing it without Maxey. Who even knows what Simmons' mental shape is? ... I'd rather ship to MIA for Duncan/Herro/P.J.Tuck
Morey has postured many years as a Rockets and he usually didn’t get the deal he want. So it’s not just baseless accusations.
https://theathletic.com/3113264/202...nsform-the-nets-sixers-now-and-in-the-future/ […] So with the Nets having lost 13 of their last 19 games — including seven in a row after their 125-102 Harden-less drubbing in Utah Friday night — it’s time to take a look at the bigger picture here. Senior NBA writer Sam Amick, senior NBA columnist John Hollinger and Nets beat writer Alex Schiffer try to make sense of all of it. Why is this happening? Hollinger: I had somebody whispering to me a while ago that Harden would try to force his way from Brooklyn to Philly at the trade deadline, which is perhaps not shocking given the connection between Morey and Harden. Given that Philly is ahead of the Nets in the standings right now without Simmons playing a single game, and has an MVP candidate with Joel Embiid, it’s not hard to imagine how Harden might consider his situation improved by riding the Acela southwest. Schiffer: Harden’s production hasn’t been the same since he dropped 37 on the Spurs in late January, just days before the initial report of Philadelphia’s interest in pursuing him this summer. The following game, a Sunday loss at Minnesota, Harden scored just 13 points in the loss and looked disinterested. He got a technical foul for pushing Jarred Vanderbit and barely got to the free-throw line, which impacts his ability to score. After the game, Harden said Minnesota’s defense had nothing to do with his outing. “It was just me,” he said. “Just kind of being passive and not really attacking how I need to attack consistently.” The following game, he denied the reports of his discontent in Brooklyn but admitted he’s frustrated with the situation given all the Nets’ attrition and recent struggles. He then missed the following two games because of injuries and has scored a combined 26 points in his past two games. The report gets into Harden’s offensive style, which has been interesting to me given how unstoppable the Nets are when they’re moving the ball. Their offense is at its peak when they make a few passes before every shot. Harden’s shot clock-milking style is the polar opposite of the philosophy of his former Houston coach Mike D’Antoni, who was the Nets’ offensive coordinator last season and encouraged his players to push the tempo. Nash has said repeatedly that playing isolation-heavy isn’t the worst approach for his team given the personnel, but they’re certainly not playing to their potential. My recollection is all three stars have been guilty of going isolation/pull-up heavy at times in their Nets tenure. And I believe all three have said as much, too. Harden isn’t expansive with the media when it comes to conflict and was short in his postgame press conference in Sacramento. While Harden has thrown hints that he’s not crazy about Irving’s part-time status, a source with knowledge of Harden’s thinking said he’s frustrated in general with his Nets tenure. He came to Brooklyn expecting to be part of a three-headed monster, yet has played a similar role to what was required of him in Houston: having to be the guy. While Irving’s part-time status is unprecedented, a source aware of the team’s thinking said the 6-foot-2 point guard’s situation hasn’t been as much of a problem as one would expect because he’s played hard when available, albeit in a limited capacity. Harden wasn’t on the bench for Friday’s loss in Utah. Instead, he was in the back of the arena getting treatment. Harden has said he wants to see what this team will look like at full strength to see what they’re capable of, which, to me, leaves the window open for him to stay. Amick: We’re not about to get into a conversation about vaccines, but this much is undeniable: Irving’s choice not to get the shot, one that was explored so thoroughly by our Joe Vardon in his investigative piece this week, is at the root of all the Nets’ problems at the moment. All the instability that has brought them to this point, the weeks of waiting and wondering what would happen next while the games just kept coming, started with that choice. Yet now, with Durant on the shelf and Irving and Harden having been so unsuccessful at meshing without him, it seems the frustration is falling at Harden’s feet. That was the reporting in Shams’ piece, where he wrote that “sources say there have been growing concerns over Harden’s playing style…that contrasts with the free-flowing, organic approach from his two co-stars.” It would be one thing if the Nets were still winning while working through these dynamics. But the urgency here, and the apparent driving force behind their willingness to listen to a Harden proposition from the Sixers, is the fact that they’re in an all-out free fall and in danger of falling out of playoff contention entirely. After the Jazz loss, Brooklyn is positioned squarely in the middle of a parity-filled Eastern Conference: Just 4 ½ games up on 11th-place Washington (meaning no play-in tournament and an early offseason) and four games back of the first-place Chicago Bulls. As a related aside, I pose this question: For all the focus on Morey and the question of whether he might be wasting a year of Embiid’s prime, why don’t we talk more about the undeniable truth that Irving’s choice is having a similar impact on Durant and Harden during these later years of their respective primes? It’s tough enough for stars of their caliber to figure out the Super Team formula when they’re playing together on most nights, but the prospect of Irving being available half the time (road games only) makes it damn near impossible. What’s next? Hollinger: Six days of fools like us trying to analyze a trade that hasn’t happened yet, most likely. And, given how this has gone with l’affair Simmons thus far, probably lots of negotiating via the media as well. At times this feels more like Cold War psyops than basketball. Schiffer: To quote Howie Mandel, “Deal or no deal?” There will either be a trade or there won’t be. Nets coach Steve Nash said before the game that he’s hopeful Harden plays Sunday in Denver, and said he and his point guard are “in lockstep” and looked at the reports as “outside noise.” We’ll know by Thursday at 3 p.m. Harden will either be a Net or he won’t be. Amick: It’s obviously unclear if a deal will actually go down, but the Nets’ level of motivation now is clearly far higher than it was a few months ago. If you stand pat, you run the risk of inviting the worst-case scenario to the table: A title-less finish and the exit of Harden and Irving this summer in free agency. But if you trade for Simmons, the defensive stalwart and elite playmaker who would have a zillion reasons to play well and rehabilitate his tattered image, then maybe this Nets train doesn’t go off the tracks. Ironically, the message that has come from Morey so often of late — that Simmons is the perfect player to fix all of the Sixers’ shortcomings — may also apply to the Nets. After all, his defensive prowess would certainly elevate a group that has fallen to 19th in points allowed per 100 possessions. And while his well-chronicled shooting woes won’t likely go away anytime soon, his instincts as a ball-mover would fit in nicely with the flow that has become a point of contention of late. Sources close to Simmons have insisted for quite some time now that Morey was hell-bent on finding a way to bring Harden to Philly. He nearly did it on Jan. 13, 2021, when Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta asked Harden to choose his destination — Brooklyn or Philly — and was relieved when he chose the Nets. The Rockets, who sources say made it clear to Harden that they would welcome him back in Houston if that was ever in the cards, were operating like a player-friendly operation in their handling of the deal but had all sorts of incentive to push the deal in Brooklyn’s direction. After all, Philly is now the place where Harden could reunite with Morey and another former Rockets executive with whom he is very close, Tad Brown. The former Rockets CEO left Houston in April and signed on as CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment — i.e. the Sixers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils — in July. Brown’s departure from Houston came just six months after Morey abruptly left the Rockets and joined the Sixers weeks later. When it came to Harden both being at his individual best on the court and enjoying limitless influence and freedom from the organization for which he played, those two men had everything to do with it. What’s more, Harden is also known to be very close with Sixers co-owner Michael Rubin. That’s a lot of dots that connect, folks. I’m just sayin’…
Let’s make a deal Amick: Ok John: Here’s the part where you work your front office magic. We all know the usual suspects in this situation, but actual trades are more complicated than we typically make them out to be. What are the overlooked considerations here, and what sort of deal structure might you see forming on the New Jersey Turnpike? Hollinger: One of the biggest questions for Philly is what Harden wants to do contractually. Does it make sense to structure this deal as an “extend-and-trade” transaction that adds another year to his current contract? Would Harden rather wait until the summer, when he could opt into his 2022-23 season and then (in August) add four years on to the end? Is Philly okay with that kind of downside risk at the end of his deal? And on the flip side, can the Sixers handle the risk of Harden opting out of his deal this summer and becoming an unrestricted free agent? (Probably so, given that nobody has cap room, but …). You can see the bigger picture here. Because Harden can be an unrestricted free agent after the season, trading for Harden also means a tacit agreement to pay Harden, and perhaps pay him quite a bit. His max deal, if he tacked on a four-year extension this summer, is $275 million over five years, including $62 million in 2026-27. Harden will be nearly 38 years old when that deal ends. Of course, the Sixers (or Nets) are not obligated to max him out, and no other team can come close to paying him this kind of money, so this all could be a preview to a very interesting offseason tug of war. These are all even more difficult questions for the Sixers because negotiating with another team’s player is illegal, and therefore has never happened in NBA history. Setting Harden’s situation aside for a second, there’s also the matter of completing a legal trade. Philly has to add at least $2.5 million in salary to a deal to trade Simmons for Harden, necessitating another Sixer to be in the deal. The lowest-impact way to do this is probably to send Furkan Korkmaz to Brooklyn and Paul Millsap back to the Sixers, but there is going to be a lot of haggling over assets. The Sixers will argue that they’re sending a 25-year-old All-Star to Brooklyn who is signed for four years in exchange for an older player who wants out and can leave after the season. The Nets will argue they’re throwing the Sixers a lifeline after Simmons didn’t have nearly the market value they originally hoped, and that Harden is the one who actually made the All-Star team this year. Blahblahblah. The other aspect of this is the luxury tax. Brooklyn could potentially save a lot of money on a Harden-Simmons trade; the one I outlined above, for instance, would save about $40 million in salary and luxury tax payments. Conversely, the Sixers would add to their luxury tax penalty if there isn’t another large salary going out with Simmons. A trade of Simmons and Danny Green for Harden would be pretty close to neutral financially; virtually any other plausible combo saves the Nets a ton of money, and would likely result in harder Philly haggling on assets and prospects. Finally, given what’s already happened this year, I’m sure the Nets aren’t doing this unless Simmons is fully vaccinated. Schiffer: I defer completely to John, my fellow Jersey Boy (bet you wish you were one, Sam), but all I’ll add here is this gives the Nets a chance to replenish the asset cabinet given how bare the Harden trade left it. I can only imagine the party Rockets general manager Rafael Stone will throw in Houston if Harden goes to Philly, given all the Nets picks he owns in the coming years. You guys think he’ll call Danny Ainge for advice on what to do with them? In all seriousness, the Nets getting a young, talented player with a high ceiling such as Maxey, if they could add him, would extend their window and give them another scorer alongside Durant. Seth Curry and Danny Green would give the Nets some much-needed shooting, especially given the uncertainty surrounding Joe Harris at the moment. Matisse Thybulle’s defense is much-needed for a unit that has ranked in the NBA cellar during their seven-game losing streak. And any first-round pick is better than none. The Nets can upgrade their supporting cast mightily and get younger, two things that were rather unlikely in a deal without a big asset.
Disagree there. Morey was the most trade happy GM around. Of course most of the time you aren't going to the best deal possible. Its a skill to get a deal done at all.
I'd rather the Nets lose Harden for nothing during the summer, no big-name free agents want to sign there because Kyrie is annoying as ****, and they suck for years to come. THINK OF THE PICKS!
I did not realize Fertitta gave harden his choice of Philly or Brooklyn. That was awful big of him and a nod to his appreciation for James if Amick’s reporting is accurate.
It has been reported earlier. I forgot in which thread it was posted. (Maybe about 50 pages earlier in this same thread. )
