Should Your Team Trade for James Harden?
I am a big fan of James Harden, do not get me wrong with this article, but I do not think it is worth trading for him. I get that he wants a chance to win a championship and he is making cuts to his pay, taking less shots, and even reshaping his game. But based solely on his track record recently I don’t think it is worth all the assets you are going to have to give up for him to get him. You just have no idea whether he is going to stay with the team long-term and the fact that is even a question to me makes you question the trade in general. On top of that, who knows how he is going to be in the locker room. There are just too many questions that go along with trading for a player like Harden that would make me not want to go out and get him unless you are going all in on your team.
If you told me four years ago that James Harden was going to be a pass first 10 assist a night player, I would have called you crazy. But that is how good of a player he really is. I mean he went from an iso, needs the ball in his hand the whole shot clock player. To a pass first and sees the floor like no other kind of player. What he was able to do with his game when he went to the Nets and especially when he went to the Sixers was absolutely amazing, so by no means am I trying to say he is not a good player, or he is not worth trading for. I just want to try and make a point, although he is an all-time great PG/SG, he is also not worth the assets you need to give up getting him.
Now a team like the Clippers, it makes all the sense in the world to try and give up everything you have left to pick him up. However, I saw reports of the Houston Rockets wanting to try and trade for him and sign him to a long-term deal, that is FOOLISH. Why would you try and give up all your young talent for a guy who is not going to put your team over the edge to win the championship. A team that I thought should have been more in his market to buy is the Warriors. If they were going to for sure sell their young guys and go after another guy, it should have been James Harden not Chris Paul. That would have been an all-time offense, literally one that would go down in the history books. Not a great defensive team but the amount of wide-open looks that would be given to either Curry, Harden, or Klay it would have been unstoppable.