-Originally published 1/14/21-
Monday, reports surface that Houston believes James Harden will stay with the team this season. Tuesday, the Rockets lose to the Lakers and drop to 3-6. Harden confirms he wants to be moved and the situation is toxic. Wednesday morning Harden is asked not to come to practice. Wednesday afternoon, the suspense is over.
The Rockets pass on potential Philadelphia 76ers offers including Ben Simmons and accept a mega-haul with the Brooklyn Nets that also involves the Pacers and Cavs to reunite Durant with Harden. Outside of Curry, arguably three of the top four shooters in the league reside in Brooklyn with Harden, Durant, and Kyrie Irving for rookie coach Steve Nash to try and find a balance.
All three have missed games this season but Harden has been 9th in the NBA in touches per nba.com and Irving and Durant are both in the top-50. A number of adjectives have been used to discuss the trio of starts over the years. “Head cases, “difficult”, “soft” due to their responses to the media criticism. Irving is currently not playing with the team due to an investigation or him at a party with no mask. The offensive potential is elite, but the personality management, rotation and ball distribution and most importantly, the defense are all questions. Brooklyn is currently 6-6 and 11th in ppg allowed (188.4) and 5th highest in points allowed in the paint (50.1). Losing Jarrett Allen as a rim protect and Taurean Prince as two of the best defenders on the team doesn’t help. Allen and DeAndre Jordan split minutes last season at center with Jordan starting to play fewer minutes this season. Jordan will obviously see a wealth of time at the position with Allen gone. LeVert largely won’t be missed with a plethora of scoring and ball handlers on the roster. The Nets starting 5 will be Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Joe Harris, Kevin Durant, and DeAndre Jordan.
The massive surrendering of first round picks and pick swaps puts the Nets in a similar situation to the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce trade of 2013. It was year 2 in Brooklyn and the team had suffered five straight losing seasons. In order to join the vets with Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez, already on the roster, the Nets shipped three first round picks (2014, 2016, 2018) and rights to pick swap in 2017 in a move that is considered to be one of the worst trades in NBA history. Three years of playoff appearances followed but injuries and player decline made the team irrelevant and stagnate. The inability to draft any talent for years or trade any of the hefty contracts damaged the team up until…..well….now. In 2018 the 42-40 Nets made the playoffs after another four-year drought and was clearly headed in the right direction with young talent D’Angelo Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, 3-point champion Joe Harris, and quality pieces in Shabazz Napier, Kenneth Faried, DeMarre Caroll. A team waiting for couple guys to pop into true stars and maybe a couple players short of contending. That’s not exactly what happened. Two seasons later, this team is one of the front-runners for a Championship, but not because of savvy drafting and building. Dinwiddie, and Harris are still on the squad, but Brooklyn has become another landing spot for a super-team. It’s a little disappointing.
Harden isn’t anywhere near the Garnett/Pierce spectrum as far as trade risk, he does has two years left on his contract and he’s far more productive, but the Rockets will have Nets picks until Harden is pushing 40 and retired regardless of where he ends his career.
The Rockets starting-5 looks like John Wall, Victor Oladipo, Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, and Christian Wood, with Demarcus Cousin possibly sliding in, especially with rumors of interest in Tucker by other teams. This team can certainly make the playoffs, even with injury prone Wall, Oladipo, and Cousins in tow, but why not entertain offers to build for the future? This squad isn’t winning a championship and they’ll have addition picks until current starts like Harden, Durant, Curry, and Kawhi are all out of the league. Oladipo, Cousins, and Tucker are all key players…..and expiring contracts. It’ll be interesting to see how this team choices to proceed. They’re stuck with Wall’s contract for better or worse and it’s hard to imagine them letting Oladipo become a free agent, but the overused “rebuild” might be appropriate.
I’m not sure the Pacers move ahead much in the trade and the Cavs additions are small but positive. Replacing Oladipo with Caris LeVert is a slight downgrade. The relationship between Oladipo and the Pacers front office wasn’t great, he was on an expiring contract, he has injury concerns and LeVert still has room to grow so that much have been the thinking with LeVert under contract through 2022-23. The Cavs have been a surprise early this season in part thanks to Andre Drummond. The Cavs didn’t gave up anything in often-injured Dante Exum and add a nice young defender in Prince and a young Drummond prototype in Allen. It begs the question; will the still young 28-year-old Drummond earn another contact after this season? Is he a trade piece at the deadline? It does open up more possibilities and give the Cavs two nice pieces for basically nothing.
This trade is an A+ Cavs, A+ long-term for the Rockets, C- for the Pacers until LeVert’s defense improves and an A for the Nets in NBA 2k. We may see Durant turn into the default-defensive stopper for the Nets with Irving and Harden demanding the ball and the team demanding defense to win. Prayers to Steve Nash, let’s hope this team-up is awesome and not a headache. We’ll get our first look this Saturday, 1/16 @ 6pm when the Nets host the Orlando Magic.
