NBA Trade Rumors: James Harden’s market has cooled significantly
NBA Trade Rumors: What do the Rockets do now with James Harden?
A few short weeks ago, it appeared that James Harden was going to be traded at some point over the course of the next few weeks. From everything that was taking place, it seemed as more of a forgotten conclusion than a question.
Harden had requested his departure from Houston and the Rockets appeared to be doing their due diligence to see where they can make a trade happen. However, almost two weeks into the regular season, Harden is still a member of the Houston Rockets and the team isn’t or doesn’t appear any closer to trading the All-Star Guard.
Harden has started the season as you expect, hitting on all cylinders. He looks like the same All-NBA player that he’s been for the last few seasons and has the look of a player that is ready to prove the doubters wrong as soon as he finds his way to a new team.
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The problem is, there isn’t much of a trade market for Harden at this point. From the teams that were reportedly interested in his services, you can make the argument that all three of them have decided to pause or halt their pursuits of the all-star.
The Brooklyn Nets have reportedly “cooled” on the idea of trading for Harden and the recent season-ending injury to Spencer Dinwiddie kind of complicates any type of deal that the team would be able to come up with.
At the same rate, the Philadelphia 76ers don’t appear to be pursuing hard for a trade at the moment either. While there may be many reasons why, you could look at the team’s hot start and their reluctance to trading Ben Simmons as primary reasons why it wouldn’t make much sense for the Sixers to blow up their core at this moment.
The Miami Heat are another team that was probably interested but have since made it clear that they are no longer strongly pursuing Harden at this time. I’m not sure if there are any other teams that were willing to go all-in on the pursuit of Harden, but if they are they aren’t serious enough to make a deal happen because if they were one would have already materialized.
This is a multifaceted problem for the Rockets, considering that they are still stuck in limbo with Harden on the roster and don’t have any clear direction of what to do next.
At this point, Houston might have to be hoping that Harden changes his tune and realizes that there’s no big market for him at this point. That seems highly unlikely, however. Of course, the alternative is not a great one for the Rockets either.
The other option is for Harden to try to make another mess for the organization in an attempt to put the onus back on them to find a trade even if it doesn’t match up with their asking price. That’s a messy game that we’ve already seen Harden try to play, and it will be extremely surprising for him to try to make it even messier than it was before.
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But, in the NBA, you never know. The ball is in James Harden’s court now. What will he do next and what will the Houston Rockets do in response?