In February 2022, the 76ers were a group buzzing with excitement, optimism and a ton of hoopla adhering to a trade for James Harden that created a star duo with Joel Embiid.
Speedy forward roughly 16 months, and the Sixers have turn out to be a franchise dealing with growing levels of speedy issue, starting with free of charge company this offseason.
When the Sixers acquired Harden through trade from the Nets, numerous considered it would be the go that pushed Philly into authentic title rivalry and could place the Sixers around the major. But following consecutive postseason eliminations in the Jap Convention semifinals, and with Harden’s foreseeable future getting really much up in the air forward of no cost company, there are apparent reasons for worry.
The Sixers could confront a “gap year” if they get rid of the 33-year-previous in free of charge agency, in accordance to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Additional exclusively, their solutions to exchange Harden and steer clear of losing a year of Embiid’s prime consist of primarily “nobody.”
Marks’s responses look to mainly issue to the taking pictures guard placement, which does not offer you quite a few solutions in cost-free agency. Over and above Harden, there are names this sort of as Bruce Brown, Jordan Clarkson and Austin Reaves, all of whom are impactful, but Harden remains in the major tier by himself.
Even when evaluating the position guard position, Fred VanVleet is around the top rated of the list with Kyrie Irving, whilst the latter seems likely to return to the Mavericks. Outside of that, D’Angelo Russell has an attention-grabbing cost-free company in advance, while Russell Westbrook’s subsequent property also is a problem mark.
But no matter of the dialogue all around these top rated free agents, there’s no discussion that Harden is the most impactful and significant-upside participant of the bunch. The Sixers know that and appearset on accomplishing anything at all in their electrical power to preserve him in Philly, for great rationale.
