NBA Rumors: The shocking reason James Harden is still in Philadelphia

James Harden has been with the Philadelphia 76ers for less than two years, but that didn’t stop him from requesting a trade before the 2023-24 NBA season. Well, it’s not exactly a surprise coming from him.

The Beard did something similar with the Brooklyn Nets before, having forced his way out of the team only a year after joining them from the Houston Rockets. Now, it looks like he’s ready to move on, again.

The problem is the Sixers don’t want to part with him so easily. Word on the street is that the team wants Harden to stay, and in the meantime, it would have set an ‘exorbitant’ asking price to keep potential suitors at bay.

Rumor: Sixers’ asking price for Harden is too high

“In the James Harden situation in terms of where we are on in the calendar in July, it feels a lot like what Daryl Morey was doing with Ben Simmons a couple years ago. His asking price is exorbitant,” NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN said, via Sixers Wire.

“Teams are not engaging the Sixers with the kind of asks that Daryl Morey is asking for James Harden and so that’s where Daryl Morey always starts in trade talks. Really high, and then over time, perhaps you work them back down, but like Ben Simmons, there’s hope on the Sixers’ side that eventually at some point, they can get James Harden on board about being in Philadelphia in the last year of this deal, this opt-in that he did it at $35.5 million. Now they may get the training camp, and it may look different to Philly, they may have a James Harden who’s not as enthusiastic about his return as they are and then maybe they get more serious about it, but right now, I think the Harden talks, (Damian) Lillard, are going to linger into the summer.“

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All of this looks like a plan to convince Harden to stay in Philly for at least another year. It makes sense from the Sixers’ perspective, since they made an effort to get him just a year and a half ago. However, if he definitely wants to leave, they’ll have to listen to him at some point.