If James Harden really wants ‘basketball freedom,’ the Sixers should let him find it elsewhere

The Sixers can't afford to give the keys to a player who wants to be something he isn't.

Sixers guard James Harden gets fouled driving past past Boston Celtics center Robert Williams III during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinal playoffs at TD Garden in Boston.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

Published May 22, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

I keep going back to something James Harden said in the playoffs. At the time, it felt like a little tip to where his head was. That sense has only grown since.

This was after the Sixers had wrapped up their sweep of the Nets with a Game 4 victory in Brooklyn. I forget the exact question Harden was asked, but here is how he answered:

“I told myself this year I’m all big on sacrifice, whether it’s the money, my role, just letting everything go and sacrificing and see what it gives me,” he said. “So throughout the entire year, people expect me to be the scoring James Harden, the James Harden that goes out there, gets 40, 50 points, and people talk, ‘Oh, they can’t win like that.’ And then it’s like, well, I go out there and get 20 points and 11 assists, and it’s like, ‘Well, he’s not the old James Harden anymore.’”

As I listened to Harden’s answer, my internal monologue went something like this:

Wow, he feels like he is making a sacrifice to play here.
Wow, he actually cares that people think that he can’t score like he used to.
Wow, he actually thinks that he can score like he used to.

No. 1 is why Harden is suddenly a question mark to return to the Sixers.

No. 3 is why the Sixers might be better off without him.

If Harden thinks he can consistently be the guy he was in Games 1 and 5 against the Celtics, the Sixers don’t really have a choice except to let him try to prove it on somebody else’s expense account. Otherwise, they’d be locking themselves into three or four years of what could quickly turn into a disaster.

I’ve said this from the beginning, and I still believe it. The Sixers’ best chance at competing for a title next season is to bring back Harden alongside Embiid and give them a coach who can do a better job of using the two stars’ strengths as building blocks of team offense. Add another veteran to the mix using the mid-level exception, maybe swap Tobias Harris’s expiring contract for a complementary piece or two, and hope that Tyrese Maxey takes another step forward. Maybe the shots fall in Game 6 and Game 7 never happens.

That’s the only obvious path that doesn’t require Embiid to take a dramatic step forward in health, technical skill, and basketball IQ. The one thing these last three years have proved beyond a shadow of the doubt is that you can’t expect a championship offense to run through Embiid the way it does Nikola Jokić, Jimmy Butler, LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, or Jaylen Brown. You can throw Steph Curry in there and plenty of others, too. The difference between those guys and Embiid is that those guys have a good enough feel for basketball that they consistently take advantage of defenses designed to stop them by setting up their teammates. Embiid has gotten better at it. But you can’t simply put the ball in his hands and expect him to read and react.

Harden can do it. His handle, his vision, his passing, his ability to think two steps ahead — all of them are off the charts. He really could be the perfect point guard. What he can’t be is put into a situation where you are relying on his finishing ability.

The Sixers can’t put themselves in a situation where they are implicitly handing the reins over to Harden. That’s what they’d essentially be doing after a recent report from Yahoo! Sports said that Harden is seeking a team that will give him “basketball freedom.” The Sixers already need to do a better job of integrating Harden and Embiid into a functional team offense. They certainly can’t afford to make themselves even more Harden-centric. That’s the only thing they can afford less than losing Harden.

There are no good answers here. Maybe that’s karma for building your team around a player who has forced his way out of his last two stops. Maybe it’s the way things were bound to end up for an organization that has wasted as many opportunities as the Sixers have over the last six years. The Sixers don’t have any obvious way to replace Harden. Letting him go might leave them with $10 million-$15 million extra. That’s hardly enough, even if you think Harden is overvalued.

That being said, the Sixers would only be throwing money down a hole if Harden is determined to return to a role like the one he had during peak years in Houston. A recent report from The Inquirer’s Keith Pompey quoted a source observing that Harden is treated “like a god” in Houston. If the Sixers treat him like that, eternal judgment is in store.