Philadelphia 76ers guard James Harden walked into Barclays Center for the first time on Saturday night to play the Brooklyn Nets since they traded him last season.
But Harden’s former team doesn’t look anything like the one he was a part of, especially after the Nets traded both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant this week.
The star-studded trio’s time together in Brooklyn was an abject disaster, and Harden aired out his frustrations with how his tenure with the Nets went following the Sixers’ 101-98 win.
“I didn’t just ask to leave for no reason,” Harden told reporters, per ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “I was in a really good place in Houston. Obviously, we didn’t have a chance to win a championship, but I was comfortable. So for me to up and leave my family, all the things I created there, to come to Brooklyn for a year and a half to try to just get up and leave, it was for a reason, you know what I mean? But I’m happy for the organization and what they’ve got back. They got some really good pieces.”
Harden made it seem like he wasn’t surprised that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant couldn’t stick it out in Brooklyn for the long-term. Harden, who wanted off the Nets as well, told reporters he wished the Nets had done some things differently to keep him with the organization.
“Yeah, there was,” Harden said, per Friedell. “Like, a lot of things. But it was just a lot of dysfunction. Clearly. But it was a lot of internal things that I’m not going to ever just say, put in the media or anything. And that was one of the reasons why I chose to make my decision.
“But now, fast-forward to date, I don’t look like the crazy one. I don’t look like the guy or the quitter or whatever the media want to call me. I knew what was going on and I just decided to … hey, I’m not built for this. I don’t want to deal with that. I want to play basketball and have fun and enjoy doing it. And fast-forward to today, they’ve got a whole new roster.”
Harden, Irving and Durant had the make of a NBA title contender of paper when the Nets traded for Harden in January of 2021. But they wound up playing just 16 forgettable games together.
And for Harden, he had a pointed response when describing the Nets chapter of his NBA career.
“Frustrating,” Harden said, per Friedell. “It’s a lot of what-ifs, I think when you play less than 20 games together. So it’s a little bit frustrating, but it is what it is. Hopefully everybody’s in a good place now and we can move on.”
