Ben Simmons for James Harden: My Jaw has Officially Dropped
By Jim James
The news broke not 30 minutes ago, this may be your first time hearing about this deal, so welcome to the trade deadline, everyone. Here is what the trade looks like:
Nets Recieve:
Ben Simmons
Seth Curry
Andre Drummond
2022 PHI 1st Unprotected
2027 PHI 1st Top 8 Protected
Sixers Recieve
James Harden
Paul Millsap
Holy cow. In this post I’m going to tell you the backstory of the 2 traded stars and my opinion on the deal.
Ben Simmons’ Nightmare 2021
Prior to 2021 and really the Hawks series, other than not winning much, things were going alright for Ben Simmons and the Sixers. It was mutually understood that he had to wait a few years, then the Sixers would be perennial conference finalists. In the 2021 playoffs, when the Sixers just had to beat Atlanta in the Conference Semifinals to get to their first Conference finals in over a decade, to some Sixers fans, the series was considered a formality. However, the Sixers lost in 7, and Ben Simmons was a big reason why. Sure, he filled the stat sheet, but he was doing some abolutely boneheaded things at clutch times, the most infamous being the time in Game 7 with about 5 minutes to go, the game was tight, and he was open under the rim, an easy 2 points, and passed it up. Ridiculous. He also averaged just 9.9 points, and if you remove his games 1 and 3, he averaged just 6.8. A supposed-to-be All Star who was compared to Lebron in the 2016 draft. Since then he hasn’t played a minute of NBA basketball, heck, a second of NBA Basketball. I’ve played the same amount of NBA minutes as Ben Simmons since that series. He was tres unhappy at Philadelphia, and was expected to never play another game for them again. That now proves true.
James Harden’s embarrassing Brooklyn Stint
On January 15, 2021, James Harden was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in a 3 team superdeal where they gave away their entire supporting cast and future to create one of the most dazzling big 3’s the league has ever seen. However, 391 and only 16 games where all 3 play, the experiment is finished, and it went terrible. In February, Kevin Durant got a month long injury, then Harden got injured, this season, there was the the Kyrie Irving situation, and now Durant’s injured again. I remember saying the day James Harden was traded that he has to do well or the Nets will have traded their future and many good players for naught. It was like the Clippers and the Paul George trade in 2019. Now, it’s closer to the latter than the former. Then there was James Harden saying that he doesn’t like pretty much anything at Brooklyn that sounded like a James May rant about Arctic Exploration.
Get to the good stuff. Who wins this deal?
Potentially no one or both teams, but I would say most likely Philadelphia. However, it all depends on one thing, one very important thing: James Harden and Joel Embiid have to get along. If they do, it will be a great deal. For the Nets, they will hope that Ben Simmons still trained daily for Basketball in his Philly strike. If not, they will have just been fleeced. Drummond’s best days are behind him, Seth Curry is no more than a great shooter and average everything else, it depends too, on if they can trade the two picks for someone before the deadline in a few minutes.
There you go, that’s all folks. Tomorrow I’ll do a trade grade for all the deadline deals, barring a mammoth news story between now and then. Until then, I’m Jim James, and I’ll see you next time.