It would’ve been normal for us to have a semi-quiet Thursday with so much going on in the days leading up to the NBA trade deadline in 2022. Except for the current skyscraper-high-stakes poker game between the Nets and the 76ers, two star-studded big-market teams with championship dreams.
By early afternoon, the handshake was over—James Harden is now a Sixer, and Ben Simmons is now a Net—but the dust from one of the most intriguing trades in recent NBA history was still settling. While that drama unfolded, 28 other teams battled tooth and nail for a piece of the action, resulting in a perfect trade-deadline storm: high tension, frantic page refreshing, and the sneaking suspicion that if you leave your phone on the desk while going to get a cup of coffee, you’re going to get a cup of coffee.
I sat here, like Frank T.J. Mackey, calmly analyzing the rumors as they came in and the deals were made as I have for the past three years. The following are my first-ever impressions of which teams succeeded and which teams failed in this season’s massive NBA roster shuffle: James Harden is the winner.
Whatever the source of Harden’s growing dissatisfaction in Brooklyn, he has gotten exactly what he wanted for the second time in a little over a year: a move away from a situation he no longer finds desirable and to a team where he can join an MVP candidate and a (mostly) ready-made roster with the chance to contend for a championship. Harden instantly establishes himself as Joel Embiid’s most dangerous and skilled perimeter scorer.
