James Harden's rumored interest in going back to the Houston Rockets is apparently nothing new at all. The Brooklyn Nets already had an inkling about it even before they sent the former NBA MVP to the Philadelphia 76ers via a trade back in February 2022, per Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports.
While Harden was frustrated with Kyrie Irving’s part-time playing status in Brooklyn and a January knee injury to Kevin Durant left him shouldering the Nets’ offensive burden, sources said Harden also longed for the familiarity of Houston, where he rose into a central magnate of the area’s popular culture and entertainment industry. You were someone in Houston if you knew Harden. And after one road visit to San Antonio last season, sources said, Harden took a detour amid the Nets’ road trip to have another evening as a Houston kingmaker.
James Harden's best years in the NBA were undeniably during his tenure with the Rockets from 2013 to 2020. In that span, James Harden won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award in 2018 and averaged 29.6 points, 7.7 assists, and 6.0 rebounds across 621 games. The best version of himself was when he was with the Rockets, and a potential return to Houston would be a monumental development for the franchise that is currently viewed to be in a rebuilding phase.
James Harden is about to hit the free-agency market by the end of the 2022-23 NBA season, and despite the rumors about his desire to return to Houston, there's still so much time between now and then for other serious contenders for his services to come forward and flip the current narrative.
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