The Philadelphia 76ers enter their first-round NBA Playoffs matchup against the Brooklyn Nets as the favorites. For Sixers superstar James Harden, it's an opportunity to rekindle an old flame against his former team following an unceremonious divorce more than a year ago.
Harden was recently asked to discuss his time with the Nets, particularly how his short-lived tenure came to an end. The former league MVP admitted that he didn't have too much to say about the issue but at the same time, Harden still had a couple of comments about the same:
“I don’t really wanna go into that, but there were a lot of internal things going on,” Harden said at practice on Friday, via Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire. “It was one of the reasons why I made my decision and everybody talked down on me and gave me negative feedback or whatever you wanna call it, but now, fast forward to today, nobody’s saying like ‘Oh, James was smart’ or ‘James knew what he was doing’.”
Harden seems to be implying that he was right to force his way out of Brooklyn given the unsavory situation with the squad. At that time, people were shocked that Harden chose to turn his back on his former superstar teammates Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Then again, Harden's decision was somewhat vindicated when both KD and Kyrie asked out of Brooklyn a year later.
Nevertheless, James Harden has no bad blood against the Nets. As a matter of fact, the Sixers superstar had nothing but good things to say about his former team in terms of their current situation:
“I don’t want credit, but I’m happy where they are now,” The Beard added. “Best of luck to those guys and Joe Tsai and that organization. They turned what they had into something really good. They’re in the playoffs and nothing but great talk about those guys in the organization.”
In spite of all the pleasantries, though, you can be sure that Harden will do everything he can to try and put an end to the Nets' season. It all starts on Saturday in Game 1.
Follow Us
Subscribe