Philadelphia 76ers: There is no realistic path to a James Harden trade

It’s time to move on from James Harden, Philadelphia 76ers fans.

Welp, it’s official: James Harden wouldn’t be upset if he were traded to the Philadelphia 76ers.

(Boy, talk about a ringing endorsement).

But, before you go straight up banana Pat Patterson-style and order a custom City Edition jersey with the number 13 emblazoned on the back, you should (probably) pump the breaks on this particular Thursday morning Woj Bomb because it’s probably not going to happen; not if the Sixers want to keep Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid moving forward.

I know, I know, talk about being a downer, but come on. Come on. All you have to do is employ the ‘endowment effect‘ – a cognitive bias Daryl Morey talked about in his Reddit AMA here – and finding a viable trade is almost impossible.

For those out of the know who don’t feel like clicking on an embedded link, allow me to summarize. The ‘endowment effect’ basically postures that people inherently overvalue their own assets and undervalue assets they would like to acquire. By simply ‘flipping’ a trade in your head and asking ‘would I give away this player for this package,’ you can pretty quickly determine if a move is viable from both sides or is simply being propped up by a heavy dose of homer-ism.

Need an example to really drive home the point? Well, here’s one from the man himself,

"For example, if a good player is in the last year of his deal, you often will look for players that have longer good contracts so you can ensure the player you receive will stay and you won’t take the risk they will leave in free agency. Initially we will painstakingly analyzing the relative merits of the deal but when we flip it we often quickly realize that if we were to think about trading a player with multiple years on his deal we generally wouldn’t even consider players with one year remaining."

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So basically, trading one season of Josh Richardson for three cheap years of Seth Curry is a great deal, even if the team had to surrender a second-round pick to get the deal done.

With this fascinating principle in mind, is there a package that you, now a hypothetical Rockets fan, would accept to hand over James Harden if it doesn’t include Ben Simmons and/or Joel Embiid? Does Tobias Harris and his massive contract sway the deal even if young players like Shake Milton, Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, and/or Tyrese Maxey is included? Heck, does trading Harris, Milton, Thybulle, Korkmaz, AND Maxey really keep the Rockets as a viable contender if they ship out Harden and shift into full-on player developmental mode?

But, you may ask, what about the picks? Surely Morey could include four first-round picks and swap in off years to help sweeten the pot, right?

Well yeah, in theory, that could happen, but again, would you personally accept four picks in the 20s to had over arguably the best scorer in the NBA? Even if Harden only has three-to-four more years of elite play left in that voluminous beard, the Sixers should still have Simmons and Embiid under contract, and they’ll only be 32 and 34-years-old respectively at the end of that eight-year window.

For every player like Giannis Antetokounmpo who gets selected outside of the lottery and blossoms into a star, you get dozens of Zhaire Smiths who simply flame out without so much as earning a second long-term contract. The thought process behind acquiring picks way into the future is that said team will eventually be really bad, and those picks will fall near the top of the draft (see Nets, Brooklyn). If Simmons and Embiid are still on the roster, that likely won’t happen, and if one is ultimately traded, they’ll likely get a big enough package back to remain in contention for the foreseeable future too.

Huh, it’s almost like having 25-year-old All-Stars is the most valuable asset in the NBA and should be protected at all costs, as opposed to being traded for a 31-year-old scorer.

After being handed the keys to a deeply flawed ‘contender’ earlier this year, Daryl Morey’s first offseason with the Philadelphia 76ers was a master class in rebuilding on the fly. He shipped out bad contracts and misfitting players for experienced shooters and even allowed arguably the steal of the draft to fall to him at 21. While the idea of acquiring his old team’s best player is certainly enticing – and will all but surely be debated within the team’s digital war room – the Sixers just don’t have an available package to get a deal done; not if they want to keep Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid together moving forward. Unless the Houston Rockets want to get crazy and sell off their best player for pennies on the dollar, there just isn’t a viable path to get James Harden in a Sixers uniform anytime soon.