On February 11, Beijing time, with the Nets and the 76ers officially reaching a heavyweight deal for Harden and Simmons, the combination of Durant, Irving and Harden was also dissolved. When Harden first traded from the Rockets to join the Nets, the people were optimistic about this NBA's active big three luxury lineup, but they never expected that due to a series of reasons, this set of big three combinations only cooperated for a short period of one and a half seasons, and finally Harden also failed to get the coveted championship ring in the Nets.
So why did the Nets management finally agree to a swap deal with the 76ers to play the main star swap when they still had Harden's player contract, and why didn't they choose to keep Harden to continue to impact the NBA championship, but instead gave up their hard-earned Big Three lineup so easily? In this regard, NBA league star Woj also talked about this topic in the program report, and Woj is the real reason why the Nets management will carry out a Harden trade.
According to Woj, the Nets know that Harden is likely to jump out of his contract this summer's offseason, and then join the 76ers as a free agent to join Embiid. And if such a situation really occurs in the end, the Nets will be a bamboo basket to play a blank, to know that in the original Harden trade with the Rockets, the Nets in order to get Harden but to pay a lot of draft picks, so the Nets now absolutely can not accept Harden to leave the team in vain. Because of the great fear that Harden will go straight away in the offseason, it will eventually force the Nets to be forced to trade.
In fact, before the start of the season, the Nets already wanted to renew Harden's contract in advance, when the Nets gave Harden a maximum salary contract of up to 3 years and 161 million US dollars, but Harden did not sign his name on this contract extension. Now, if Harden could agree to an early extension of the Nets, then the Nets management would undoubtedly not choose to send Harden away. Of course, it's too late to say anything now, after all, the Nets and the 76ers player deal has been concluded, and here is also the hope that Harden can play MVP-level data performances again in the 76ers, so as to partner Embiid to fight for the first NBA championship trophy of his career!