On February 13, Beijing time, the 2021-22 NBA regular season is in full swing. In a blockbuster deal two days ago, the Nets and the 76ers agreed, Harden completed the swap with Simmons and others, and Harden will leave the Nets to officially become a 76ers player.
With the conclusion of this deal, many of the stories behind it have also been pulled out by the media. One of the most concerned by fans is undoubtedly harden's relationship with Durant and Irving. Marc Stein, who reported earlier today, said the exact reason is still unclear, but communication between him and Harden became difficult before Durant was injured. Durant then suffered an injury, and in the weeks he was out, Harden stopped connecting with everyone and expressed in this negative way that he didn't want to stay with the Nets anymore.
In a long article by Ramona Shelburne yesterday, he said that the day before Durant's injury, Rich Paul revealed to Durant for the first time that he wanted to trade Harden with Simmons, and Durant flatly refused and expressed strong resistance. But because Durant was injured afterwards, everything became uncontrollable. It is worth mentioning that in the All-Star selection session two days ago, Durant did not pick Harden until the last minute.
In addition, Marc Stein also revealed an important message. That is, league officials and some team owners will explore ways to punish and restrict players from applying for a compulsory trade in the next collective bargain. This approach is likely to be the use of fine sanctions because they fear other high-paying players will follow Harden's example. Over the past 13 months, Harden has forced teams to trade themselves in a "strike" manner in Houston and Brooklyn.
In fact, Harden's two departures do have similarities. In the Rockets' final games, Harden was visibly slack. In his final game for the Nets, he scored just four points, and then he made an agreement with the team not to play before the trade deadline.