James Harden says he no longer looks like "the crazy one" following the Brooklyn Nets' recent trades before the deadline. The team sent Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks and Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns. Harden himself left the Nets, last season, after a tumultuous stretch with the team. Harden discussed his tenure with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant following the Philidelphia 76ers' 101-98 win over the Nets on Saturday night.
"I didn't just ask to leave for no reason," Harden said after the game. "I was in a really good place in Houston. Obviously, we didn't have a chance to win a championship, but I was comfortable. So for me to up and leave my family, all the things I created there, to come to Brooklyn for a year and a half to try to just get up and leave, it was for a reason, you know what I mean? But I'm happy for the organization and what they've got back. They got some really good pieces."
James Harden's Comments
"Frustrating," he said of his time with the Nets. "It's a lot of what-ifs, I think when you play less than 20 games together. So it's a little bit frustrating, but it is what it is. Hopefully, everybody's in a good place now and we can move on." He continued: "I don't look like the crazy one. I don’t look like the guy or the quitter or whatever the media want to call me. I knew what was going on and I just decided to…hey, I'm not built for this. I don't want to deal with that. I want to play basketball and have fun"
Harden joined the Nets back in January 2021, immediately making the team a favorite to compete for NBA titles. However, their potential was never realized and the team failed to even make it to the conference finals. By February 2022, the Nets shipped Harden to the 76ers. Harden lobbied for the deal as he could sense things were moving in a bad direction for the Nets.
Harden also addressed whether Kyrie Irving's antics factored into his decision to leave the Nets: "That's not something that I'm going to answer. But the reason I made that decision to get out of my comfort zone which was leave Houston and do everything that I did to get out of there was to come in and play with KD and Kyrie.
[Via]