Nets Rumors: Mike D’Antoni steered team away from James Harden trade

Mike D’Antoni is not a huge supporter of the Nets trading for James Harden.

Ever since Houston Rockets superstar James Harden started to push for a trade, the Brooklyn Nets have been atop his “preferred destination” list.

Not only would Harden join a team that already sports Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but he would be reunited with former head coach Mike D’Antoni, who joined Brooklyn as an assistant coach. While the respect between the two is clearly mutual, it has been D’Antoni himself trying to pump the brakes on a potential Harden swap.

Bill Simmons reported on his podcast that the Nets have cooled off on the idea of trading for Harden in large part thanks to the input of D’Antoni, who claimed that Harden “presents some problems.”

And surely, while he did it, he screamed at “the aggregators” for aggregating…what he’d just said.

James Harden playing as he did in Houston could create some problems for the Nets.

While Harden is the game’s best pure scorer, as evidenced by scoring numbers we haven’t seen in the post-Wilt Chamberlain NBA, both he and D’Antoni realize that the Rockets played a style of basketball that had the ball in Harden’s hands almost the entire time he was on the court. While Harden would love to join Brooklyn and make a truly scary superteam, D’Antoni seems to think that wouldn’t mesh well with Durant and Irving.

While the 3-3 Nets aren’t firing on all cylinders at the moment, their two superstars have been among the most lethal and efficient scorers in the league. While there were some concerns about how they would share ball-handling duties, the pair have silenced those doubters with a strong 2020-21 campaign. Adding another ball-dominant player in Harden to a team that already has questions about their defense at the cost of most of their weakened bench doesn’t seem like the most prudent option for Sean Marks right now.

Harden is trying to get traded somewhere that he can not only contend for a championship, but continue to put up 35 points a night. D’Antoni knows how to unlock the best in him, but he seems to have advised Steve Nash to steer clear.

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