Pros of Nets’ James Harden Trade
Quite simply, this is the greatest Big Three ever assembled in NBA history? Ignore the defensive deficiencies. Block out the ill-conceived comparisons to Brooklyn dumping their future for an aging pairing of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.
This is three in-the-prime scoring machines under the same roof. Nobody’s aging five years overnight. If you’re ever going to surrender your future for a win-now move, it might as well be in the winningest move conceivable by law.
In his most recent full season (age 30!), Harden averaged 34.3 points per game, following full seasons of 36.1 and 30.4 points per game, all league-leading metrics. This is not simply a great volume scorer. This is a transcendent machine whose occasional olé defense gets massacred because we must find fault with the league’s most unstoppable bucket-getter.
In this trio, who is the weak link? Who is the Chris Bosh? Is it Irving, who averaged 27.4 points per game last year, is a six-time All-Star, and has already hit the Finals-winning shot to cap an historic upset? Is it Durant, whose only weakness is his previous Achilles recovery, which seems to be going pretty well, and which can feature more rest moving forward, now that James Harden has joined the roster to remove some scoring burden.
Being hawkish on this team doesn’t take a lot of work. Mortgaging the future feels like a meaningless analytical platitude when the present could result in multiple championships, without a lot of mental gymnastics.
Of course, there are downsides to removing a long string of pieces from the roster.