NBA Rumors: Nets, Rockets Reportedly Have ‘Verbal Agreement’ On James Harden Trade
Just two years after James Harden captured MVP honors and fell one win short of taking the Houston Rockets to the 2018 NBA Finals, the 31-year-old may be on the verge of joining a new team.
According to a report from Anthony Puccio of Front Office Sports, sources around the association believe that the Rockets and the Brooklyn Nets have come to a verbal agreement on a trade that would send Harden to the Eastern Conference, where he would join forces with his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate, Kevin Durant.
Puccio’s report did not provide any concrete information on who the Nets might part with as compensation. Furthermore, there is a dearth of other outlets jumping on the story, as of this writing. However, Puccio has gotten the jump on other major Nets-centric developments in the past.
Reporting for SportsNet New York in 2019, he was one of the first to indicate that there was a level of mutual interest between Brooklyn and free-agent-to-be Kyrie Irving well before the multi-time All-Star signed on to become the club’s new floor general that summer.
Meanwhile, Harden’s future in Houston has been in doubt since head coach Mike D’Antoni and general manager Daryl Morey both left the team in recent months. More recently, the three-time league scoring champion and 2017 assist king was said by ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski to have rejected a two-year, $103 million extension offer from Houston.
Per Wojnarowski, the 6-foot-5-inch, 220-pound combo guard has made it clear to Rockets ownership that he’s “singularly focused on a trade to the Brooklyn Nets.” The league insider further indicated that conversations between Harden, Durant and Irving have been ramping up in recent weeks.
After playing the part of a franchise focused on the development of young players under head coach Kenny Atkinson from 2016 to 2019, the Nets made a hard pivot into win-now mode last offseason by inking both Durant and Irving. However, the team’s title hopes were put on hold this past season as both players dealt with significant injuries.
In the end, the Nets stumbled to a 35-37 record and a No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference in 2019-20. They were subsequently swept out of postseason play by the Toronto Raptors.
Nevertheless, the organization’s decision-makers have continued to gear up for a big run in ’20-21, hiring former two-time MVP and Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash as head coach. He went on to bring D’Antoni on-board as an assistant.
