James Harden Traded to Sixers for Ben Simmons

The Nets have agreed to commerce guard James Harden, a former Most Beneficial Participant Award winner, to the Philadelphia 76ers for a package deal centered on Ben Simmons, the previous All-Star level guard who has not performed this season for private causes, in keeping with two folks with information of the deal who weren’t licensed to talk publicly.

ESPN was the primary to report the information. The deal was anticipated to be accomplished Thursday night.

The beautiful commerce brings a couple of sudden and surprising finish to the famous person grouping of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and Harden, who have been, on paper, main some of the proficient groups ever. However the three stars had hardly ever performed collectively since Harden was acquired from Houston final season, partly due to accidents and partly due to Irving’s refusal to be vaccinated in opposition to Covid-19, which has made him ineligible to play in dwelling video games in Brooklyn.

The Nets can even obtain Seth Curry, a sharpshooting guard; Andre Drummond, a backup heart and probably the greatest rebounders in N.B.A. historical past; and two first-round picks. The Nets are additionally buying and selling Paul Millsap, a four-time All-Star who hasn’t performed a lot this season.

Simmons has but to take the ground this season. Sixers Coach Doc Rivers and the All-Star heart Joel Embiid criticized Simmons after a poor exhibiting in final season’s playoffs. In November, Simmons’s agent, Wealthy Paul, told The Athletic that the strain had taken a toll on Simmons’s psychological well being, and that he wasn’t able to play basketball.

If he is ready to play now, the Nets may use him. They’ve been in a free fall, dropping 9 in a row coming into Thursday night time’s sport in opposition to the Washington Wizards — dropping them to eighth place within the Jap Convention. Durant hasn’t performed since Jan. 15 due to a knee harm, whereas Harden has been out with a hamstring harm since Feb. 2, when he turned in a listless 4-point efficiency in opposition to the Sacramento Kings. Irving has solely appeared in 12 of the Nets’ 54 video games.

The commerce will reunite Harden with Daryl Morey, the president of basketball operations for Philadelphia. They final labored collectively in Houston, the place Morey was the overall supervisor.