Clippers' James Harden opens up on what happened with Daryl Morey

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The saga between James Harden and the Philadelphia 76ers was a soap opera throughout the summer of 2023. It began with Harden opting into his $35.6 million player option for the 2023-24 season not to remain in Philadelphia, but to facilitate a trade. The Sixers could not move Harden until Halloween when they finally sent him to the Los Angeles Clippers in a deal that netted four players as well as draft assets. The events leading up to the trade included Harden calling President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey a “liar” while on an Adidas tour, him missing media day as well as the first day of training camp, and him not playing in any preseason or regular season games before the deal. Now settling in with the Clippers, Harden revealed to The Athletic’s Sam Amick in a sit-down interview that Morey told him he was going to get the max. When Harden did not hear from Morey after the Game 7 elimination loss to the Boston Celtics, that’s when things changed for him. Harden told Amick: Yeah, me and Daryl had a really good relationship. So (in the past), a week or two after we lose in the playoffs, it would be all about trying to figure out how to improve the team. (They’d talk about) ‘How do we get better?’ And that’s been going on for 10-plus years, you know what I mean? And then this year, there was no communication. And at that point, it’s like, ‘OK, I see what’s going on.’ I’m very intelligent. So then I just figure out ‘What’s my next move, and what do I want to do?’ So I understand that, at the end of the day, this is a business. And just like he has to do what’s best for his organization, I’ve got to do what’s best for me and my family. It’s as simple as that. In Morey’s defense, he had been hit with multiple tampering charges in the past for violating the league’s negotiating window policy. Therefore, there wasn’t much he could do in terms of negotiations with Harden. He did not want to risk getting hit with another tampering charge and he cannot be blamed for that. Daryl Morey addresses relationship with James Harden after Sixers trade After Harden opted into his deal, he told Amick that Morey revealed to him that he would be traded quickly. Obviously, that did not happen as he told Amick: It was just patience, because the day that I opted in, there was a conversation and communication (with the Sixers) about it being a 10-day process. This was gonna happen within 10 days, and then it got dragged out for four and a half months or however long it was. So at that point, you’re holding my life up, holding everybody else’s life up. You’re making it look crazier than what it is. And something that we had internal conversations about is basically dragging out, so it was a little frustrating. Again, in Morey’s defense, he has to do what’s best for the Sixers. While one could assume that he would have liked to get a deal done sooner rather than later, it didn’t work out that way. He needed to wait for the right deal to come along. The Clippers and the Sixers were able to work out a deal for Harden, and now, both sides can move on. Robert Covington moves up on Sixers' list of games with 5 steals4 trade candidates Sixers should look into before the deadlineLou Williams calls out Doug Collins for breaking up, ruining 2012 Sixers
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Source: https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/2023/12 ... ryl-morey/