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In an appearance on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, Brian Windhorst said the Philadelphia 76ers do not want to pay James Harden the maximum that they are allowed in free agency.

“The 76ers have not shown an appetite to pay Harden the max; that’s why they asked him to take a pay cut last year,” Windhorst reported. "The Sixers are not really motivated to pay him that max salary if they don’t think anybody else is going to do it.

Harden is eligible to sign a four-year deal with the Sixers for over $210 million. Harden's max deal with another team would be for $201.7 million over four years. Harden is functionally limited to signing a four-year contract due to the Over-38 rule.

Via Brian Windhorst/ESPN

I would like the Sixers to pay James Harden the max

Rightfully so. Harden doesn't deserve the max. But someone other than the Raptors should totally do it for the lols.

I can definitely see Harden being even more enthusiastic playing in his late thirties. The teams that don't offer him the max are silly billies.

4/210 m? he need to stop shooting 4/21 first

If a "superstar" can't even get you to the Conference Finals alongside an MVP, and he's about to be 34 and has been notoriously out of shape and goes to strip clubs during playoff series... then yeah, I wouldn't pay him the max either.

Chi Dynasty12 wrote:If a "superstar" can't even get you to the Conference Finals alongside an MVP, and he's about to be 34 and has been notoriously out of shape and goes to strip clubs during playoff series... then yeah, I wouldn't pay him the max either.

Harden has only been out of shape when he's trying to get traded from a bad situation. Otherwise his conditioning is always great. Embiid on the other hand has never had great conditioning even this year his MVP year

RealGM Wiretap wrote:“The 76ers have not shown an appetite to pay Harden the max; that’s why they asked him to take a pay cut last year,” Windhorst reported. "The Sixers are not really motivated to pay him that max salary if they don’t think anybody else is going to do it.

So, what else are the 76ers going to do with the money?

Buy a team Yacht?

I'm all for owners trying to act financially rational, but you'd better have a "plan B".

We know what happened when OKC wanted to pay Harden a bit less than he was asking. We know what happened when the 76er's wanted some assurances from Jimmy Butler before they'd offer him the max.

kendogg wrote:

Chi Dynasty12 wrote:If a "superstar" can't even get you to the Conference Finals alongside an MVP, and he's about to be 34 and has been notoriously out of shape and goes to strip clubs during playoff series... then yeah, I wouldn't pay him the max either.

Harden has only been out of shape when he's trying to get traded from a bad situation. Otherwise his conditioning is always great. Embiid on the other hand has never had great conditioning even this year his MVP year

I definitely think having Embiid as you #1 is a bigger issue than having Harden as your #2. Harden lead the NBA in APG, which allowed Embiid to lead the NBA in PPG, which lead to a pretty suspect MVP award.

The three wins in the Conf-Semi's were two Harden games and a Maxey game. Embiid shot 43% in the playoffs, which is pretty much garbage for a center. Their stat lines in the conf-semi's:

Embiid: 26/9/2 on 42% shooting
Harden: 22/7/8 on 42% shooting

It's hard to say one played better than the other... but they clearly deserve each other.

I wouldn't either

Why would anyone?

Will be interesting to see if they do it anyway (or come awfully close).

dougthonus wrote:Will be interesting to see if they do it anyway (or come awfully close).

I actually haven't heard him demand a max. He may be happy with a long term descending deal starting at $35-40. I think if he leaves it will be more about not believing in Embiid than it will be about money.

Pickled Prunes wrote:

dougthonus wrote:Will be interesting to see if they do it anyway (or come awfully close).

I actually haven't heard him demand a max. He may be happy with a long term descending deal starting at $35-40. I think if he leaves it will be more about not believing in Embiid than it will be about money.

If I were Harden, I'd take as much money as I could get from whoever offers it.

You've got two real choices IMO:
1: Take as much money as possible
2: Basically play for the TMLE on the best team that will take you to win a title as their 4th or 5th best player and still probably not win a title

Now I got know idea what someone with nearly a 271M in career earnings + whatever in endorsements thinks about another 200M vs 20M with a 20% better chance at a ring, but I'd just bank the max and play on Houston if they gave it to me. Odds are things are going to go south super fast in Philly either way, and no other good team even has the option to pay you.

An additional 100M or so is still a pretty big chunk of change relative to his career earnings if Houston's willing to go max and Philly's cutting you off at 100M and a team with a real chance to win can only offer you 20M.

dougthonus wrote:

Pickled Prunes wrote:

dougthonus wrote:Will be interesting to see if they do it anyway (or come awfully close).

I actually haven't heard him demand a max. He may be happy with a long term descending deal starting at $35-40. I think if he leaves it will be more about not believing in Embiid than it will be about money.

If I were Harden, I'd take as much money as I could get from whoever offers it.

You've got two real choices IMO:
1: Take as much money as possible
2: Basically play for the TMLE on the best team that will take you to win a title as their 4th or 5th best player and still probably not win a title

Now I got know idea what someone with nearly a 271M in career earnings + whatever in endorsements thinks about another 200M vs 20M with a 20% better chance at a ring, but I'd just bank the max and play on Houston if they gave it to me. Odds are things are going to go south super fast in Philly either way, and no other good team even has the option to pay you.

An additional 100M or so is still a pretty big chunk of change relative to his career earnings if Houston's willing to go max and Philly's cutting you off at 100M and a team with a real chance to win can only offer you 20M.

There is a lot of S&T potential out there. If I were WAS, I'd rather pay Harden 160/4 than give Beal the 207/4 that I owe him. I can also see both teams thinking it makes them better.

Harden lead the NBA in assists last season and seems willing to shoot less and be a distributor. There is a market for him outside of PHI and HOU.

Pickled Prunes wrote:There is a lot of S&T potential out there. If I were WAS, I'd rather pay Harden 160/4 than give Beal the 207/4 that I owe him. I can also see both teams thinking it makes them better.

Harden lead the NBA in assists last season and seems willing to shoot less and be a distributor. There is a market for him outside of PHI and HOU.

If Houston was willing to pay him the max, why would he sign for 4/160 in Washington? Might as well get an extra 40-50M in Houston. Washington's not going anywhere. It's not that I think Houston is the only destination, but they feel like the only destination that might be dumb enough to give him a full max.

If Houston really isn't interested in paying him a ton of money then you start looking at other scenarios.

I wouldn't want to pay him either.

dougthonus wrote:

Pickled Prunes wrote:There is a lot of S&T potential out there. If I were WAS, I'd rather pay Harden 160/4 than give Beal the 207/4 that I owe him. I can also see both teams thinking it makes them better.

Harden lead the NBA in assists last season and seems willing to shoot less and be a distributor. There is a market for him outside of PHI and HOU.

If Houston was willing to pay him the max, why would he sign for 4/160 in Washington? Might as well get an extra 40-50M in Houston. Washington's not going anywhere. It's not that I think Houston is the only destination, but they feel like the only destination that might be dumb enough to give him a full max.

If Houston really isn't interested in paying him a ton of money then you start looking at other scenarios.

Because he didn't ask for the max. He said he wanted to be competitive and to be allowed to play his game. I was illustrating one possible scenario, but it's easy to imagine Harden believing he'll have more success with Porzingis and Kuzma than with Jr, Jr and Sengun. (Obviously Kuzma's future is unknown.) I find it hard to believe that Harden thinks his addition will make either team a contender but there isn't a team in worse shape to start winning than HOU.

My point was that he has more options than the tax-MLE or HOU. But who knows, maybe he just wants to go home and winning be damned.

Pickled Prunes wrote:Because he didn't ask for the max. He said he wanted to be competitive and to be allowed to play his game. I was illustrating one possible scenario, but it's easy to imagine Harden believing he'll have more success with Porzingis and Kuzma than with Jr, Jr and Sengun. (Obviously Kuzma's future is unknown.) I find it hard to believe that Harden thinks his addition will make either team a contender but there isn't a team in worse shape to start winning than HOU.

My point was that he has more options than the tax-MLE or HOU. But who knows, maybe he just wants to go home and winning be damned.

Yeah, I guess I look at it more binary.

I'd either maximize winning or money. I'd rather win 20 games a year and get 200M than 45 games and get 160M. If I'm going to give up any money, I'd only do it for 60+ games and a very realistic shot at a title, but that requires giving up too much money.

Certainly possible that he finds the middle ground appealing.

Harden can go back to Houston where he can be "himself" as he stated to the media. Harden disappears in elimination games time and time again.

Sign back Seth Curry if possible and trade Tobias for some young players or picks.

I also feel like after the next trade deadline or next offseason 2024 we might want to trade Embiid if this "process" continues to stagnant in another 2nd rd. Loss.