James Harden on Nets after exits of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving: 'I don't look like the crazy one'
Once upon a time, there were three All-NBA players who all came together to play on a team called the Brooklyn Nets.
Many expected such a team to steamroll the Eastern Conference and potentially win multiple titles behind its trio of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden, but those players only ended up playing 16 games together due to injuries and, eventually, a trade request by Harden.
Harden wanting out was hardly the only drama in Brooklyn, though. Fast forward one year, Durant and Irving are also away from the Nets, and Harden had something to say Saturday after his Philadelphia 76ers beat the Nets 101-98.
When asked by reporters if he could have imagined Durant and Irving being gone the next time he faced the Nets, Harden said "yeah," then added "I didn't just ask to leave for no reason ... I'm happy for the organization and what they got back. They've got some really good pieces."
Harden later added some choice comments on the circumstances and perception of his exit, most notably that recent events means he no longer looks like "the crazy one":
"It was just a lot of dysfunction. Clearly. But it was a lot of internal things that I’m not going to ever just say, put in the media or anything. And that was one of the reasons why I chose to make my decision. But now, fast forward to date, I don’t look like the crazy one. I don’t look like the guy or the quitter or whatever the media want to call me. I knew what was going on and I just decided to — hey, I’m not built for this. I don’t want to deal with that. I want to play basketball and have fun and enjoy doing it. And fast forward to today, they’ve got a whole new roster."
As Harden mentions, we will probably never know exactly what went on behind closed doors that broke up a superteam in the span of a year, but enough has played out publicly that there's no denying the Nets built everything on a cracked foundation.
When Harden was traded from the Nets in Feb. 2022, Irving was still missing games due to his refusal to get vaccinated, while Yahoo Sports' Jake Fischer, then with Bleacher Report, was reporting that Harden and Durant were butting heads enough that Durant signed off on the trade.
The Nets remained chaotic and dysfunctional after Harden exited and Ben Simmons entered, getting swept in the first round of the NBA playoffs and watching Irving miss several games again for a completely avoidable reason. The whole thing came crashing down earlier this month when Irving requested a trade, later saying he felt "disrespected" by the team.
