James Harden has been heavily linked with a move to the Brooklyn Nets a couple of weeks after the Houston Rockets were eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2020 NBA playoffs. Harden reportedly wants out of Houston and his preferred destination will be Brooklyn, where he’d reunite with former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Kevin Durant.
If somehow the Nets unlock negotiations with the Rockets without giving one of their current superstars, Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Nets would form a Big 3, something dangerous for the rest of the league. Plenty of people believe this is a match made in heaven, but not everybody is sold on that idea. For instance, a former player has explained why having Kyrie and Harden on the court at the same time will be a problem for the Nets.
2004 NBA champion Rasheed Wallace broke down why Kyrie and Harden can’t play together in the Nets or any other team.
“I don’t think that would work,” he said on the WFAN’s Moose & Maggie show on Wednesday, via USA Today.
“Because look at the two players. You got James Harden, we all know that he’s a scoring machine, instant offense. But, he demands to have the ball. He has to have the ball in his hands to be effective. It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen James Harden lined up in the corner, waiting for the ball to get to him for a three. You’re dealing with Kyrie, as well. Kyrie, of course, being the point guard that he is, he’s a little bit more of a facilitator than James Harden, I think. But, in my opinion, I don’t know if you can have both of them out there on the floor — because they need to have that ball in their hands too much to be effective.”
Wallace is not wrong with his remarks and seeing how bad it was for James Harden to play alongside Russell Westbrook last season, one imagines that’s going to happen again in Brooklyn. Some could say he and Kyrie played well on Team USA in 2014, but that is a completely different situation. Team USA had no competition that year and they could have any player on the floor, scoring points over their rivals without any problem.
In Brooklyn, they’ll have to go against the best players in the world, shared across other 29 teams. That would be a complex situation for the Nets and the only solution is that they two or three counting Kevin Durant change their style of play. If they want to win, that’s the path they have to follow. Otherwise, they would just make the list of the worst superteams ever assembled.
Recently, one fan explained how the Nets’ offense would look with Harden and Kyrie and to be honest, it’s hard to say that’s false.
