During the off-season this summer, NBA has already produced several big deals. At present, the focus of public opinion is mainly on two big stars, one is Lillard and the other is Harden. Compared with Li’s guidance, Deng Ge’s future may be more concerned by Chinese fans, not only because of “Rocket Love”, but also because he missed many opportunities, causing him to fall into an awkward situation now.
Harden is determined to leave, but it is difficult to join the Clippers.
A full year ago, Harden jumped out of the $47.4 million player option next season to become a complete free agent, and then completed the renewal with 76 Philadelphia people. The contract was $68.2 million for 2 years, including a player option.
After the salary reduction and renewal, Harden originally thought that he could get a four-year 0.21 billion-year top salary contract from 76 people this summer, but 76 people didn’t care about this at all, I didn’t communicate with him before the free agent market opened. According to Ramona Shelburne, Deng Ge was disappointed and felt frustrated by betraying Harden, so he decided to execute the player option of $35.6 million in the last year and applied to the 76ers to leave the team.
Originally, Houston Rockets were the bargaining chip of Harden’s negotiation. It was widely rumored that he might return to his old boss, but the Rockets quickly withdrew from the harden battle and finalized van vlitt, the commander of the Raptors, So Deng Ge suddenly became passive, you can only turn the target to the Los Angeles Clippers.
Harden wanted to form a new three giants with Leonard and George, but the Clippers were not optimistic about him. They were not willing to match high-quality young players and picks, and they were only willing to exchange them with expired contracts. Moreover, Brother Deng is not qualified to renew his contract with any team, and his team can only get Harden’s one-year right to use it, and he will become a free player in Mingxia.
Therefore, there was no progress in the negotiation between the Clippers and 76 people. Harden’s next home was still uncertain, but in any case, he might not be able to get the desired top salary contract.
I missed many opportunities, Harden was too embarrassed
In fact, Harden had many chances to get a better contract, but he missed it himself.
As early as 2017, Harden met the terms of the designated veteran and reached an early renewal of $0.17 billion for 4 years with the rocket. Plus the original contract, he could get $0.228 billion for 6 years, until it expired in 2023, which was the biggest contract of NBA at that time.
In 2020, the Rockets offered Harden a two-year top salary of 0.103 billion dollars to renew the contract, but Harden refused and applied for a deal to pursue the championship in basketable nets. However, Yogueta promised to renew the contract at that time, so the annual salary was as high as $50 million, which fully met his requirements this summer.
Before the start of the 2021-22 season, I saw Harden perform well basketable nets and offered him a renewal contract of 0.161 billion dollars for 3 years, with a salary of nearly 60 million dollars in the last year! But Harden didn’t agree, because he wanted to wait until he became a free agent in 2022 before renewing the contract. By then, he could sign a contract of up to 4 years and 0.223 billion dollars!
However, in February 2022, Harden moved to 76 people for the championship. He only signed for 2 years and 60 million, and reduced his salary for “love” by 15 million to help the team get Tucker and house! In the 2022-24 season, Brother Deng only earned 68.6 million dollars. How much can he earn in the next two years? Still unknown.
Hard to hide, does Harden still have a top salary?
On August this year, Harden will be 34 years old. In fact, the age is not too big. Yogueta games can still hit 30 +, even if it is 25 +, even in the playoffs, it still performs poorly, there will also be many teams waiting in line to give him a big contract or even a top salary, which must include 76 people.
However, last season, Harden’s regular season only scored 21 points, 6.1 rebounds and 10.7 assists, with a sharp decline in scoring ability. It was different from the average of 34.3 points in the 2019-20 season, and the playoffs dropped to 20.3 points, 6.2 rebounds and 8.3 assists.
More importantly, Harden played extremely unstable and became invisible at the critical moment. He had two 40 + matches against Celtics in 7 matches, however, the remaining 5 games were less than 20 points, especially the G7 life-and-death battle, which unexpectedly only scored 9 points, with only 11 shots in total, which was very disappointing.
I have to say, now Harden’s performance on the court is getting worse and worse, the advantages are infinitely reduced, the original weakness is infinitely enlarged, and the character is still difficult to be a big responsibility, so in the strong team, it can only be reduced to the No. 2 or even No. 3 star. A weak team like a rocket does not think that he has enough leadership temperament to lead the team to rebuild, so the road is getting narrower and narrower, and now it is really too embarrassing.
