PHILADELPHIA — Daryl Morey’s only leverage is the impression that he is already drawing dead.
The Sixers are not going to be able to compete with the Celtics or the Heat and probably not the Bucks. It makes no difference to them if they trade James Harden or not. Worse comes to worst, he gets $35 million and they get his salary off the books. Anybody who wants that to happen a year ahead of time needs to pay for the privilege.
The longer it goes without that happening, the more leverage Morey has. Harden gets closer to the point where it’s worth playing for somebody rather than nobody. The Sixers get closer to the point where he is officially a sunk cost. Everyone else gets closer to a point where they are the team they are instead of the team they could be with Harden.
That’s the Sixers’ leverage. That’s the reason to hope that the current debacle ends in positive value. It’s not much. But it’s something.
Chances are, the outcome has already been decided. Morey may not be ready to admit it. The mystery team may not be ready to admit it. But there’s a pretty good chance that everybody on both sides knows what’s going to happen. The Sixers are going to insist on Terrence Mann. The Clippers are going to insist that he won’t be traded. Both teams are going to know that there’s a deal that will get a deal done: Norman Powell, another form of bloated salary, some form of draft compensation. The Sixers walk away with a player who ain’t that good but makes them better than they would be if they subtracted Harden for something else, plus something for their troubles. The Clippers walk away with a chance to make the last half decade worth it.
YOLO, as the kids say.
But, just for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend that the obvious doesn’t end up happening. There’s a price where the Sixers are just as well off letting Harden rot on the vine for a year than they are giving him away. There’s also a price where Harden is just as well off spending a year in a city where he doesn’t want to be playing for a team that he doesn’t want to play for.
It’s the Kawhi Leonard scenario.
In a lot of negotiations, there comes a point where it makes sense for both sides to do something that wouldn’t have made any sense at some earlier point in the negotiation. For Leonard and the Toronto Raptors, that point came in July 2018, roughly a month after the then-Spurs star requested out of San Antonio. The conventional wisdom said that Leonard was going to end up with the Clippers or Lakers. He was determined to play in his hometown of Los Angeles. He was a year from free agency. But, at the end of the day, the Spurs held his rights.
It was a fascinating case study for game theory aficionados. The more pre-ordained an outcome appears, the less traction there is toward a deal. Why would the Clippers (or Lakers) sacrifice anything of value if Leonard wanted to play for them anyway?
Enter the Raptors.
Toronto wasn’t a destination team. Pretty much the opposite of that. But Toronto had the ability to offer the Spurs a deal that made the most sense for both sides: Leonard and defensive stalwart Danny Green for All-Star scorer DeMar DeRozan, starting center Jakob Poeltl, and a protected first-round pick. Not only did the Spurs go 48-34 the next year, they later included DeRozan and Poeltl in deals that netted them a total of three future first-round picks.
It all worked out.
Leonard ended up spending a year in Toronto and winning a championship with the Raptors even though both sides went into the arrangement acknowledging that they would be perfectly content if it only lasted one year. The Raptors have remained competitive since Leonard left. The Spurs missed the playoffs for four straight seasons but wound up with an (alleged) transcendental prospect plus a young base of talent despite never fully embracing the tank. They also have a potential six first-round draft picks over the next two years, and multiple ones in future drafts.
The Sixers are in a spot that reminds me of where the Spurs were with Leonard. It isn’t completely similar. Leonard had more incentive to play somewhere, anywhere in 2018-19 because he had barely played the year before. He needed to show that he was healthy and worthy. He did that and more. With Harden, there’s a lot less mystery. He has shown who he is, for better or for worse. He has much more leeway to front as if he would sit out a season rather than play in a less-than-ideal situation. At the same time, there really isn’t an ideal situation for him right now.
Wherever Harden goes, he will be going there mostly because he does not want to be where he is. That’s why the opt in was so strange: he is essentially taking the same year off that the Sixers will likely be forced to take now that he is leaving. Everyone is in a holding pattern.
It’s interesting. The only thing you can pretty much rule out in a situation like this is Harden returning to the Sixers. There comes a point where everything else is on the table.
Take, for example, the Spurs of 2023: they have enough first-round picks over the next two years that they will likely end up wasting some. They also the (alleged) most transcendental draft pick since LeBron James, plus an intriguing base of young talent, plus a 74-year-old coach who isn’t getting any younger, plus $30+ million in cap room. They also happen to be close to Houston, if that really does matter to Harden.
Or, take the Timberwolves, who could easily talk themselves into a one-year championship window if they paired Harden with Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert while trading away Karl-Anthony Towns for additional pieces.
Could the Pelicans fool themselves into thinking a Harden deal makes sense?
Probability wise, I don’t think any of this happens. Conventional wisdom exists for a reason. The Rockets, Clippers, and Suns have always been the three teams that make the most sense beyond the Sixers. Point is, those teams don’t make enough sense for a deal to have happened yet. And that creates a space for something unforeseen to happen.
It’s already clear that the Sixers won’t be winning the offseason, with Damian Lillard potentially ending up in Miami and the Celtics acquiring Kristaps Porzingis. They can easily get to the point where their greatest leverage is that they have nothing left to lose.
