“Me and James are still close. He’s like a big brother,” Maxey said. “As soon as he came in here, he embraced me. He taught me a lot. All he’s done here is elevate my game.”
The Sixers acquired Harden from the Brooklyn Nets in 2021-22. Philadelphia lost to the Miami Heat in the 2022 Eastern Conference Semifinals and fell to the Boston Celtics in the 2023 semifinals. Harden is averaging 21.0 points, 6.4 rebounds and 10.6 assists in 79 games with the Sixers.
Maxey is one of the top young players in the NBA. He averaged 20.3 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists last season while shooting 48.1% from the field, 43.4% from beyond the arc and 84.5% from the free-throw line.
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This pairs well with his comments on JJ Reddicks podcast;
“He didn’t make it weird at all,” Maxey said on ‘The Old Man and the Three’ Podcast. “He came in and was very like… Just not what I expected. I’m going to be honest, just not what I expected. He was very receptive. He worked hard, he did all the drills. He was talking to even young guys that he didn’t know. Think about; James Harden, MVP, scoring champ, two-time assist leader, he’s sitting there talking to guys like Ricky Council like, ‘Hey, when you’re in help, you should do this,’ And I’m like, this is not what I was picturing.”
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These two have a great bromance and Harden clearly loved mentoring him. too bad Daryl Morey a whole bitch
sorry bro but they’re going to ignore this as it doesn’t fit into the agenda of harden being a quitter and team cancer that they’ve been circlejerking for the last few months
Players like other players. Kyrie is one of the most beloved players when it comes to teammates. You can be liked by your teammates and still be a team cancer.
Yeah I’m sure the Celtic players loved their time with Kyrie just like Harden
i followed some of the teams hardens been on but havent followed the drama with morey at all
he always seemed pretty laid back to me
Players love him. He has disappeared and been detrimental in the last two playoff runs when it got to nut crunching time.
And Embiid hasn’t? All of this starts with him.
Embiid and Maxey scored 60 in game 6. Harden decided to hero ball at the end of game and lost it. We aren’t having this convo if he just played bad and not horrible that game
This is for harden, maxey knowing they could be traded together.
Players, including Maxey, are definitely watching how this Harden saga plays out. News flash, they’re on Harden’s side. Morey is digging his and the Sixers own grave right now.
Facts, always good to remember that at the end of the day, this is the players’ job, and the workers always should take the side of the workers over the management.
Morey has no choice but to do everything he can to maximize the return for Harden. Philly has to make another move after that and they need assets they don’t currently have to make such a move.
He’s not a bad guy here. He’s doing what any GM has to do in this situation.
Maybe but I also think he gets Morey’s perspective as he wants to win as well
I suspect a lot of players are very savvy about understanding the NBA from a roster and team construction standpoint as so much of NBA media is centered on that aspect of the game now
There’s a good chance waiting it out till the deadline is their best move and it gets him a lot more shots in the meantime so we’ll see how the team responds
What’s Morey gonna do with that cap space? The same thing he does whenever he has had cap space? The same things he’s done his whole career when he’s had cap space, sign no one of note (I’ll concede D12 though, but that was on the back of harden and parsons, not Morey)
He’s about to go out to “get some smokes”!
I mean what do we expect him to say about his co-worker? “Dude’s a fucking bum. Can’t wait till they get rid of his ass!”
Would be pretty funny tho
If you watched the Sixers play after the all-star break in after Harden got there, you could see all the things Maxey learned from him day 1. Harden was pressing on him to be more aggressive, that he could go out there and put up 30 and how that would actually help out guys like him and Embiid more. I swear Maxey was not this good at hitting the 3 until playing with Harden and felt like he was doing the step back on like day 3 of playing with him. There’s no doubt Harden made him into a better player and props for Maxey for wanting to learn and taking playing with Harden seriously, knowing any knowledge would up his game. Harden was def on his best behavior when he got to Philly and Maxey took full advantage of the “wiseman of the game passing on knowledge” persona Harden was putting on.
That being said, it did feel like last year they kind of got in the way of each other. Not personally, but just basketball wise. Although that could also be up to Doc. The fact that they had to put Maxey on the bench because there just wasn’t enough shots for Harden/Embiid/Maxey to take in a starting lineup was just wild to me. And it doesn’t look like Harden would really work in Nurse’s scheme. I still think Harden will play and I think he won’t be traded until the deadline, but this new Sixers are just so fun to watch and I hope we don’t go back to what it was before.
Harden seems like he was absolutely beloved by some and the others just tolerated him. It’s a shame a guy like Maxey, who clearly loves the dude and appreciates the time he got with him, has to talk about the ugly business of the Sixers.