James Harden is still a member of the Houston Rockets. Despite the fact that he wants out of dodge to go compete for a championship somewhere, the Rockets have held firm, making it clear that they will not make a bad deal just to part ways with a player who is under contract through next season.
Harden has apparently made clear he’d accept a trade to any number of teams, and yet he’s still with the Rockets. The reason, as Adrian Wojnarowski made clear on ESPN’s Hoop Streams, is that Houston has a handful of offers for him on the table, they just don’t like any of them, and they are willing to wait for something right.
“The Rockets know that, to make a James Harden trade, they’ve got to get maximum value back in the trade market,” Wojnarowski said. “They don’t need to rush this contract — obviously they have him under contract for two more years. They don’t want this cloud to hang over them, it is a difficult situation in Houston right now for them to function, but I think as an organization, they know that they can’t do a bad deal. And right now, the deals that they see out there in the marketplace feel like they’re not good enough, and I think that they hope that those offers will improve as teams get into the season and teams, maybe they’ve overestimated the group they had. Maybe they start to feel a little pressure to really, dramatically improve their team, offers improve in that way.”
Reporting has indicated that Houston both has a high asking price and is “willing to get uncomfortable” with Harden, who has certainly challenged them in recent weeks by going to public events without a mask on. Still, he’s a member of the Rockets and appears set to be for a while … unless, of course, one of the other 29 teams decide to go all-in.