James Harden Reportedly Signing Two-Year Sixers Deal with Player Option

Friday news from Shams:

Sources: James Harden is taking a $15 million paycut for next season that allowed Philadelphia to elevate roster — with sole focus on a championship run in 2023. Harden opted out of his $47M player option and now plans to sign a new two-year deal with a player option in Year 2.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 8, 2022

If he’s taking a $15 million pay cut this season that puts his salary around $32 million and leaves the Sixers a few million below the hard cap. Obviously they knew they were getting the extra money to add P.J. Tucker and Danuel House so this was already a team-friendly move from Harden, but now we finally have more information on length and terms of the new contract.

The flexibility granted from Harden taking a pay cut can’t be understated. It gave Daryl Morey a lot of front-end wiggle room and resulted in a roster that looks much better already, with the main pieces being:

• Harden
• Joel Embiid
• Tyrese Maxey
• Tobias Harris
• P.J. Tucker
• De’Anthony Melton
• Danuel House

You’ve then got $5 million going to Furkan Korkmaz and $4.3 million to Matisse Thybulle, and the Harris trade rumors are probably always going to be lingering, so we’ll keep an eye on all of that moving forward. There originally wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver based on the assumption Harden would opt-in for $47 million, but this really worked out nicely for the Sixers in the end. And from Harden’s perspective, if he has a positive year but it doesn’t really work out team-wise, then he can opt out and still sign a long-term extension somewhere else. Seems reasonable. $32 million this year and then free agency if he wants it.

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