James Harden avoiding 76ers issue motivated by hope of Clippers trade

The situation surrounding James Harden and the Philadelphia 76ers went from being concerning and somewhat confusing to extremely public and ugly in the matter of one public announcement by the 10-time NBA All-Star. 

After Harden publicly called Sixers president Daryl Morey a "liar" while speaking to fans in China, it essentially removed any (minor) hope that Sixers fans may have felt about the two sides working things out.

But as we've seen since that point, Harden hasn't opted to clarify those comments — not yet, at least. And according to The Athletic's Sam Amick, the guard told league investigators that his reference to Morey being a "liar" related to the team not fulfilling his trade request — not in reference to what is rumored to be a huge contract he believed would come after he gave up roughly $15M last summer to help the team.

Whether or not that's the case is unknown, but as Amick reported, there's a reason Harden has opted not to take this route and completely go all-in on trashing the team and, specifically, Morey — his desire to be traded to the Los Angeles Clippers.

As I understand it, his choice to steer clear of this subplot has everything to do with his hope of getting traded to the Clippers. It doesn’t help his chances of getting what he so desperately wants, in other words, if he goes all-in on Morey and the Sixers. But does that mean he’ll never raise that topic again? Of course not.