Harden changes his roadmap

When the term for the players to exercise or not exercise their player optionsthe unilateral clauses to cover his last years of contract, news came from two of the most potent, since Russell Westbrook had already confirmed that he would execute his to collect 47 million dollars next season. The point guard, for whom the Lakers are looking for a new destination, knows that his market is at a minimum. But that’s not the case James Harden and Bradley Beal, who have chosen not to exercise two player option very juicy: 47.3 and 36.4 million. It is about maximizing your economic options and, in the case of the first, also sports.

Harden (32 years old) had in his hand to guarantee those 47.3 million and from there wait for the summer of 2023 to be a free agent or negotiate an extension with the Philadelphia 76ers. Everything indicated that the latter would be his roadmap, but The beard has preferred not to take advantage of the player option and become a free agent. There is literally no doubt that he will stay with the Sixers.. But with this move and what will be a new longer contract but for less total in the annual amount, the franchise is going to gain a lot of oxygen to try to reshape its rotation around Joel Embiid and a Harden thus demonstrating commitment to the sports project and willingness to seek the championship ring that continues to resist him. Shams Charania (The Athletic) has also assured that Harden is already working on his set-up and that he is following a more demanding routine than that of previous summers.

The Sixers, in a hurry in the economic accounts, will sign Harden’s new contract (no details are known) and will try to make a team that breaks the damn: Four of the last five years have resulted in second-round exits. Harden will add more than those 47 million to the total of his new contract, without a doubt, and shows a commitment to Embiid and the Sixers who took him over in the winter market, rescuing him from the Nets fiasco and the atomic big three that the shooting guard should have formed with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Harden is no longer the unstoppable player he was on the Houston Rockets. Last season he averaged 22 points and 10.3 assists in regular season and in the playoffs it fell to 18.6 and 8.6, with a poor 40% shooting from the field and 4.2 turnovers per night.

Beal and the temptation of the new big contract

The case of Bradley Beal (29 years old) is different, although it is also based on not accepting his player option, in his case 36.4 million. The number 3 in the 2012 draft (Harden was 3 in 2009) has been at the Washington Wizards for a decade, and in recent weeks he has debated between loyalty to his team and the highest possible salary return, on the one hand, and the option of play in a project of maximum ambition in the key stage of his career, on the other. In his case, the certainty that he will return to his team now that he is going to be a free agent is not total as it is with Harden. But yes, it is long the option expected by all: the Wizards can give him 248 million in a maximum contract for five years. In other teams he could only sign for four seasons and a total of 184 million.

Beal, under normal conditions, will take advantage of being your moment to sign a contract of more than 200 million. Last season he only played 40 games due to a wrist injury (23.2 points on average), but in the previous two it moved above 30 per night, with 31.3 in the 2020-21 academic year. The Wizards move to surround their franchise player. With the number 10 of the last draft they got the guard Johnny Davis and have just completed a trade in which they have sent Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Ish Smith to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Monte Morris and Will Barton.