As the Philadelphia 76ers move forward with their title quest under the guidance of new coach Nick Nurse, there are plenty of questions that still need to be answered. The biggest one still revolves around James Harden and what comes next for the future Hall of Famer in free agency.
Nurse mentioned that he had a talk with Harden and he made his own pitch to try and keep The Beard in Philadelphia rather than bolt back to the Houston Rockets or anywhere else. The Beard is not the same ruthless scorer he once was, but he has shown flashes that he can come out when he needs to bring it out and he is still an elite playmaker averaging a league-leading 10.7 assists per game.
Nurse hopped on “The Hoop Collective” podcast and gave his thoughts on maximizing Harden and the Sixers as they all move forward:
Nurse on Harden
I met with him. Really good talk. I mean, you guys obviously know him and have talked to him quite a bit. He’s an intelligent player. Man. He’s an intelligent player he sees a lot in the game and just when we talk about things, he’s kind of the same thing almost like he says, ‘How do you see it? How do you see our team? And what do you think of the playoffs?’ and just kind of start talking basketball, and he’s very enjoyable to talk basketball with, like I said, very, very smart, and that’ll add a lot of experience, a lot of success, and I would say the same thing. I mean, it (Harden and Joel Embiid) is a deadly inside-outside combination. It is a deadly pick-and-roll combination and just what other things can we do—what other areas of the offensive side can we do to polish that, make them even more efficient, not in those kinds of actions, but maybe other actions , you know? And then what’s the best thing we can do defensively to max those guys out?
On Harden’s Round 2 performance and getting more out of the roster
I would say there isn’t a whole lot of guys that can do the performance, some of those performances that he did in the playoffs, right? Steph (Curry) had one, (Jayson) Tatum had one James had a couple, nobody’s doing that every night nor should they or should they be expected to…like (Tyrese) Maxey. He’s got to take a level up. He’s got to he’s got to play in some of those other games when those guys aren’t firing or the game plan has changed or whatever to take those guys out a little more. Tobias (Harris), PJ Tucker will be back. I mean, there’s guys around there that can help. (De’Anthony) Melton you know, those guys got to do what some of these Nugget guys are doing. Have some big time. performances in some of the playoff games as well.
The podcast in full
Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire