The Embiid and Harden pairing is great, and it should’ve happened sooner

2.27.22

Jaden Rivers  

           With the Big 3 “era” in Brooklyn coming to a close you can only imagine what there is to say about James harden by this point. Given, injuries riddled the current season and postseason prior it is sad to see him jump ship like this. 

           I have a mixed bag with the beard, going from 6th man on a young exuberant team in OKC, to the head honcho in Houston filled with scoring and assist titles galore, and cant forget to mention the all star, all nba, MVP mods. His style of play can be devastatingly beautiful and painful to watch all at the same time. He looked like a shell of himself this season. Posting career lows in efficiency and output, he hadn’t looked engaged all year this season. There was hot spots and streaks but all and all with Kyrie not able to play for the first half of the season, I had wanted to see some exciting play from the beard. 

           But just for a moment let's have bygones be bygones, because the pairing of Joel Embiid changes the playing field for me. The Ben Simmons situation was muddy as we all know but it’s good to see the organization part ways all the while making both teams better. 

         In a blowout 133-102 win over the wolves, Harden and Embiid had looked like exactly what I had hoped for. I just wish we could’ve skipped the hiatus in Brooklyn and got to see them pair up from the very start. It’s sad to see Seth go, another rest stop on a very solid career, Drummond accepting his 6th man role, but if the beard wants in it was only a matter of time before Morey had his man. But please see for yourself, them too have just started and love to play with each other

       Combining for 61 pts within their first game, along with a solid outing from Maxey adding 28pts on his own. With Embiid already trotting around with a firm case for MVP, adding Harden should be fuel to the flame to the ECF. But with the stacked east one may say it won’t be easy. But all in all I’ll be along for the ride.

The Sixers play today at 1pm against the NYK