The Brooklyn Nets officially push the reset on their failed superteam last week, when they traded away both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.
The development reverberated throughout the NBA, including with Sixers star James Harden, who had an infamously brief stay with the Nets during a particularly notable iteration of the Irving-Durant superteam.
After forcing his way off a rebuilding Rockets squad midway through the 2020-21 season, Harden landed with the Nets in January 2021. The honeymoon was short-lived, though, and Harden requested a trade out of Brooklyn about a year later. The 10-time All-Star was widely ripped for his apparent team-hopping, but the recent teardown of the Nets has further convinced Harden that he made the right decision.
"I didn't just ask to leave for no reason," Harden told reporters after the Sixers' win over the Nets on Saturday night. "I was in a really good place in Houston. Obviously, we didn't have a chance to win a championship, but I was comfortable. So for me to up and leave my family, all the things I created there, to come to Brooklyn for a year and a half to try to just get up and leave, it was for a reason, you know what I mean? But I'm happy for the organization and what they've got back. They got some really good pieces."
The 33-year-old former Thunder, Rockets and Nets star added that there were "a lot of things" the Nets could have done to keep him in the fold, but cited "a lot of dysfunction" for his exit.
"Like, a lot of things. But it was just a lot of dysfunction. Clearly. But it was a lot of internal things that I'm not going to ever just say, put in the media or anything. And that was one of the reasons why I chose to make my decision.
"But now, fast-forward to date, I don't look like the crazy one. I don't look like the guy or the quitter or whatever the media want to call me. I knew what was going on and I just decided to ... hey, I'm not built for this. I don't want to deal with that. I want to play basketball and have fun and enjoy doing it. And fast-forward to today, they've got a whole new roster."
Harden acknowledged that his short-lived stint with the Nets was "frustrating" because of what could have been for a lineup that that boasted three Hall of Fame-type talents on the floor together. However, they ultimately suited up for just 16 games together owing to injuries and Irving being unavailable to play due to his vaccination status.
"It's a lot of what-ifs, I think when you play less than 20 games together. So it's a little bit frustrating, but it is what it is. Hopefully, everybody's in a good place now and we can move on."
Ultimately, Harden said, the Irving-Durant Nets just weren't the right fit for him.
"It was wrong," Harden said. "It definitely ... it was wrong. It wasn't right."
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