James Harden Rumors: Daryl Morey Comments Will Be 'Just the Beginning' of 76ers Saga

If you are already tired of the James Harden saga, well... buckle up.

A day after Harden called Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey a "liar" and said he would "never be a part of an organization that he's a part of" during an Adidas event in China, ESPN's Ramona Shelburne reported on NBA Today that it was only the opening salvo from the disgruntled point guard:

"Somebody said to me yesterday, 'This is only the beginning.' This is just the beginning of what Harden is going to do to make life very uncomfortable for the Philadelphia 76ers going into training camp. And I think the expectation with Harden is—Ben Simmons, they went through this with Ben Simmons. He didn't show up to camp, he left money on the table. That's not going to happen here with James Harden. This is going to be very uncomfortable. Ben Simmons didn't say anything. Ben Simmons stayed home. It was not loud. This was with a microphone, let me repeat myself. And the phrase I kept hearing was, 'This is just the beginning.'"

Harden's comments came after ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Sixers were planning to bring Harden to training camp after trade talks with the Los Angeles Clippers didn't result in a deal that interested them.

It was unclear what precisely caused Harden to call Morey a liar, with a few theories emerging. One was that Harden believed the Sixers would reward him for taking a discount on his contract last summer—in an effort to clear cap space to sign veterans like P.J. Tucker—by giving him a long-term, max extension this offseason, which didn't happen.

Another theory is that the Sixers told Harden they would work with him to find a trade if he opted in to his player option—or agreed to work with him on a trade after he opted in—and such a deal never came to fruition.

From the Sixers' perspective, Harden is 33, missed 24 games last season to injury, has clearly lost a step and ran out of gas by the end of the Boston Celtics series, leading to yet another second-round exit in the playoffs. Signing him to a long-term, max extension could have ended disastrously as he continued to age.

If Harden was worth a max extension on the market, he would have signed one. But such an offer didn't come to fruition, and he chose to opt into his player option. That, in turn, limited his leverage to his current attempts to force a trade out of Philadelphia, seemingly by any means necessary.

Now, if the Sixers either promised Harden a max extension and then reneged, or told him they would trade him to the Clippers if he opted in, it's a bad look and the sort of thing that will negatively stick to both Morey's and the organization's reputation with other players around the league.

But if no wink-wink promise was made about a max extension behind closed doors—and if the Sixers told Harden they would work with him to find a trade but didn't guarantee to send him to a specific location and instead would seek a deal that helped keep open their championship window during Joel Embiid's prime—then it's Harden who loses further credibility, especially given how he already forced his way out of both Houston and Brooklyn.

It's all a soap opera, and one that new head coach Nick Nurse, Embiid and the rest of the Sixers can't be thrilled to find themselves in the middle of before the season even begins.

And from the sound of it, there are plenty of episodes to come in this drama.