Harden reportedly will report to 76ers training camp if still on the roster Oct. 2

Ask sources or anyone around the league in Las Vegas for Summer League about what happens with James Harden’s trade request to get to the Clippers and the only consensus was this would likely drag out to at least the start of training camp in October.

What happens then? Harden would show up to training camp, but that’s not necessarily a good thing for the 76ers, reports Jake Fischer at Yahoo Sports.

If this saga does drag out through September and until Media Day on Oct. 2, Harden is expected at this point to report to training camp, according to league sources. You can cause far more headaches for the organization you’re trying to leave by showing up, as opposed to staying home. With both the Rockets and Nets, Harden made various trips away from the team for various nightlife activities. He made Brooklyn feel it had no other option but to trade him to the Sixers before the 2022 trade deadline, or risk losing him for nothing. With Philadelphia, Harden’s side is very much of the belief joining the Clippers is not a matter of if, but when.

Right now there remains a stalemate between the 76ers and Harden: He wants a trade, specifically to the Clippers, but the Clippers are not offering anything Sixers GM Daryl Morey could accept (Los Angeles reportedly has not even put their best young player, Terance Mann, in an offer yet). No other teams are engaging in Harden trade talks.

Morey is stuck. He needs a roster that can win now with MVP Joel Embiid — who fired his own warning shot across the bow of the 76ers — but he is not getting those offers back. As Morey said in a Philly radio interview, he wants back “either a player who helps us be right there like we were last year.... Or we are going to do it where we get enough draft picks so we can turn those into a player who can be a running mate with Joel. If we don’t get either a very good player or something we can turn into a very good player, then we will just not do it.”

The problem for Morey is the market doesn’t
value Harden that way, so he is stuck and that could mean Harden coming to 76ers training camp in the fall. Just know that may not be a good thing for Philly.