James Harden set to practice with Sixers as ramp-up continues،
PHILADELPHIA — James Harden participated in the Philadelphia 76ers’ pregame presentation and video session before Sunday night’s home opener against the Portland Trail Blazers, according to 76ers coach Nick Nurse.
Harden is also expected to participate in Tuesday’s practice at the team’s facility in Camden, New Jersey.
“James was there,” Nurse said before Sunday night’s 126-98 victory at the Wells Fargo Center. “He was here for the film session and the presentation. The report on him is that he has had good days of conditioning, still ramping up, and he hopes to have it back in training on Tuesday. That’s pretty much where we are.”
When asked if there were any setbacks with Harden’s conditioning and acceleration work over the past few days, Nurse said everything went according to plan.
“All the signs are positive in terms of conditioning and everything else,” Nurse said. “We just need to get him in some live action, and hopefully we can do that on Tuesday.”
Harden was on the bench with his teammates during Sunday’s game, wearing jeans and a green hoodie. He was briefly shown during the team’s introductory video before the game, although Philadelphia only featured its starting lineup, meaning there was no opportunity to see how the crowd would react to Harden.
It’s been a circuitous journey thus far for Harden and the 76ers, as the saga over Harden’s potential involvement with the team this season continues to drag on. Harden requested a trade in June when he picked up his $35.6 million player option for the 2023-24 season, and he called 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey a “liar” repeatedly during a promotional appearance in China in August.
Harden said earlier this month, in the only time he spoke to the media since training camp began, that he saw no way to repair that relationship and declined to use the name of Morey – instead, he repeatedly referred to it as “the front desk.”
Meanwhile, Harden skipped media day and the first day of the team’s training camp at Colorado State University before reporting for the second day. He was then on the team for the next 10 days, only to be away from the team for another 10 days for what the team considered a personnel situation.
Harden returned Wednesday, the day before Philadelphia’s season opener in Milwaukee against the Bucks, when it was agreed that he would remain in Philadelphia for the rest of the week to get back into a position to play.
Sunday’s game, which was the second half of a back-to-back series, will be followed by a holiday Monday, with practices expected Tuesday and Wednesday. If Harden can overcome them, he would be in position to potentially make his season debut Thursday night in Philadelphia against the Raptors.
With Harden sidelined, Tyrese Maxey had three strong performances as Philadelphia’s starting point guard. The fourth-year guard had 31 points, 8 assists and no turnovers in the loss to the Bucks before scoring 34 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 1 turnover in Saturday’s win at Toronto, then 26 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. and 2 turnovers in Sunday’s victory.
