3 reasons the Phoenix Suns should avoid James Harden at all costs

With the Phoenix Suns now staring into a long and uncertain summer after their postseason shortcomings, we are about to enter a period where they are linked to all manner of ridiculous trade proposals and free agency signings.

Any group that boasts Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul is going to have to accept this, and despite exiting the playoffs sooner than they would have liked to, the Suns are still in an enviable position across the league.

If they can make the right moves around the fringes of their squad this summer, they will be right back in contention next year.

Already another avenue has appeared before the organization however, with news that James Harden, former teammate of Durant with both the Oklahoma City Thunder and Brooklyn Nets, would be open to joining the team.

Harden has a player option of over $35 million for next season with his current employers, the Philadelphia 76ers. It would be insane for him to turn this money down and enter free agency, until you consider Harden has made over $300 million in career earnings from playing alone and does not include any of his many endorsement deals.

If Harden was to hit the unrestricted market, there are many who feel he would go back to the Houston Rockets. A place where he was at the top of his game for a decade, and who have found themselves directionless since his departure.

The Suns should absolutely stay away from the 33-year-old, and there are plenty more reasons than his disappearing act during crucial moments for the 76ers in the playoffs to consider when turning down any advances from the player.

3 reasons the Phoenix Suns should avoid James Harden at all costs.

3. James Harden is too old

We’re beginning by stating the obvious, but there is a wider point to be made about the fact Harden will be 34 by the time next season begins. The Suns already have in Durant a player who is better and more consistent in Harden, and who himself will be 35 when the 2023-24 campaign starts.

Durant is the ultimate plug in and play superstar, and we have seen this during his brief stint with the organization so far. But he is coming out the other end of his prime, and even Durant’s incredible powers didn’t allow him to join a really good team and go and win a championship at the first time of asking.

The Suns would benefit much more from giving Booker and Durant a full season to decide how best to work with one another. Point guard Chris Paul is 38-years-old, and despite defying Father Time for so long, looked old this year. There is no telling how much longer he has left with the Suns, but as long as he is on the team, this is a group that needs to get younger.

Paul is no longer an elite defender, and while Durant can be when he wants to, we’ve seen him carry Harden’s lack of defensive prowess in the past. DeAndre Ayton may be the youngster here relative to everybody else, but if Harden couldn’t make it work with the current league MVP in Joel Embiid, a two-man game with Harden and Ayton would most certainly be streaky.

The Suns are trying to extend their championship window right now, but the health concerns of Durant alone have that plan on shaky ground. We also have more than enough evidence to show us that Harden can go missing in big moments.

As a player who was at one point indestructible (Harden played less than 70 regular season games only once in his 10 years with the Rockets), all of those minutes on the court are beginning to catch up with him. Which is exactly what you would expect to happen, but not something the Suns should be willing to take on unless they’re certain it gets them over the hump. It doesn’t.

3 reasons the Phoenix Suns should avoid James Harden at all costs.

2. They have Devin Booker

It would be fair to say Harden hasn’t always had a stellar on the court relationship with his superstar teammates. Both he and Embiid certainly seemed to get on, but did they get the best out of one another? Losing a series when 3-2 up to a Boston Celtics team currently getting hammered by the Miami Heat would suggest not.

The experience with Russell Westbrook was also a bad one, and while Harden was right to call it quits with the Nets because he couldn’t rely on Kyrie Irving, we have been here before with him and Durant. That’s without considering Paul, who Harden also played with while with the Rockets and who was moved in favor of Westbrook.

Why would the Suns bring a player like that into the franchise, and in doing so take the ball out of Booker’s hands? A player who may just have turned in the best postseason resume of his still young career. Booker was by far the team’s best player, and his incredible scoring runs kept the Suns in the playoffs for as long as he possibly could.

Booker is only going to get better, and has helped lead the Suns to the NBA Finals already. To then add Harden to the mix would surely disenfranchise the player as he enters his own prime. We’ve mentioned already the need for a regular season so that Durant and Booker can figure out how best to share the ball.

It is something they will successfully do given time, and it needs to happen because Durant appeared too passive at times as a result of trying to fit into the flow of the team. Harden might not be the ball stopper that he once was, but he certainly plays the game at his own pace and he likes to see a lot of the ball.

His usage with the 76ers to date has been around the 25 percent mark, which was the lowest since his days with the Thunder. But to get the best out of Harden you do also need to give him the ball and let him work, but that would be blocking the continued rise of Booker. At this moment in time he’s probably better than Jayson Tatum. Why would the Suns do anything to disrupt that?

3 reasons the Phoenix Suns should avoid James Harden at all costs.

1. The team needs depth, not another star

Although the Suns would make the Durant trade every time, they did lose Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson in the process. Bridges in particular was a key player for the team, as he was the link between the stars and the rest of the roster who played his role perfectly.

He could carry them offensively for small stretches and was a fantastic defender, but also recognized where he sat in the pecking order. Bridges has been showing the Suns just what they are missing since landing with the Nets, and if the organization should be prioritizing anything this summer, it is reclaiming some of the depth they lost.

To add Harden to this group would make them even more top heavy than they already are. It would also give them even less wiggle room when trying to fill out the rotation, which is on the small and light side as it is currently being headlined by Cam Payne, Terrence Ross and Landry Shamet.

Even if some of these guys don’t return, the Suns need to look at making some trades for players on rookie or cheap contracts, who are going to put a shift in every time they hit the court. What they don’t need is another player who can pour in 25 a night while not defending particularly well. Booker and Durant can both do that, and be better defenders in the process.

The era of a “Big Three” style team appears to be over. Nowadays a top two with a high level supporting cast is what gets teams over the line. The Denver Nuggets and Celtics are two such current examples, but it is the Los Angeles Lakers who the Suns should look to for inspiration here.

They remade their team on the fly before the trade deadline, and ditched Westbrook in favor of players like Rui Hachimura, Lonnie Walker IV and Jarred Vanderbilt. They also gave Austin Reeves more run.

This resulted in a group of players surrounding the ageing LeBron James and often hobbled Anthony Davis in a run to the Western Conference Finals. Sound familiar? This is what the Suns should be doing, not adding Harden to the mix ahead of a crucial season for the franchise next year.