Philadelphia 76ers Injury Report: Latest update on James Harden’s status
James Harden remains out of the Philadelphia 76ers' lineup after missing one and a half weeks of practice due to what the team calls a personal matter. The former NBA MVP re-joined the team on Wednesday but was denied boarding on their plane for the first two road games of the season.
The Sixers went 1-1 on their two-game road trip, losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in their season opener (117-118) and defeating the Toronto Raptors on Saturday (114-107), in coach Nick Nurse's return to Toronto as opponent for the first time since he left the team in April.
"He's been gone for 10 days, so we're in ramp up phase again. So, like we would normally do, he will stay and get on-court work with our staff and with our players from the [Delaware Blue Coats, Philadelphia's G-League team] and two-way guys and things like that and try to get him ramped up as soon as we can," Nick Nurse told the media on Wednesday.
Now, the Sixers will have their first back-to-back this year, as they host the Portland Trail Blazers Sunday, in the first home game of the season. Still, it is uncertain if James Harden will be good to go for this game and if Nurse plans to give him any playing time.
"He is fine. He understands he's got to get ramped up, and like I said, he's been gone for 10 days so he understands it. He wants to get back to playing live, full-court basketball," the veteran coach said to reporters.
The Sixers have ruled out James Harden for Sunday's game vs Portland, which stands hat 0-2.
James Harden's future with the Philadelphia 76ers remains unclear amid trade saga
James Harden still wants to leave the Philadelphia 76ers and has publicly asked for a trade. Aside from the LA Clippers, though, no other team has shown interest in landing him.
In addition, it appears that the Clippers have also backed down and it is unclear how things will play out moving forward:
"I think that confidence in anything in this situation of what is going to happen ... we can sit around and guess and talk about it every day, and we really don't know," Nurse said on Wednesday.
"I hate to keep saying like 'who knows what tonight is going to bring and tomorrow is going to bring' and all of that stuff, with where we are at on this, so we're just keeping it day by day."
James Harden is on an expiring contract and is expected to hit free agency in the summer of 2024.