The James Harden trade in which he left the Oklahoma City Thunder to go to the Houston Rockets was a trade that changed the NBA landscape. Harden essentially got to be the star on his own team. He has taken that and become an MVP.
Harden went from being the sixth man on one team to one of the best players in the league on another. That trade ended up being a bad one for OKC. Mark Cuban compared the Kristaps Porzingis trade to the Harden trade. It’s safe to say he was very surprised.
According to WFAN Sports Radio Cuban said:
“It happens in the NBA,” Cuban said. “It’s like the James Harden trade. Harden gets traded from OKC to the Rockets and I’m like, damn, why didn’t we even get that offered to us? We weren’t in the mix. Nobody was. It was one phone call and the Rockets said yes. [The Porzingis trade] was our one phone call.”
The New York Knicks, after they got rid of Carmelo Anthony, looked like they were going to ride the Porzingis train but they instead got rid of him surprisingly. Dallas was able to get in on the deal just like the Houston Rockets got in on the OKC deal before anybody.
Porzingis hasn’t been able to elevate his game as Harden has because of him recovering from injury but the Dallas Mavericks got a complementary piece to Luka Doncic for years to come.
