James Harden says he sacrificed money, individual accolades and his role as a scorer during his stints with the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers in pursuit of an NBA championship, only to come away without a title.
Speaking on Earn Your Leisure, Harden reflected on the compromises he made after leaving Houston, saying, “Let me just try to sacrifice the money, the individual accolades, all that. Let me just try to sacrifice and switch it up a little bit, and hopefully that’ll work in my favor in the sense of trying to win a championship… So that’s when the Brooklyn situation happened, that was tricky. We had the opportunity.”
“And then the Philly situation, where it’s like same thing: let me just be a playmaker, switch up my role… None of that worked. Like, you feel me?… I sacrificed money, I sacrificed being the top scorer that I am, that I still am and will be. Long story short: it was for nothing… I lost a lot of money and I lost a lot of swagger on the court, just from sacrificing, thinking that all that’s gonna get me to win a championship.”
Harden’s production changed immediately after he joined Brooklyn during the 2020-21 season. After averaging at least 29 points in each of his previous five full seasons with the Rockets, Harden averaged 24.6 points and 10.9 assists in 36 games with the Nets while playing alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
His scoring volume declined further after his move to Philadelphia in February 2022. Harden averaged 21.0 points and 10.5 assists in 21 regular-season games with the 76ers that season, then posted 21.0 points and an NBA-leading 10.7 assists per game in 2022-23.
The trade-off was clear in Harden’s role. During his MVP season in Houston in 2017-18, he averaged 30.4 points and attempted 20.1 field goals per game. He followed that by averaging 36.1 points on 24.5 attempts in 2018-19, the highest-scoring season of his career.
In Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Harden shifted more of his offensive responsibility toward playmaking. Across 101 regular-season games with the Nets and 79 with the 76ers, he averaged 22.5 and 21.0 points, respectively, while recording 10.2 and 10.7 assists per game.
Neither championship pursuit produced the result Harden wanted. Brooklyn reached the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2021 before losing to Milwaukee in seven games, while Philadelphia was eliminated in the second round in each of Harden’s two full seasons with the franchise.
Harden has since continued his search for a championship elsewhere. He played for the Los Angeles Clippers from 2023 until his February 2026 trade to Cleveland, and he averaged 20.5 points and 7.7 assists while shooting 46.6% from the field and 43.5% from three-point range in 26 regular-season games with the Cavaliers.
Cleveland finished 52-30 and reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 2025-26, but the Cavaliers were swept by the eventual NBA champion New York Knicks. Harden then re-signed with Cleveland as the Cavaliers retained a core built around Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and Harden.
At 36, Harden enters another championship pursuit after averaging 23.6 points and 8.0 assists across 70 games last season.
