3 suddenly desperate NBA teams that need to trade for James Harden
By Duncan Smith
Desperate for a James Harden trade: The Toronto Raptors
The Toronto Raptors deserve better than this. They were cast out from their homeland due to Canada’s entirely reasonable cross-border restrictions as the world battles the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and found themselves setting up shop for the foreseeable future in Tampa Bay, Florida.
A deep and talented team, the Raptors had expectations of repeating their surprising success story from a season ago, but things haven’t gone anywhere close to plan. There are four winless teams in the NBA (including the Rockets), and the Raptors are one of them with an 0-3 record.
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They have the most impotent offense in the NBA, scoring just 97.8 points per 100 possessions, and their effective field goal percentage is just 49.8 percent, good for fifth-worst in the league. If there’s one player that can instantly cure what ails them on that end of the floor, it’s James Harden.
Making it happen is the tricky part. Thanks to signing an extension, trading OG Anunoby this season becomes complicated, so Pascal Siakam is a virtual certainty to be included in any deal for Harden.
Siakam by himself isn’t enough salary to make a trade work, but adding Stanley Johnson would satisfy those requirements and heaps of draft capital could seal the deal with the Houston Rockets.
If the Raptors want to salvage their season, doing whatever it takes to trade for James Harden might be their only move at this point.