The Philadelphia 76ers acquired James Harden this past week after a brief back-and-forth with the Brooklyn Nets regarding what a fair trade price would be. In the end, all parties seemingly walked away somewhat happy.
By now, everyone knows the major details regarding this deal. Harden wanted out for a multitude of reasons; the 76ers were willing to house him because of Daryl Morey’s longstanding love affair with him.
One minor side-plot that has emerged regarding this whole thing over the past 24 hours involves a now-viral tweet, where a woman claims that Harden told her he was going to Philly ahead of time while she was giving him a lap dance.
The tweet largely speaks for itself:
Told u so
— hillary (@FKAbuzzkillary) February 10, 2022
The story has blown up so much that other media publications are legitimately covering it.
So what’s the final verdict on this mess? Did Harden truly tell a dancer about the 76ers trade ahead of time? It would certainly seem to be on brand if he did, but at the moment there’s reason for doubts.
Look at the reactions to the woman’s tweets:
This is hilarious and is totally plausible given his love and MVP status at multiple strip clubs lol!!!!
— ChrisToTheE (@304_Chris) February 11, 2022
This pretty funny Ngl
— Jacob (@Yo_Tempo) February 10, 2022
W GIRL
— Raúl (@_RauI_) February 10, 2022
But are you really a stripper
— The Jump w/ Christian Wood’s Father (@NBATheJump) February 10, 2022
At this point, it’s not even clear whether the woman in question is actually a dancer or not.
She doesn’t even seem to be particularly interested in capitalizing on her newfound social media popularity, as evidenced by this tweet:
hello to new followers! you will be disappointed immeasurably
— hillary (@FKAbuzzkillary) February 10, 2022
That said, who knows. It’s worth remembering that NBA teams once went to the extent of hiring private investigators to look into Harden’s partying ways – so it’s not particularly hard to believe that he would do something like this.
Did he, though? Jury’s still out.
Big picture, it will be interesting to see where Harden and the Sixers go from here. Clearly the team is banking on a championship-or-bust campaign. Anything less than a title, now, would be a failure.
Traditionally, Harden doesn’t do well when stakes are that high. Inevitably he just ends up taking his foot off the gas and beefing with his own teammates. Case in point: what he did with Kevin Durant and with Kyrie Irving and with Chris Paul and with Dwight Howard. Yikes.
That’s certainly one way to make a Super Bowl pick. https://t.co/u5dFj628Z8
— Game 7 (@game7__) February 12, 2022
Stay tuned – the remainder of the 76ers’ season promises to be an interesting spectacle.
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A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.