James Harden, Doc Rivers react to Nets trading Kyrie Irving to Mavs
NEW YORK–The NBA received a shake-up on Sunday when the Brooklyn Nets sent Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks. The deal is now expected to help the Mavs move forward in the Western Conference and it is expected to knock the Nets down a bit in the East.
The deal now affects the Philadelphia 76ers a bit as the Nets are now a bit weaker on paper now that they have traded an elite, but dysfunctional at times, star in Irving to Dallas.
Sixers star James Harden, who the Nets sent to Philadelphia at the 2022 deadline, was asked about the trade, and after pausing and thinking about it, he kept it simple.
“It was a trade that happened,” he said succinctly clearly not wanting to speak on the situation at the moment.
James Harden when asked about the Kyrie Irving trade, paused, and said “It’s a trade that happened.” #Sixers
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) February 6, 2023
Coach Doc Rivers didn’t offer up much in terms of how he feels about it from Brooklyn’s side of things, but Irving and Luka Doncic figure to be a formidable duo in the West.
“They told me when I was getting on the bus,” Rivers said before the Sixers fell to the New York Knicks. “I said ‘Wow, that’s interesting’, but obviously, Kyrie is an amazing basketball player. You’re putting him with another amazing basketball player and we’ll see how that works. We’ll see if it’s good for the Nets. I really don’t know yet. So I’ll just wait and see.”
Harden and the Sixers will pay a visit to Brooklyn on Feb. 11 to face an Irving and Kevin Durant-less Nets team.
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