In the clearest terms possible, Steve Nash said the Nets aren’t dealing James Harden.
With reports swirling that the Nets will listen to Philadelphia’s offers for Harden, Nash was asked if he could definitively say they won’t be moving him by the NBA trade deadline.
“Yes,” Nash said unequivocally before Brooklyn’s game Sunday against the Nuggets.
Harden sat out a second straight game with a hamstring injury, but Nash said it had nothing to do with either the trade rumours circling around the All-Star or his purported dissatisfaction with several issues surrounding his stay in Brooklyn, from the taxes to the weather to Kyrie Irving’s on-off part-time status.
“No,” Nash said. “No, I’ve talked to James; he wants to be here, and he wants to be here long-term as well. So I don’t think anything’s changed other than noise from the outside.
“James wants to be here. We’re building with James and we think we have the best chance to win with James. So I don’t think anything’s changed on the inside in our locker room, in our communication; it’s just all the noise from the outside.”