James Harden takes a Tom Brady like $14 million sacrifice to spur his 76ers to greater heights in year two

James Harden takes a Tom Brady like $14 million sacrifice to spur his 76ers to greater heights in year two

James Harden is all-in for his second year with the 76ers, and in his first offseason with the team, he approached it like Tom Brady.

Of course, taking a Tom Brady like mentality in any form is a great thing. Brady is a seven time Super Bowl champion, and he owns most of the passing records in NFL history.

Simply put, he’s the greatest quarterback ever. Those are high standards to match, but if you try to approach the game like Tom Brady, there’s a good chance you’ll learn something along the way and benefit both yourself and your team.

Harden is trying to adopt this mentality. He knows his 76ers have a lot to work on if they want to win a title, and the first thing he did to help his team was take a $15 million pay cut.

Harden opted out of his $47 million player option to sign a two-year, $68.8 million deal. In his first year, Harden will earn $33 million in his first year, and he’ll have a $35 million player option for the 2023-24 season.

Also Read: “Tom Brady would rather get hit by Aaron Donald than hang out with Gisele Bündchen”: Stephen Curry roasts Bucs QB for not spending time with his $400 million supermodel wife during 2022 ESPYs

James Harden takes a pay cut that Tom Brady has made a habit of doing

Harden took a page out of the Brady playbook with this pay cut. Brady has surprisingly been one of the most underpaid players in the league despite being the greatest quarterback in NFL history.

While quarterbacks around him signed massive deals, Brady stayed pat. He knew making more money wouldn’t do his team any good, and he routinely gave his team the leverage they needed to sign better players and build a better overall team.

Consider this, Brady’s cap hit in 2022 was $11.8 million. That’s lower than guys like Matt Ryan, Sam Darnold, Carson Wentz, and Jared Goff.

In New England, Brady reportedly left somewhere between $60-$100 million on the table to help make his team better. He took a similar pay cut with Tampa Bay too. He signed a two-year, $50 million deal in 2020 with the Bucs, and after winning a Super Bowl, he could have leveraged a bigger deal.

Instead, he took another $25 million in 2022 and converted part of his salary to bonuses to help his team re-sign whoever they needed to.

Harden could see a similar impact in Philadelphia. The Sixers already signed P.J. Tucker away from fellow Eastern Conference contenders Miami Heat, for three years and $33 million. Philly also added Danuel House for two years, $8.5 million. Harden’s sacrifice could vault the 76ers into a much better place.

They struggled for depth after Embiid went down with injuries last year, and now, they have a lot more. Harden acknowledged this fact too.

“I think we have a much deeper team,” Harden told Yahoo Sports. “That’s something we wanted to address. If you look at our team now, we’re positioned to go a lot further. I like how we stack up with the rest of the top teams.”

Also Read: Baker Mayfield left $3.5 million on the table to end a five year playoff drought for the Carolina Panthers

Post Edited By: Ashish Priyadarshi
James Harden NBA NFL Philadelphia 76ers Tom Brady

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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