As James Harden Sought An Exit From Nets, Jarrett Allen Became An All-Star With Cavaliers

There was a certain sense of appropriateness Monday when the NBA announced James Harden was missing next weekend’s All-Star game and his replacement to the team captained by LeBron James would be Jarrett Allen.

The announcement was made hours before the Nets snapped an 11-game losing streak with audible cheers coming from the locker room after a mostly stress-free 24-point win over Sacramento. It was a night the Nets hope can start salvaging the wreckage left by Harden’s desire to not be there 13 months after he was obtained from the Houston Rockets in a significant package.

Allen was among the pieces on the other end of the deal and he wound up getting rerouted to Cleveland and emerging as one of the league’s top centers.

Harden’s tenure with Brooklyn lasted 80 games, 16 of those “scary hours” with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. It was five more games longer than Paul Pierce’s one year in Brooklyn and 16 fewer than Kevin Garnett’s time with the Nets after they were acquired that ultimately necessitated the Nets engage in a rebuild that involved finding productive pieces outside of the lottery from picks they did not originally hold.

Allen is one such player as the Nets drafted him 22nd overall in 2017 in a pick obtained from Washington for Bojan Bogdanovic. He showed glimpses in his first season and his average rose to the point where he was averaging 11.2 points, 5.1 rebounds and shooting 67.7 percent from the field.

Those were enough to get him included in the massive deal to obtain Harden and create the “Big Three” the Nets were looking for. The Nets never reached the heights of full potential of “scary hours” due to a variety of factors.

Among them were Irving being ineligible for home games due to New York City’s vaccine mandate, a fact that reportedly frustrated Harden. Those reports started Jan. 25 when Bleacher Report mentioned it without it and despite his uncomfortable denials, where there was smoke there was fire as Harden starting missing games and then ended his 80-game tenure with a paltry four points in a loss at Sacramento on Feb. 2.

As Harden’s disenchantment grew, Allen’s star kept rising and he was named to the All-Star team with averages of a career-best 16.2 points, 11.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists and a career-best 66.5 percent from the field, including an insanely good 80 percent on shots at the rim to go along 146 dunks.

“He should have been named an All-Star reserve from the jump,” Kevin Love told reporters  “I told him, that doesn’t really matter how you get there. He’s been so consistent for us.

“He’s been a leader in that respect, brings it every single night. Posts a double-double, shoots extremely well from the floor. He’s a guy that wants to get better, a guy that wants to lead. It’s such a skill to play hard every single night and J.A. does that. He produces for us time and time again.”

In the NBA two years can seem like an eternity due to the vast amounts of player movement and transactions. Allen’s ascension is a long way from March 8, 2020.

Besides the game against the Chicago Bulls being the last time the Nets played a home game in front of a full arena until last spring’s postseason, it also was the day after Kenny Atkinson “parted ways” with the Nets. Among the reasons was reported unhappiness by DeAndre Jordan for not starting ahead of Allen.

Jordan was part of the clean sweep when the Nets signed Durant and Irving and that day, he was in the starting lineup in a move former coach Jacque Vaughn was denied was anything but a strategic decision.

Ultimately Allen, played well in the Orlando bubble and was performing effective enough in his final 12 games as a Net to be part of the package for Harden and with how Cleveland’s rebuild has gone this season, coach J.B. Bickerstaff is certainly enjoying benefiting from Brooklyn’s decision-making in terms of trading for Harden.

“Because of Jarrett and what he’s done for this team, we are where we are right now in a competitive Eastern Conference,” Bickerstaff told reporters. “He’s not out highlighting himself. All he worries about is helping this basketball team win and contributes at a high level. There is no other replacement in my mind.”