I've always been a supporter of ben and philly(my 2nd team) and while i was skeptic of harden coming and spoiling what made the sixers so fun, harden has come out and proven me wrong.

firstly the harden embiid duo has been insanely good and surprisingly fun to watch considering the various new tricks both are learning such as embiid shooting the patented harden double step back and developing into a great roller and harden turning into a cp3esque point guard with wizard-like sight and playmaking from halfcourt and transition. embiid himself has stated how he was surprised at times looking at the quality of looks he'd been recieving down low. Just imagine the cp3-ayton connection with embiid taking up the ayton role.

The best part of this trade was unlocking maxey. the harden trade allowed maxey to embrace his blitzing speed and agressiveness in ways which he was previously not able to while playing at pg. This moment seems eerily similar to suns trading for booker and enabling booker to be the uber athletic and gifted scorer that he is rather than shoehorn him in a ill-fitting pg role. The same way cp3 had brought a calmness and sense of order to some of the younger and less experienced guys harden too has come in and stabilised the franchise. There were 2 play which perfectly highlighted this harden maxey twosome:

1) harden nonchalantly dribbling up the court spots a charging maxey run towards the top of the key and unleashes a pinpoint no look pass which helps maxey get the extra split second required to get past the first layer of defense and shoot a elegant floater over kat.

2) harden appears to be setting up for a stepback over kat at the 45 by freeing space with a bunch of crossovers and between the legs and just when he gathers the ball for the stepback he attracts the attention of dlo(who was guarding maxey) and rather than force a stepback he unleashes a sharp pass to maxey (who is unguarded) which leads to a easy bucket for maxey .

The harden effect: at some point of the game the wolves busted out a zone (philly have been prone to it) and harden being the player he is just broke down the zone with his accurate passes and forced wolves to change their approach.

the ripple effect of harden's arrival: harden is a 3p wizard and elite playmaker which meant teams had to key in on him and embiid(my mvp as of now) simultaneously which lead to tons of mismatches and open shots for the others(mainly maxey and matisse benefitted) maxey went 75-66-100 this game(even if it drops to 55-40-85 it would be a huge W) and matisse shot 57-33(great for a defensive beast).

Atleast in my eyes, this development in philly has turned the league from what was a 3/4 team race to a 4/5team race(heat gsw suns philly) with bucks as the 5th team(depending on brooks return)