Fights & Fines: Jason Kelce shows James Harden the meaning of leadership, accountability

In a 23-minute span late Tuesday morning, the contrast in character between Jason Kelce and James Harden was laid bare for all to see.

At 11:31 a.m., near the end of a joint training camp practice, Kelce, the Eagles center, clobbered Colts linebacker and Philly product Zaire Franklin with a blindside block after the play was dead, precipitating an all-out brawl between the teams. Kelce’s hit was was wrong, but it was a form of leadership.

Afterward, Kelce made himself available — remarkable, because player access is strictly limited at camp these days — admitted his mistake and apologized to Franklin: “I’m a little bit ashamed that it got to that level, that I did what I did. ... that’s not something that I should have done or should happen out there. It was a cheap shot.”

This was a magnificent form of leadership.

At 11:54 a.m. Tuesday, the NBA announced it would fine Harden $100,000 for calling Sixers president Darryl Morey a “lair,” ostensibly because the team had stopped shopping Harden, who’d demanded a trade. Harden’s comments were wrong. They were the opposite of leadership.

He has not apologized. Not for insulting the man who’s paid him hundreds of millions of dollars; not for choosing China as the site of the insult (China despises Morey); not for wanting to abandon the Sixers teammates who have supported him the past season-and-a-half.

Then again, most of Harden’s actions in the past few years have been the opposite of leadership. Meanwhile, most of Kelce’s actions have embodied it.

Why does this matter?

Timing.

Kelce and Harden are the two Philadelphia athletes most likely to wind up in their respective Halls of Fame, with apologies to less accomplished Philly stars Bryce Harper and Joel Embiid. In fact, Harden, a three-time scoring champion, a 10-time All-Star, and the 2018 league MVP, is the only lock among them right now. He’s the third-leading active scorer, 30th all-time, and he’s likely to wind up in the top 15.

Sadly, Harden is as much an offensive leader as an offensive leader, and his betrayal of Morey and his insubordination are just the latest examples. The background:

In the wake of the insult, the league investigated Harden’s situation. It assumed, like the rest of us, Harden was saying Morey hadn’t kept a promise, either spoken or implied. Harden took a $15 million pay cut in 2022-23 to help Morey fill out the Sixers’ roster, perhaps with the unspoken understanding that Harden would reap greater riches this offseason. This would have broken league rules.

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As it turned out, after Harden sputtered in the playoffs the Sixers offered no blockbuster contract. Harden was expected to opt out of the final year of his contract and test free agency, but the market for fading, 33-year-old, volume-shooting point guards was, predictably, poor, so Harden opted in to his $35.6 million option for the upcoming season, then demanded a trade. When the Sixers had exhausted all viable trade options, they ceased negotiating. Harden claims that this was the reason he called Morey a liar.

Harden, of course, is probably lying about this. He’s much more likely to be upset about not getting $210 million guaranteed over the next four years than not being shipped to the Los Angeles Clippers.

None of this is surprising.

The night after the Sixers beat the Nets in the first round of the playoffs, Harden was caught on film smacking a friend outside a Las Vegas casino.

Think about that sentence. His team was in the playoffs. He’s the point guard, and, therefore, the leader. He was 33 years old, perpetually out of shape, and chronically injured. What was he doing 2,500 miles away, leaning out of the back door of a gambling joint, smacking someone?

What if that escalated? What if Harden wound up in jail? Most importantly: What kind of example does that set for third-year Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey, Harden’s most important protégé?

Harden dismissed the incident, the same way he dismissed his abysmal play at the end of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal, and for all of Game 7, when the Sixers got blown out. Harden ignored Embiid at the end of Game 6. He scored 22 points in those two games combined. He missed 20 of 27 shots, including 10 of 11 three-pointers.

Asked about the team’s year, he said, “You look to get better ... by adding pieces. ... There’s a lot I want to say.”

Nothing about his year. Nothing about his disappearance.

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Asked about coach Doc Rivers, who ceaselessly defended Harden for two seasons, Harden replied, “Our relationship is OK.” Two days later, Rivers was fired.

Harden was fined, according to the league, because he threatened to sit out the 2023-24 season if he wasn’t traded. They asked him what he’d meant, and they took him at his word, which is getting tougher to do.

Not so with Kelce.

I’ve covered Philly sports for 28 years. No star athlete has been as consistently, honestly accountable than Kelce.

He’s has been to six Pro Bowls and is a five-time first-team All-Pro, and he earned both of those honors in 2019, but, in the middle of that season, he was playing bad football.

“When there’s a play to be made, a block to be made ... I need to do it. I haven’t been doing that at the level I enjoy,” he told me that November.

He was 32. It was the second time we’d had this conversation: The first was in 2016. Both times, Kelce contradicted his coaches and owned up to subpar play.

Kelce knows that training-camp fights are stupid, especially in joint practices. Players can get hurt. It ruins the practice vibe; this one ended practice entirely. Kelce prides himself on setting an example. Right tackle Lane Johnson is a good man and a great player, and Kelce has played a large part in that.

Kelce is a self-made star, a sixth-round pick in 2011 who wasn’t even supposed to have an NFL career. He is always fit, always ready, always gives 100%. He has been, arguably, the only Hall of Fame player on the teams on which he’s played.

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By contrast, Harden was the third overall pick in the 2009 draft, and he’s played with legends: Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, and now likely Hall of Famer Embiid. He is often unfit, often ill-prepared, and, when his situation didn’t suit him, he has refused to play for both the Rockets and Nets in the middle of the season within the past three years. The NBA is making sure that doesn’t happen again, in Philadelphia.

Can you imagine Kelce abandoning his teammates in the middle of a season and refusing to play?

But then, Kelce has led the Eagles to two Super Bowls since 2017. Harden’s never even led a team to the NBA Finals.

That’s because one of them knows how to lead.

The Eagles host the Indianapolis Colts in their final exhibition game of the summer. Join Eagles beat reporters Josh Tolentino, EJ Smith, and Olivia Reiner as they dissect the hottest story lines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from Lincoln Financial Field.