76ers' pitch to James Harden keys on ability to 'win it all' - ESPN

CAMDEN, N.J. — New Philadelphia 76ers coach Nick Nurse was asked about the status of pending free agent James Harden, and how he'd sell the star guard on playing for him next season.

«Winning has to be the sell, right?» Nurse said during his introductory news conference at the team's practice facility Thursday. «Can we be good enough to win it all? That's got to be a goal of his.

»And if it is, then he should stay here and play for us, because I think there's a possibility of that."

Nurse, who was hired by the Sixers just a few weeks after his successful five-year run with the Toronto Raptors came to an end, said he's already talked to Harden and plans to meet with him — as well as every other player on the roster, including Joel Embiid, who he sat down with during the interview process.

And while a championship is the natural expectation for this team, Nurse inherits a group that has reached the end of the road in the Eastern Conference semifinals in five of the past six seasons.

It's been a generation since Allen Iverson led Philadelphia to its last NBA Finals, and two since Julius Erving led the 76ers to their last championship, but Nurse said none of that matters moving forward.

Instead, the focus will be on what lies ahead.

«I look at it this way,» Nurse said. «I don't really vibrate on the frequency of the past. To me, when we get a chance to start and dig into this thing a little bit, it's going to be only focused on what we're trying to do forward. [The past] doesn't matter. Next season, whatever's happened for the last how many whatever years doesn't matter to me.

»You guys have mentioned the second round to me twice already, and we're gonna hit that head on. Like we know we're gonna we're judged on how we play