James Harden, who demanded a trade from the Houston Rockets in 2021, the Brooklyn Nets in 2022, and the Philadelphia 76ers in 2023, has demanded a trade from the Los Angeles Clippers. The language is more couched than that—per Shams Charania's latest runic dispatch, "Both sides are aligned in conversations together and with interested teams"—though as always any such reporting will take the form of what an agent demands, and also, the Clippers have no other reason to suddenly start shopping their 36-year-old point guard around. Harden has two plausible reasons to try to get out before Thursday's trade deadline, neither of which have anything to do with wanting to win a championship.
Even among recent, strange Clippers seasons, this has been a particularly weird one. The story of the NBA offseason was owner Steve Ballmer's alleged under-the-table payments to Kawhi Leonard via a baroque greenwashing scam, an issue that is still not resolved and which obviously hangs over the franchise's head. The team retooled its bench around a bunch of old guys, all of whom started the season playing clunky, slow basketball. Their beloved coach Ty Lue got into a huge fight with would-be retirement tour participant Chris Paul that ended with Paul being publicly called a nuisance and sent packing. The Clippers were 6-21, in position to send the Thunder a generational player, when a guy tweeted about eating some paper and inadvertently turned the team around.
Leonard has maybe been the best player in basketball for a month. The Clippers have gone 17-5 in their last 22 games and even re-signed GM Lawrence Frank, which is certainly, uh, notable given his involvement in signing Leonard to the deal currently under mega investigation. As the bottom of the west has fallen out, they are all but certain to at least qualify for the play-in.
And yet Harden wants out. It does not make sense on the merits. The Clippers are clawing their way out of a hole, but things are going great right now. The team is finally healthy, it has a group of squirrelly young players for the first time in this otherwise exclusively geriatric era, and Leonard and Harden are flying. Sure, they face the prospect of a buzzsaw in the first round, but that's the Western Conference: There are no free passes. Harden is also famously from L.A., and seemed to have finally found a basketball home after years of wandering where he could play out the last little bit of his career. It even had a natural expiration date: The organization will wipe the slate clean in 2027 in what will probably be a futile pursuit of that summer's free agent class, which includes Giannis Antetokounmpo, Donovan Mitchell, and Nikola Jokic.
The first thing to consider here is the investigation into the Leonard payment scam, which could see the Clippers already strained team-building flexibility curtailed even further. Whatever Ballmer says, Pablo Torre, who initially broke the story, has turned up quite the mass of evidence. The league office certainly won't let the organization get away with a slap on the wrist. The other owners would all but revolt in that case, since artificially depressed player salaries are what underpin the league's outrageous franchise valuations. Harden is in position to know more than the public; maybe he wants off the Titanic.
The more likely factor is that Harden wants to get paid. After making the All-NBA team last season, but also ending his season with yet another Game 7 choke job in the first round of the playoffs, Harden—facing a totally barren market as teams prepared their balance sheets for the luxury-tax apron era—signed a two-year, $81.5 million deal to stay with the Clippers. However, that was really more like a one-year deal, as the second year on the deal was a partially guaranteed player option. Given the Clippers' steadfast desire to empty the team out, to prepare to swing-and-miss for Jokic and Antetokounmpo, Harden was never going to get a deal that extended past next season. He might get that elsewhere, and his player option gives him some leverage: Trade me or I'll exercise the option. Hence the trade demand.
Maybe this would play out in the summer if the Clippers were a top-three playoff seed, but they're still in ninth despite the recent surge. However competitive they currently are, they are not contenders this season, and thus might consider a sale at the deadline.
So who would want Harden? The short answer is: Cleveland. The immediate reporting was that the Cavaliers and Clippers were in "advanced" talks over a trade swapping Harden for Darius Garland. That would make the Cavs much older and creakier, but also, Garland's toes are all mangled and he's been variously injured and bad this season; Harden, whatever else is true about him, is healthy and having a fantastic season.
I am contractually obligated to characterize the East as "wide open" this season, though I have watched the first-place Detroit Pistons play a lot of basketball and I don't really agree with that assessment. What are the Cavs supposed to do when Cade Cunningham decides it's time to score? The Cavs might justifiably (and wrongly) think Jaylon Tyson's evolution is enough to make that less of a fatal problem, and Harden, despite his age, he has been far more reliably available than Garland. Donovan Mitchell is a no-doubt All-NBA guy this year, and Harden's ability to organize the offense and do normal point guard stuff would free Mitchell from a playmaking burden he's not always ready for. I guess Cleveland, already approaching second-apron hell, would somehow also pay Harden?
As for L.A., I don't think the Clippers can get a better player than Garland in a Harden trade, given that most of the theoretically good-on-court Harden teams are restricted and asset-poor. The Clippers don't control a startling number of future picks, so they can't just pull the plug and rely on tanking.
Which is to say that a Harden trade doesn't make a ton of sense, but they rarely do. This particular request is notable mostly for its timing. If the Clippers were still ass, sure, fine, whatever, but it is so funny that the trade deadline forced Harden to play his hand only at the exact moment his team became good. Also, this news broke during a nationally televised Clippers game, leading to the hilarious spectacle of a bunch of Peacock analysts talking about it during halftime. Nice going as always, James Harden.
Correction (2:21 p.m. ET): This blog originally and incorrectly referred to the trade deadline as being on Friday. It is on Thursday, at 3 p.m. Eastern.
