That Mavs commentator is right (can’t believe I said that), but who cares. Harden would fill what we need perfectly. We don’t have the matching salary to make it work given Fred’s no-trade clause. And of course if Ime wanted Harden he would already be on the team. We should all just accept that Harden won’t be a rocket this season, and likely never again. If he’s moved hopefully it will be to an eastern conference team like Cleveland. And of course I love that it would take the Clips out of any realistic chance to make trouble on the playoffs.
As league sources close to Harden discussed with The Athletic, the Clippers’ long-term plan of clearing their salary cap books for the summer of 2027 was a factor in this decision. Here he was playing elite-level basketball at age 36, knowing full well that the organization is widely expected to pivot away from this current core two summers from now, and the present day suddenly crashed headlong into his unknown hoops future. If you somehow missed it in all the previous reporting, the Clippers are hell-bent on chasing all the top superstars in ’27 free agency. As it stands, the only Clippers player with guaranteed money for that season is center Ivica Zubac ($20.9 million). Add in the uniqueness of Harden’s current contract, how his $42.3 million salary for next season could be slashed to $13.3 million if he were to be waived by July 11, and you start to understand why both parties now find themselves looking for a mutually beneficial way out of this partnership. As multiple outlets reported, league sources confirmed that the Clippers have had discussions with the Cleveland Cavaliers about swapping Harden for 26-year-old former All-Star guard Darius Garland. Yet while league-wide chatter had been emerging recently about the notion of Garland being available — either now or in the offseason — league sources say the Cavaliers have pushed for the Clippers to include significant draft compensation in any such swap. To this point, the sources said, that has been an obstacle in the talks. The fact that Harden missed the last two Clippers games for what the team has labeled “personal reasons” sparked speculation that his absences were tied to the trade talks, but the sources close to him insisted that was not the case. Harden was not with the team during its loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Intuit Dome on Monday night, and it remains unclear if he’ll be back to play against — wait for it — the Cavs in a home game on Wednesday night. Garland, it should be noted, has not played since Jan. 14 because of a toe injury that has proven to be worse than originally believed. Regardless of what comes next, it’s quite clear that this was a case of Harden doing everything he could to get ahead of his own situation. We’ve seen this sort of script before, too, in Harden’s exits from the Houston Rockets, Brooklyn Nets and the Sixers. None of those departures was a carbon copy of any other, but the theme remains the same: When Harden doesn’t like what he sees on the horizon, he decides that it’s time to go. The Clippers, meanwhile, now face the prospect of hosting the All-Star game later this month with this not-so-fun backdrop: Not only is the league’s investigation into the Aspiration scandal looming like a dark cloud, but neither Leonard nor Harden were selected for the West team (though as our John Hollingerpointed out, commissioner Adam Silver could be compelled to select Leonard as an injury replacement).
Soooooo..... folks are b****in about having a 37 yo KD as the focal point of our team... but want us to trade for a 36 yo dude who is the antithesis of a heliocentric offense and plays virtually no defense... LMAO! Love u CF - never change!
I'm not familiar with twitter cred, is Roosh having 33K followers a high number or not? Feels like his follower count is too low for KD to bother responding personally to him.
thanking God for Fred who shot 38% from the field last season and isn’t playing at all this year is nasty work Ime been here 3 years and still needs all the public assistance in the world on offense
Yeah but we have no need for that. We're one of the highest rated offenses in the NBA. It's lacking in shooting and making up for it with rebounds. What we need is extra shooting without subtracting defense. It would be monumentally stupid to trade multiple players for Harden. There's no amount of offense they can create which would make that team a title threat. If a team starting Okogie at the 2 has a top 10 offensive rating, then starting Reed in his place will immediately make the team better offensively.
just curious this season does Luka,Jokic, Murray, and Cuningham play like "antithesis of a heliocentric offense"
stop posting this guy he does not have sources and got caught yesterday stealing content from Marc Stein on his substack and reporting it as his own.
This Fred love affair is crazy. Did the Rockets have some amazing offense last year? Did I miss that? (Oh wait, Jalen was blamed.) Hit the nail on the head. Oh great, Fred is gonna come back, play 38 minutes, less turnovers, same boring ass 1990s stale offense. wAiT FoR MiDgEt fReD To rEtUrN AnD FoR StEvEn tO ReTuRn tO GrAb aLl oUr bRiCkS AnD FoR DoRi tO RoUnD BaCk iNtO ThE PlAyEr hE OnCe wAs aNd fOr jImMeR To nOt bE A TrAfFiC CoNe. oUr oFfEnSe iS FiNe.
I keep seeing reference to FVV’s no-trade, but there is no mention of either a true or implied NTC anywhere in here: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...eadline-bobby-marks-every-player-cannot-dealt Not that ESPN can’t make a mistake, but are we sure it exists?
