TYRONN LUE SMILED when he saw James Harden at the LA Clippers‘ training facility Tuesday afternoon. It was just hours before the organization agreed to trade the 36-year-old, 11-time All-Star to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Darius Garland and a second-round pick.
Everyone in the building, including Harden, knew the trade was imminent. And yet, there he was in Clippers gear, getting treatment from the training staff and going through a workout with a group of teammates.
“When people are getting traded, it’s not usually like that,” Lue told ESPN. “But we all love James. … So, I walked over to the training table and started f—ing with him. I was like, “You weird.’ That’s his favorite word. Weird. And he just started laughing.
“We’re all going to miss him. Of course, his play. But just his personality.”
Unlike Harden’s past messy exits, this one was amicable. There was no trade demand or extended purgatory as there was in Houston or Brooklyn or Philadelphia.
Before leaving the facility Tuesday, Harden even gave his goodbyes to a handful of staffers and players.
Because this separation was as much a mutual recognition as it is a larger admission. Harden and the team realized that the team’s torrid run — the Clippers have been the NBA’s hottest team since Christmas Day, winning 71% of their games — probably wasn’t sustainable. And that this Clippers era, which began in 2019 with the free agent signing of Kawhi Leonard and the subsequent trade for Paul George, is effectively over.
Harden was the final big swing.
Harden, who in his two-plus seasons with the Clippers had played 72 and 79 games, and then 44 of the team’s first 47 games this season before sitting out the past two amid trade discussions, was supposed to counteract the fragility of George and Leonard. But even still, that trio, like Harden’s time with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn, was never healthy or available enough.
And now, Leonard, perhaps the most fragile of them all, is the last one standing in Los Angeles.
“Obviously, you need luck in this league,” Leonard said Wednesday night. “With shots, with injuries, with everything, so it’s just how it played out. I wanted to give it another run, but it didn’t happen that way, so now we’re here.”
Asked if the era felt unfinished, especially after the team’s latest run, Leonard shrugged.
“From what was expected? … It’s over,” he said. “Guys are gone.”
THE BEGINNING OF the end of Harden’s tenure with the Clippers dates back to the summer, when the team told Harden it didn’t feel comfortable guaranteeing him more than the $39.2 million he was getting this season because of his age (36) and the team’s preference to maintain financial flexibility starting this summer.
Harden, in turn, felt that he had reestablished himself as an All-Star, sources close to him say, after averaging 22.8 points, 8.7 assists and 5.8 rebounds and being named third-team All-NBA, and deserved an extension similar to the two-year, $111 million deal the Warriors gave to Jimmy Butler, who is the same age as Harden.
Still, Harden wanted to be in his hometown of Los Angeles and believed the Clippers’ roster had enough talent to contend, so he accepted a contract in which only $13.8 million of the $42.3 million he was due in the second year of the deal would be guaranteed.
If the team played well, he figured the Clippers would likely pick up the full amount. The deal included a player option and the opportunity to veto any trade as a hedge.
But the team sputtered badly, on the court and off. The franchise, already beleaguered by allegations of circumventing the salary cap stemming from the Aspiration scandal, endured more self-inflicted wounds: an ugly fallout with franchise legend Chris Paul.
Losses continued to mount, and pressure rose. The Clippers were 6-21 on Dec. 20, tied with the Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers, and ahead of just the New Orleans Pelicans and Washington Wizards.
It was then, sources involved in the negotiations say, that teams around the league began calling the Clippers about their three intriguing players — Harden, Leonard and center Ivica Zubac, who Thursday was traded to the Pacers for former lottery pick Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson and two first-round picks.
At the same time, Harden’s representatives began gauging which teams might be interested in him, trying to get ahead of potential trade discussions.
Harden was interested in reuniting with the Houston Rockets, sources say, a natural fit because their point guard, Fred VanVleet, had torn his ACL before the season. But the Rockets showed little interest in their former MVP.
Cleveland did, however. The Cavaliers were intrigued to see how Harden could elevate their two standout big men, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, and take some of the load off dynamic shooting guard Donovan Mitchell.
Discussions between the teams softened as Harden and the Clippers attempted to resurrect their season, and the Cavaliers assessed whether their current roster was built to contend for a title.
Reality eventually emerged for both: The Clippers couldn’t, and the Cavaliers’ roster wasn’t.
LATE LAST WEEK, as the deadline loomed, talks between the teams quickly escalated, sources say. Harden sat out a game in Phoenix on Sunday and a game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday as the discussions intensified.
Officially, the team listed Harden as out for personal reasons — a common way of dealing with players who are about to be traded. But it tipped off the rest of the league that Harden might be available despite the Clippers’ recent surge.
That became even clearer when Harden was seen on the sideline at his alma mater, Arizona State, as it hosted No. 1 Arizona on Saturday night, about 20 minutes from where his teammates would play a game against the Suns the following night without him.
By Monday, the league was ablaze with speculation about Harden’s seemingly out-of-nowhere entrance into the NBA trade landscape, which made for a weird scene — and not in the way Harden uses that word — at Monday’s game in Los Angeles.
Players on the Clippers and 76ers barely concealed their chatter that Harden could be dealt before the deadline. When news of the talks with Cleveland broke during the game, there even appeared to be open dialogue on the court.
That’s not all they were talking about, though. After months of dormancy, the specter of an update or resolution to the NBA’s investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented the NBA’s salary cap because of Leonard’s endorsement deal with former team sponsor Aspiration has been building.
Although sources close to Harden deny the potential fallout from the investigation factored into his decision to accept the trade, leaguewide interest in the outcome of the investigation has been hard to ignore.
Harden knew by Tuesday that the trade was likely to go through and had decided he would not veto it when it did.
“It made sense for both sides,” Harden told ESPN. “I didn’t want to feel like I was holding the Clippers up in their future. I wanted them to actually have a chance to rebuild and get some draft capital.
“And in Cleveland, I see an opportunity to win in the East. They’ve got a very good team, coaching staff, all of the above. So, as much as I wanted to stay in L.A. and give it a go — I’ve never won one before. And as a basketball mind, I think we have a bit better chance.”
Harden said he’ll always wonder what could’ve been in L.A., had Leonard and George been healthy during the playoffs.
“In life, not even just basketball, when things don’t work out, there are ways to end things in relationships without having to crack each other,” Harden said. “Maybe we just don’t see a future together. Maybe we just outgrew each other.”
Harden just saw a better future for himself in Cleveland. The Clippers saw a better future for themselves with Garland, a 26-year-old two-time All-Star. The Cavaliers decided their future needed to begin now.
