The James Harden concert tour is heading west: the Philadelphia 76ers shipped James Harden to the L.A. Clippers in exchange for Nicholas Batum, Robert Covington, Kenyon Martin Jr., Marcus Morris Sr., and several draft picks. The Clippers also received P.J. Tucker and Filip Petrusev from the 76ers. No offense to the players acquired by the 76ers, but it is fascinating that 2018 regular season MVP Harden--who was also selected to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team--has been traded for players who have never made the All-Star team even once and are unlikely to make the All-Star team in the future.
Daryl Morey ranked James Harden ahead of Michael Jordan as a scorer when Harden played for Morey's Houston Rockets, and Morey could not contain his joy when a disgruntled Harden forced his way out of Brooklyn to Philadelphia, where Morey is now the President of Basketball Operations; after Morey swooped in and traded Ben Simmons to Brooklyn for Harden less than two years ago, I concluded my analysis of that trade by stating, "It will be amusing watching Harden's inevitable playoff collapse ensure that the 76ers are not rewarded for trying to 'tank to the top.'" That prediction proved to be 100% correct. In 23 playoff games with the 76ers, Harden averaged 19.4 ppg on .399 field goal shooting as the 76ers lost in the second round in 2022 and 2023.
In Harden's final playoff game with the 76ers he added yet another entry to his horrific elimination game resume, scoring nine points on 3-11 field goal shooting while committing five turnovers as the Boston Celtics routed the 76ers, 112-88. That kind of performance--featuring more turnovers committed than field goals made--should be defined as a "Harden," because it is Harden's specialty: Harden pulled off a "Harden" in three of his seven 2023 playoff games versus the Celtics, and during a six game stretch in the 2023 playoffs Harden had 32 field goals made and 30 turnovers committed, narrowly missing averaging a "Harden" for the equivalent of an entire playoff series.
Morey remains an unrepentant Harden fan. ESPN's Ramona Shelburne recently quoted Morey's current take on Harden's legacy: "James changed my life. He's one of the all-time greats. As time goes on, people will think about him in much more historic terms. What he did to change the game and change the NBA will get recognized more as the Twitterverse and the people who don't understand how good he is fade away."
Morey has it backwards (as he often does): anyone who critiqued Harden and Morey for not understanding what it takes to win a championship will only gain credibility over time, while many of the highly paid commentators of recent years will eventually be relegated to much-deserved obscurity. The notion that Harden was ever as good as Jordan is demonstrably absurd and will not stand the test of time, but an analytical examination of the flaws in Harden's game (and the flaws in Morey's "advanced basketball statistics") is timeless basketball wisdom.
The funny thing about this trade is that Morey won in spite of himself. Whatever he did that resulted in Harden repeatedly calling him out publicly as a liar forced the 76ers to get rid of one of the worst playoff chokers of all-time, so the 76ers are better now than they were the past two seasons with Harden--though that may change depending on who Morey swoons over next, and how he decides to spend the draft picks that he has acquired.
Meanwhile, it is difficult to understand why the Clippers treasure the trash that has been dumped in the past four years by Houston, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. Even after Wednesday's come from ahead overtime loss to the L.A. Lakers, the Clippers started the season 3-2 without Harden. ESPN's insightful analyst Tim Legler declared that the Harden trade does not change his evaluation of the Clippers at all because the Clippers had enough talent to be a contender even without Harden. Legler stated that the Clippers' fate depends primarily on whether or not Kawhi Leonard is healthy during the playoffs. Legler is right in the sense that Leonard is the Clippers' main star, but I would argue that the Harden trade is not just a lateral move in terms of the Clippers' championship hopes: Harden is a proven malcontent with a long track record of playoff choking, so the combination of Harden's inevitable bad attitude with his inevitable postseason disappearing act will likely harm the Clippers.