James Harden’s Latest Trade Demand Isn’t About Basketball

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.