The Los Angeles Clippers have won 16 of the last 20 games they've played.
James Harden wants out anyway.
The trade rumor was reported late Monday night by ESPN's Shams Charania, that the Clippers and Harden are looking to find somewhere to deal him by Thursday's deadline.
Charania and SI's Chris Mannix have both reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers have emerged as the team that might land Harden, in what would be a salary-matching trade that would line up with Darius Garland.
The whole thing came a bit out of nowhere for the general basketball public. It wasn't known that Harden might be thinking this way.
On ESPN on Tuesday morning, Charania explained what he knows about Harden's reasoning.
"He wants to be somewhere he will be for multiple years," Charania said. "That was not promised to him in L.A. He wants to compete for a championship."
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Harden is currently in the first year of a two-year contract, but the second year is actually a player option. The implication of Charania's statement is that Harden would opt-in to that second year if he's traded to a place he wants to be.
The Clippers started this season in a brutal way, but they've turned it around and are currently in a play-in spot in the Western Conference with room still to climb.
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The Cavs haven't gotten past the second round of the playoffs with their current roster construction and evidently are looking to shake things up.
This feels like an odd time for such a deal to come about for either team, but both apparently find themselves in need of a change, and that might be enough to get a trade over the line before Thursday's deadline.
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