Where might James Harden end up after Thursday's news that he will exercise his $35.6 million player option for 2023-24 and seek a trade from the Philadelphia 76ers?
As reported by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the surprising move means Harden will forfeit the potential of signing a much longer contract this summer as an unrestricted free agent in favor of having more landing spots via trade.
By picking up his player option, Harden dramatically increased the number of teams to which he can be traded. Few contenders had enough cap space to offer him a $35.6 million deal in free agency, and while a sign-and-trade was possible, that would have hard-capped his new team at the first luxury tax apron. Now those restrictions are off the table, meaning any team could potentially add the former MVP.
Let's take a look at which teams might be in the market for the NBA's leader in assists per game last season at age 33, as well as how a trade might land the Sixers a replacement for Harden in order to keep contending with reigning MVP Joel Embiid.
LA Clippers, the lead contender
Wojnarowski reported the Clippers as one of two possible Harden suitors, and the fit is obvious. Harden would get to return home to L.A., and the Clippers would add the organizer at point guard they've lacked during the Paul George-Kawhi Leonard era.
Additionally, the Clippers face urgency this season to aggregate their midsize salaries for larger ones before such moves are prohibited for teams whose salaries exceed the second luxury tax apron starting with the 2024 offseason. Conveniently, Marcus Morris Sr. and Norman Powell combined are almost an identical salary match for Harden.
The question, then, is how the Clippers make it worth Philadelphia's while -- a process that would almost certainly require a third team to be involved. Morris, who fell out of the Clippers' rotation at the end of the 2022-23 regular season, wouldn't have much value to his hometown of Philadelphia because Tobias Harris and P.J. Tucker already fill similar roles.
Powell could be a fit for the 76ers, particularly if they intend to put the ball in Tyrese Maxey's hands more frequently without Harden. Still, sending Morris to a third team for a more viable Harden replacement -- perhaps one of the Washington Wizards' trio of point guards, Tyus Jones, Monte Morris and Delon Wright -- feels like a necessary component.
To make that kind of deal work, the Clippers would have to send enough value to get a third team to swap out a useful player for one less likely to contribute. For the first time since acquiring George from the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Clippers are now capable of dealing a pair of first-round picks: 2028 and 2030. They also have Brandon Boston Jr. as a young player with value, perhaps for Washington president Michael Winger, who was part of the Clippers' front office that drafted him in 2021.
With the Clippers being the most obvious Western Conference option for Harden, and Philly's likely preference to send him to the opposite conference, all signs point to LA as his likeliest destination.
MORE: Swing a deal for Harden in ESPN's NBA Trade Machine
New York Knicks, the team with the most to offer
The Knicks were the other team mentioned as a candidate by Wojnarowski, allowing Harden to return to the Big Apple after playing for the Brooklyn Nets. The fit in New York, however, is less clear. The Knicks already found their lead ball handler in Jalen Brunson, whose playoff production (27.8 PPG and 5.6 APG) outstripped Harden's (20.3 PPG and 8.3 APG).
We've seen Harden work together with another lead ball handler in Chris Paul with the Houston Rockets, though that partnership ultimately ended poorly. Now at a different stage of his career, perhaps Harden is more willing to cede shot-creation duties and serve as more of a secondary playmaker and spot-up shooter after making more of those 3s last season with the 76ers (his 46 catch-and-shoot made 3s were his most in a season since 2017-18, per Second Spectrum tracking).
Given a stockpile of draft picks and young talent, New York could easily outbid any other likely Harden suitor. The debate within the front office would be how far to go with an offer to a player in the later stages of his career rather than preserving maximum flexibility to target a younger superstar -- perhaps eventually Embiid.
What matching salary the Knicks send in return would also be interesting. A hypothetical package of Evan Fournier, Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin would allow New York to take back Harden's salary but would hard-cap the team at the first luxury tax apron of a projected $172.7 million if completed after Friday. In that scenario, Josh Hart's decision to exercise his $12.9 million player option would leave the Knicks just enough cap space to also use their non-taxpayer midlevel exception to replace Toppin.
Boston Celtics, the dark horse
For a wild-card Harden possibility, let's move north up the Acela corridor. Despite outlasting Harden and the Sixers in a seven-game conference semifinal series, Boston could use a playmaking upgrade -- particularly after trading away Marcus Smart as part of the Kristaps Porzingis deal.
After cobbling together salaries to add Porzingis, the Celtics have limited salaries to send out in a trade. Presuming Jaylen Brown wasn't part of a Harden deal, a trade would probably have to involve Malcolm Brogdon and Robert Williams III, with the latter a candidate to be rerouted to a third team given his overlap with Embiid at center.
Dealing Brogdon and particularly the 25-year-old Williams for Harden would make Boston a much older team, meaning the Celtics would have to weigh the potential upside of strengthening their 2024 title odds at the expense of maintaining the longest possible window to build a championship team around Brown and Jayson Tatum.
Although Boston and Philadelphia have worked out important deals in the past, this one feels too complicated to be realistic given both teams are East contenders and wouldn't want to strengthen the other to their detriment.
The Damian Lillard factor
Bobby Marks goes through the trade packages the Heat and Nets could offer for Damian Lillard.
Looming over any Harden trade discussions is the fact that the 76ers' ideal replacement for him isn't currently available. The moment a Lillard trade becomes possible, Philadelphia would surely be interested in pairing him with Embiid -- a stronger combination on paper than Embiid and Harden.
Depending on how quickly we get clarity on how Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers decide to proceed, the Sixers might be better off slow-rolling a Harden trade in order to find a return that would work for the Blazers as a third team. They could prioritize a deal that nets draft picks and young talent in order to send that to Portland with Tobias Harris' expiring contract as matching salary.
Given the priority Philly president of basketball operations Daryl Morey puts on star talent, there can be little doubt that ending up with Lillard is the ideal scenario for the 76ers now that Harden's return no longer appears possible.