Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the NBA Daily. We're going to call this a morning shoot around trade deadline primer. I'm Dave before I'm here with Sam Amick and Espera Henney. How you guys doing this morning?
Good morning, gentlemen. Doing well out here on the West Coast. We got the coffee that everybody saw in the picture there. We don't have pancakes, but we're getting rolling here.
It's too early out here for breakfast. Let's be honest. I got to wake up a little bit before I eat. I was kind of up late last night. I don't know about you guys. We got this James Harden news. Happened during the fourth quarter of the Clippers game. Perfect time for James Harden to, I guess, how do we want to put this? Did he put it out into the world through the media?
Who leaked this stuff, Sam? Who let us know that Harden wants out?
Yeah, so I was watching that Clipper game, and to pull the curtain back a little bit, I was in touch with one of our guys who covers the Lakers and the rest of the league, Dan Wojcicki, and Dan had been hearing some chatter about a Garland, Darius Garland in Cleveland and Harden Swap. So like we tend to do is like, all right, let's make a few calls.
Checked in with a few people, but honestly, like, I think it was like seven or ten minutes later, a story pops from Chris Mannix at Sports Illustrated that this deal was being discussed. Our old buddy from the Athletic, Kelly Yiko at Yahoo, had something as well. You know, Shams reported after that that Harden and the Clippers were trying to find a new home. It's interesting.
I know we're going to unpack it, but, you know, this year that the Clippers have had, you know, they get off to this 6-21 start. Um, at that time, you know, I wrote about what are they going to do with the roster? I talked to people within the organization about like, you know, is it fire sale time? Like it's, it's really bad. And they had looked at some things and things were not good.
But then as you guys know, they completely flipped the script. Um, so the stunning part of it late last night and to your point, Dave, when When you just think it's a run of the mill game, you know, at the end to a dome is that, you know, it felt like things were better. But but James, obviously, he's got a different view of the matter.
Feels like a lot of this is coming down to contract talks as well.
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Chapter 2: What trades are being discussed for James Harden?
Right. Yeah. James is up for some money and he wants to be able to get paid. And I think the way it was all reported last night, it felt a little bit more imminent than it actually might be, the Garland and James Harden swap. Do you think that's the main leader here in terms of a James Harden trade or are there other teams that are calling?
Yeah, well, the quick backdrop as to your first question is that, you know, we've written about this a lot, is that the Clippers are just widely known to be
laser focused on the summer of 2027 in terms of clearing their books now okay that's not that revelatory but as we get closer to that time i think the uncomfortable part is that my read of it is that like that applies to everybody now they've got zubats on a 20 million dollar deal for the 27 28 season he's the only guy with guaranteed money but you know for kawhi leonard for james harden these guys who you know are up in age i mean kawhi less so than james but
who are playing good ball, you're getting to this point where you look out and it's like, okay, am I, am I part of the Clippers plans at all after next season? And the answer appears to be no, like for anybody. And I'm talking about like,
know it's it's a reset it's a let's see who's available in that summer of 27 and go from there so when you have that level of you know if you call it kind of disloyalty or kind of like lack of commitment you're going to have a guy like james especially who is you know headed you know had departures before read the room and figure out how do i feel about this more imminently his contract uh for next season got a player option
It's only guaranteed for $13.3 million of his $42 million. Puts a lot of power in the Clippers' hands. He's even got an interesting thing where his opt-in date is late June, but then the Clippers could turn around by July 11 and cut him loose. It's just bottom line, I think a guy like James, it's... Not much love down the road, seemingly, in terms of contract.
And then also not much power in his hands. So he, with all that in mind, and who knows, as an aside, guys, I don't have clarity on this. I do wonder, like, from a human standpoint, how does he view... just all of the drama with the Clippers this year. The investigation into Kawhi, the Chris Paul drama.
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Chapter 3: What recent news has emerged about the Clippers and Harden?
It's been a crazy year, and now James is trying to head elsewhere. To your Cleveland question, I do think ultimately that could be the spot, but we're going to have to wait and see what happens there. Let me kill Slack since that keeps making noise. The Cavs appear reluctant. I mean, listen, you know, Darius is say what you will about James playing at a really high level this year.
He's been a better player than Darius this year. But it's you know, it's what's James now? Thirty thirty six.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's a decade. It's thirty six to twenty six between the two guys. And Cleveland wants the Clippers to attach a first.
uh if they're gonna take james back the funny part of that to me is i do get it from an age and timeline standpoint um but it is funny and it like in the here and now you know i had plugged this trade into the espn trade machine which i like to call the the john hollinger trade machine yeah And it spits out the analysis of, you know, wins going up or down, right?
And it had the Clippers going down by 11 wins, you know, swapping Harden for Garland. So you can see where the rub is between the two teams. And we'll see if anybody else gets involved. Last thought, I know I've given you a lot, but it's just...
A guy, it'll be interesting to see what happens because if James is still trying to get anything remotely close to max money going forward, as we're seeing with John Moran, as we're seeing with Trey Young, guys like that, there's going to be a chilled market no matter how well he is played.
So I think his messaging right now matters a lot, like what expectations he has going forward contract-wise are going to play into this thing here.
We've already started to see Donovan Mitchell would love to have another ball handler to help share the load. The messaging that's coming out feels like it's going to get done, right?
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Chapter 4: How are the Clippers planning for the summer of 2027?
So that's what I'm watching is that's the only reason to me that they go ahead and grab One of these earlier offers that does not really fit the bill for a player of Giannis' repute, but I could still see it happening.
Who's the team? What's the team that you think jumps out to you if it gets done before the deadline?
Well, I mean, a lot of chatter about Minnesota yesterday being aggressive. Brian Windhorst at ESPN had reported that they were looking for a third or fourth team to basically find additional draft capital and sweeten their offer. You know, it is believed that, I mean, there's no way this is a conversation without Jade McDaniels being in the deal.
You could argue probably the best player of any of the teams in terms of, you know, the In Minnesota, Miami, the Knicks and the Warriors, you know, that's on the table. I mean, maybe some of the Knicks guys, but the Warriors, it's interesting how like they they came out the gate real strong going after Giannis and it feels very much like.
like the Bucks essentially took their offer and have been shopping that to everybody else. Because they've been, as of late yesterday, and I know this, you know, and this is the time of year, it is what it is, runs counter to some of the other reporting out there. But like late yesterday, Warriors had no counter offer from the Bucks and were just waiting for clarity.
That was also the case for Minnesota. So people are studying the way the Bucks are moving. They're not really going back and forth They're kind of, you know, again, shopping and making people wonder, is this a legitimate let's get a deal done period? Or is this a fact finding recon mission that gives you the intel you need going into next summer to know what's out there?
Wouldn't they have some of this just left over from this previous summer? I mean, my, my assumption is like the deals haven't gotten a lot better necessarily, unless they've all, they were only talking to the Knicks. I mean, is that, is that how this was at the end of the summer?
Yeah, it was, I believe it was just the Knicks and it was, and it was, the timing was so weird. I mean, cause this has been written about and discussed, but the Knicks were almost annoyed. Like, why are you coming to us in, in August or September?
I forget exactly, but it's, they had given Mikael Bridges the extension that basically, you know, made a deal impossible at that time because he wasn't eligible to be moved for another six months. It was kind of like, you know, if you, if like message to Giannis, if you were In love with us, you should have come in May or June. So by that point, it wasn't much of a discussion.
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