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Grading the James Harden trade for the Clippers, 76ers, and Thunder as the veteran guard goes to LA.
James Harden finally got his wish. The Philadelphia 76ers traded the veteran guard to the Los Angeles Clippers for a huge package of picks and players that also involves the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The Clippers are getting Harden, P.J. Tucker, and Filip Petrusev in the deal. The 76ers get back a 2028 unprotected Clippers first round pick, a protected 2026 first round pick, a 2029 first round pick swap, and two second-round picks (2024 and 2029) as the draft compensation. The 76ers are also receiving Robert Covington, Nic Batum, K.J. Martin and Marcus Morris from the Clippers. The Thunder are receiving a 2027 first round pick swap with the Clippers in exchange for the 2026 protected Clippers pick they owned being re-routed to Philly.
The 2026 first round pick the Sixers are acquiring will be the least favorable of the Thunder’s own pick, the Rockets’ top-4 protected first rounder, and an unprotected first from the Clippers, per Derek Bodner.
The trade went down in the middle of the night, and the NBA is still picking up the pieces on a blockbuster deal with massive ramifications in both conferences. Let’s hand out instant trade grades for the Clippers, 76ers, and Thunder after the deal.
Clippers’ James Harden trade grade
The Clippers saw their championship window closing with rapid speed. This is year four of the Kawhi Leonard and Paul George experiment, and while LA made their first conference finals appearance in franchise history in 2021 with the duo, it was starting to feel like that was as good as it was going to get.
The knock on the Leonard/George Clippers, aside from health and availability, has always been their lack of playmaking. Enter James Harden, who led the NBA in assists last year with 10.7 per game, even as his game has slipped from “superstar” to “fringe All-Star” at age-34.
Harden to LA is a fascinating fit on paper. The introduction of another high-usage, on-ball player will move Leonard and George off the ball more frequently, potentially introducing massive change to head coach Ty Lue’s late-game offense. Leonard and George are still going to get their scoring chances, but in an ideal scenario, they won’t need to dribble the air out of the ball anymore to set them up.
It’s funny that the Clippers’ big move to save their championship window is trading for a player who infamously struggles in the postseason. While Harden had two absolute gems in last year’s second round series against the Celtics, he was also characteristically disappointing for much of the postseason, including scoring only nine points in the Game 7 loss to Boston.
The Clippers need to figure out how Russell Westbrook fits onto this team now with Harden in tow. Westbrook took a huge pay cut to return to LA this offseason, and is now likely moving to the bench with a smaller role. The Clippers are also losing a quite a bit of size in this deal even if getting Tucker back helps. LA did well to keep Terance Mann in this deal, but you wonder how much draft capitol they could have saved if he were included in the trade. They certainly already have a lot of guards and wings who want minutes in the rotation.
The other benefit of the Harden trade for LA? Now when Leonard and/or George inevitably goes down with an injury in the playoffs, they have another “star” to rely on. I’m just not sure that’s going to get them as far as they want to go in the postseason.
The Clippers want to win the West after this move. That’s going to be difficult with the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns still standing in their way. At this point, I’m done being fooled thinking Harden will elevate a team in the playoffs. The Clippers have traded every first round pick the rest of the decade to build this team. I still don’t think it’s good enough to win anything substantial.
Grade: C
76ers’ James Harden trade grade with LA
If the Sixers really wanted one more chance with the Embiid-Harden pairing in the playoffs, they only have themselves to blame for letting it slip away. Philly was up 3-2 on the Celtics in the second round series last year. They blew it, but at least they could argue this team was a coin flip away from the conference finals — and maybe even the NBA Finals with a No. 8 seed in the Miami Heat waiting.
Harden asked out because the 76ers didn’t want to give him a lucrative long-term contract. That seems fair to most objective observers around the league. Of course, the tricky part with Harden’s trade demand was maintaining a good team around Joel Embiid in the present while adding chips to make another big move in the future. The real risk in Harden asking out was that the Sixers would take such a big step back that Embiid would be the next superstar to ask for a trade.
In pulling off this trade with the Clippers, the Sixers got basically everything they wanted. The addition of Covington, Batum, and Martin (Morris looks cooked) gives the team some size and length around Embiid. Philadelphia will miss Harden’s playmaking — he was especially good at setting Embiid up for scoring chances last year — but the continued emergence of Tyrese Maxey will at least give Philly some backcourt scoring punch.
This deal also lets the Sixers dream of star hunting at the trade deadline and in the offseason. The Clippers’ unprotected 2028 pick should be an incredibly valuable trade chip to flip for immediate help around Embiid. Philly is also opening up significant cap space in the offseason by getting off Tucker’s deal (he had one year remaining after this one) and acquiring a bunch of expiring contracts. The Sixers want a big-time free agent — maybe Pascal Siakam will want to re-join former head coach Nick Nurse in Philly? — and they want to trade for another star. If anyone can pull it off, it’s Daryl Morey.
Given that Harden had no other apparent market outside of the Clippers, it’s astonishing that Morey was able to get so much back. The Sixers still have a ton of work to do to get past the Bucks and Celtics in the East, but at least they have more trade ammo to play with in the future while maintaining a competitive team in the present. While the Harden trade saga was annoying, the Sixers were smart not to give him a huge extension and lock in their team to a second round ceiling. It’s impossible to say what Morey will do with his new assets, but the team has the flexibility it needed to find Embiid a new co-star or two.
Grade: A
Thunder trade grade
This is a perfect Sam Presti move in every way: giving up a protected 2026 first rounder for an unprotected pick swap in 2027 with the Clippers. Given that the Clippers are now built exclusively around geriatric millennials, it’s a sound bet that they won’t be any good in 2027. This could end up looking like a really smart move by the Thunder in a few years.
Grade: A-
