Grading the deal: James Harden gets paid big bucks to return to the Los Angeles Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers will bring James Harden back to the team on a two-year deal worth $70 million, according to ESPN. The guard just completed his first season with the team, and appears to be a cornerstone player for the franchise moving forward, along with Kawhi Leonard. We’ll grade the deal from both Harden’s side and the Clippers’ perspective. All statistics are sourced from Basketball Reference.

It’s probably not the lucrative deal the guard had in mind when he postured with the Philadelphia 76ers last summer, but it’s also not a bad way to save face. The deal was announced just before free agency began, meaning that Harden was not going to entertain offers from other teams. Yardbarker believes the $35 million per year pact is an intriguing one.

Los Angeles is moving into a new arena ahead of the 2024-2025 campaign, and need to remain relevant as a competitive team. Bringing Harden back ensures that the Clippers should be respectable next season, as the front office looks to draw fans to the Intuit Dome. The franchise also didn’t commit to a long-term deal with the soon-to-be 35-year-old, which is a win for them.

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Los Angeles acquired James Harden early in the 2023-2024 campaign from the 76ers, and it was anyone’s guess how the aging star would fit in. Bleacher Report detailed a rough playoff performance from Harden, but he seemed to adjust his game for the good of the team. Teammates spoke highly of him to the Los Angeles Daily News and other outlets.

With that said, Harden may need to play more like the player he was early on in his career next season. Los Angeles’ roster figures to look a lot different heading into next year, and they might need him to facilitate the offense more consistently. That might also involve shooting more than 11 times per game, which was his clip with Los Angeles last year.

It was interesting that Harden decided to opt for a relatively peaceful offseason in 2024, which was far from the case in 2023. ESPN and others covered Harden’s comments from a year ago, where he publicly called Philadelphia general manager Daryl Morey a liar. The 10-time All-Star felt like he was misled by Morey.

If there’s one word to describe Harden’s last few seasons in the NBA, it might be chaotic. He’s been traded from the Houston Rockets to Brooklyn Nets in 2020-2021, from the Nets to the 76ers in 2021-2022, and from the 76ers to the Clippers in 2023-2024.

Harden’s recent track record indicates that he doesn’t tend to remain happy in a situation for very long. If Kawhi Leonard isn’t able to play the majority of the regular season in 2024-2025, it’s not out of the question that fans could start to hear rumblings of another move for Harden. That might be one reason why the Clippers weren’t willing to sign him to a longer deal. Bleacher Report noted that Harden was looking for a three year deal.

RealGM reported that Harden could’ve signed a much more lucrative deal than the one he just received with the Clippers. They wrote that he could have accepted a three-year $161 million extension in 2021 with Brooklyn, but he instead had his eyes on a four-year, $227 million agreement.

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As mentioned earlier, it remains to be seen what type of volume Harden will have with Los Angeles next year. With that said, he remains a very effective offensive player. In 72 games with the Clippers last year, Harden averaged 16,6 points, 8.5 assists and over 5 rebounds. He shot over 38 percent from three point land and nearly 88 percent from the foul line.