James Harden wants out of Houston. The former league MVP and stat sheet stuffing guard is in a curious spot, though, as the Rockets are both in no rush to try and move him — he has two years left on his current contract — and have set a remarkably high bar for what they want back for him. Via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:
Houston hasn’t wavered in what the Rockets consider a fair asking price for Harden: a package that includes a young franchise cornerstone and a bundle of first-round picks and/or talented players on rookie contracts, sources said.
Houston’s logic is sound. As long as Harden is on a team that was specifically built for him at every single turn, he is going to put up numbers, and he is going to draw intrigue from other teams. Plus there doesn’t seem to be a frenzied market building up for him, and while that might change now that word has leaked that Harden isn’t dead-set on playing for the Brooklyn Nets, the Rockets have the luxury of taking their time working the phones, letting this move into the season, and giving the other 29 teams a chance to gauge where they are and whether going all-in for Harden is worth it, even if he turns into a rental like Kawhi Leonard in Toronto.
Still, mapping out teams that sit in the center of the “can meet Houston’s asking price” and “give Harden a chance to win” Venn diagram isn’t too tough. There are several teams that have players and picks that can pique anyone’s interest. With a little help from the fine folks at TradeNBA.com‘s trade machine, we decided to examine some of the teams that can make a move happen and what those might look like — as well as recognizing the pitfalls in each.
The obvious trade: James Harden to Brooklyn; Caris LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie, Jarrett Allen, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, unprotected first-round picks in 2021, 2023, and 2025 to Houston
This is not the best deal that Houston can get if they are hell-bent on acquiring a young franchise cornerstone. Still, they’d get a pair of very, very good youngsters in LeVert and Allen, a heady veteran in Dinwiddie who is a nice fit next to John Wall if the latter is healthy, an interesting young player in Luwawu-Cabarrot who played really well in the Bubble, and a whole lot of picks that would get increasingly more lucrative as the Nets’ core of Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving ages, especially because Harden will presumably want to get paid when he hits free agency and having a ton of money tied up in mid-to-late 30s versions of all three players, whose bodies have taken a beating throughout their NBA careers, would make the 2025 pick, in particular, quite appealing.
This is, admittedly, what happens if the Rockets’ brass sits down and decides it wants as drama-free of a split from Harden as possible. It’s also a deal that will almost certainly be either on the table or largely on the table as time moves on — perhaps there’s some quibbling over pick protections or when they convey, but if Brooklyn wants Harden, something like this is the blueprint. Let’s move onto some more fun stuff.
The Ben Simmons deal: James Harden to Philadelphia; Ben Simmons and ??? to Houston
The question marks there are dependent on about a billion different things. How aggressive is the market for Harden and how much else would Philadelphia have to add? Is Simmons, someone solely to make the money work (say, Mike Scott), and a pick enough? If there is a market and Philly has to get aggressive, does something like what Adam Aaronson of Rights to Ricky Sanchez laid out — Simmons, Matisse Thybulle, Shake Milton, firsts in 2021 and 2027 — appease Houston more? Is the Simmons/Joel Embiid pairing working out under Doc Rivers on a roster built by Harden’s old boss, Daryl Morey, to be more well-suited to maximize their skillsets? If so, one can only assume this deal isn’t happening in any form or fashion. If not, and the East is winnable right now, and there is no path to things working out on any timetable, how aggressive do the Sixers get?
An argument can be made that if there isn’t much of a market, Philly should offer Simmons and as little else as possible. There is no better player that the Rockets can get back than a 24-year-old, 6’10 point guard who is one of the best defenders in the world and also happens to be in year one of a five-year contract extension. But this also presupposes that the Sixers even want to part with Simmons in the first place. If Houston does, indeed, want to wait this out, then they’ll have to wait for the window on a Simmons deal to open. It very much may not.
The pick stash deal: James Harden to New Orleans; Brandon Ingram, Jaxson Hayes, Wenyen Gabriel, five first round picks (NO 2021, L.A. 2021, L.A. 2023, MIL 2024, MIL 2026) to Houston
Because of Ingram’s extension, this deal cannot happen until the calendar turns to March — according to Shams Charania, the NBA is looking to the end of the third month of the year for this season’s trade deadline. But in terms of getting a metric ton of picks back, New Orleans is uniquely positioned due to the Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday trades, which give them the flexibility of being able to toss a bunch of trades in consecutive seasons into a deal and still have some in the bank. One thing Morey did during his tenure was deplete the team’s stash of picks in pursuit of stars, an understandable decision but one that has had consequences. The team’s future pick situation is rather awkward, which makes any sort of post-Harden rebuild difficult. This is a way to remedy that.
It’s not like Ingram is a slouch, either, not by any stretch. While not as flashy a name as Simmons, he was an All-Star last season and can really score, giving Houston some perimeter dynamism that the Sixers star wouldn’t bring. Plus Hayes is a really fun young big man and Gabriel would give them a good bench piece who also plays hilariously hard. Yes, questions exist about whether it’s a good idea for New Orleans to trade for someone who would immediately take the ball away from Zion Williamson as much as Harden would, and that might be enough for this to be dead on arrival. But like Philly, New Orleans can wait and gauge things before putting together a package that could thread the needle for the Rockets of being reasonable in the short-term and appealing in the long-term.
The wild card, Eastern Conference (Pt. 1): James Harden to Boston; Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Romeo Langford, two first round picks (BOS 2021, BOS 2023), two second round picks (2022 and 2023 from other teams) to Houston
Let’s get weird. I have zero idea if Boston would consider doing something like this (i.e., trading for Harden), particularly if it means parting with two core players like Brown and Smart. It’d be a bit odd to have another ball-handler in Boston to the extent Harden would need it with Kemba Walker still in town and Jayson Tatum perpetually on the ascent. The Celtics may already have enough to make it through the Eastern Conference and compete for a title right now.
But man, if there is one thing that is well-documented about Danny Ainge, it’s that he loves to sniff around when superstars are itching to go someplace else, and the Celtics would hit the sweet spot of giving Houston a lot back and giving Harden a place to go compete. It is more likely that Boston would be willing to part with the Green Monster than it would Tatum, but Brown and Smart, the latter of whom is a Texas native, is quite the package. Langford gives Houston a youngster on a rookie deal, and they can replenish their pick stash a little with this deal. Like the Philly deal, it is probably in Boston’s best interest to wait and see what this season looks like before pursuing this, if they want to at all.
The wild card, Eastern Conference (Pt. 2): James Harden to Miami; Goran Dragic, Andre Iguodala, Tyler Herro, at least one of Kendrick Nunn and Duncan Robinson, 2022 and 2026 first round picks to Houston
There is a big ol question mark in Milwaukee that looms over this pick, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because Dragic’s extension means he cannot be traded until February. Miami loves stars, and while all of the players they’d have to give up in this deal are major contributors, none of them are anywhere near as good as Harden. There’s also the matter of whether guys like Herro, Nunn, and to a lesser extent Robinson will be as valuable as they are after last season — Robinson should be due to his ability to shoot and his size, but Nunn struggled in the Bubble and Herro has remarkably high expectations that might be hard to meet.
Houston would probably have to talk themselves into this deal. Dragic is the best player right now and could end up being the best player in general, which isn’t a bad thing, but for a squad looking for a cornerstone, that might not tickle the Rockets’ fancy. Iguodala is more or less here to make the money line up. Miami’s 2022 pick won’t be particularly appealing if this trade turns the Heat into a superteam. Let’s dog ear this one as “no one else meets the Rockets’ asking price.”
The wild card, Western Conference: James Harden to Denver; Will Barton, Gary Harris, Michael Porter Jr., 2022 first-round pick, 2024 and 2026 pick swaps to Houston
Here’s a question: How good is Michael Porter Jr., both right now and when he reaches his ceiling in the NBA? Denver seems to think the answer, at least on the latter, is “extremely,” which might make a deal for him hard to pull off. Perhaps I am lower on him than others, but if this sort of deal is on the table, it’s worth Denver saying yes and immediately hanging up the phone to celebrate. Barton and Harris are two good NBA players on reasonable contracts — Harris, in particular, is on a deal that could be good if he’s able to stay healthy and find the form that earned him this deal — and Porter is a wild card, someone whose range of outcomes go from “taller Jordan Clarkson” to “6’10 matchup nightmare who turns into a legitimate No. 1 option.”
Now, whether Denver wants another ball-handler alongside Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray is a very fair question, and after his performance in the Bubble, any request from the Rockets to include Murray in this deal should be a non-starter. But Denver might be incredibly close to winning the West, and adding Harden to those two is the sort of thing that puts them in a position to get over the hump. Plus with both of their young stars under contract for the foreseeable future, the Nuggets are the kind of team that can theoretically bring Harden on board, and if they lose him, not be hurt too badly. This might be more of a 2k trade than a real trade, but at the very least, it’d be a fun trade in a video game.
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