{"id":482143,"date":"2026-02-03T17:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=482143"},"modified":"2026-02-03T17:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:42:10","slug":"cleveland-cavaliers-ramp-up-james-harden-talks-with-the-los-angeles-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/cleveland-cavaliers-ramp-up-james-harden-talks-with-the-los-angeles-clippers\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers ramp up James Harden talks with the Los Angeles Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1792\" data-end=\"2123\">Reporting says <strong data-start=\"1815\" data-end=\"1856\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">James Harden<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and the <strong data-start=\"1865\" data-end=\"1906\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/span><\/span><\/strong> are working together to find him a new team ahead of the trade deadline, a development described as stunning around the league. The <strong data-start=\"2039\" data-end=\"2082\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/span><\/span><\/strong> have emerged as the most serious suitor.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2125\" data-end=\"2518\">The leverage point is Harden\u2019s deal: a two-year, $81.5M contract with a 2026-27 mutual option and a partial guarantee that effectively gives him significant control. On SportsCenter, <strong data-start=\"2308\" data-end=\"2351\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Shams Charania<\/span><\/span><\/strong> said Harden wants to be somewhere \u201c<strong data-start=\"2387\" data-end=\"2425\">for multiple years after this year<\/strong>\u201d and that he\u2019s chasing \u201c<strong data-start=\"2450\" data-end=\"2468\">a championship<\/strong>,\u201d viewing Cleveland as a better path in the East.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2520\" data-end=\"2777\"><strong data-start=\"2520\" data-end=\"2563\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Chris Haynes<\/span><\/span><\/strong> then reported the Clippers and Cavaliers have \u201cramped up\u201d conversations on a framework involving Harden and <strong data-start=\"2672\" data-end=\"2715\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Darius Garland<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, with both sides motivated to execute a deal relatively soon.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2779\" data-end=\"2865\">Source: <em data-start=\"2787\" data-end=\"2807\">ESPN; Chris Haynes<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reports say Harden wants a multi-year championship situation, leveraging unique contract mechanics as the deadline nears<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":482142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[175],"typology":[183],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-482143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","rumors-nba-rumors","typology-rumors"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/02\/Harden-Garland.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482143"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=482143"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=482143"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=482143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}