With the NBA trade deadline approaching on Thursday, teams across the league are scrambling to assemble rosters they believe best position them for the future. The Los Angeles Clippers, for their part, are reportedly engaged in serious talks to send James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n
This does not appear to be a situation where the Clippers were actively looking to move Harden. He has missed the team\u2019s last two games for personal reasons, and it has long been understood that he carries significant influence over any potential trade destination. In short, Harden<\/a>wants a move away from LA.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Reports suggest the Cavaliers are willing to send Darius Garland to Inglewood in return, a move that would shift them down a path of youth. However, not everyone is convinced it makes sense for Cleveland, with Emmanuel Acho emerging as one of the more vocal critics of the potential deal.<\/p>\n The Clippers<\/a>, after languishing at the bottom of the West for the first few weeks of the 25\/26 season, are creeping up the standings and are currently 9th with a 23-26 record. The Cavs, meanwhile, are 5th in the East and looking to rediscover the form that helped them finish #1 in their conference last season. Acho warned them on Speakeasy that signing Harden won\u2019t help them achieve that.<\/p>\n \u201cI would not want James Harden if I were a championship-caliber team,\u201d the former NFL player turned sports pundit declared. \u201cNothing about James Harden spells Championship. Nothing about James Harden\u2019s career spells Championship. He is all the way over the hill, and James Harden has never been a catalyst for winning championships.\u201d <\/p>\n These may seem like harsh comments, but Acho has a point. He noted how Harden has never helped a team get close to winning a championship, and the only time a team looked deadly with him in the roster was when he was a 6th man in Oklahoma<\/a>. He failed to deliver success in Houston (ran into prime Warriors to be fair), Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and finally, Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he\u2019s ever had to be that guy, he\u2019s not that,\u201d Acho added. \u201cSo, why in the world would anybody want to trade for James Harden if they actually have championship aspirations?\u201d <\/p>\n Well, it looks like Harden has championship aspirations for starters. There\u2019s a reason he\u2019s switched teams so many times in the 2020s. It\u2019s not working out anywhere, but he refuses to give up. He\u2019s averaging 25.4 points per game and assisting 8.1. His playmaking has also significantly improved over the years.<\/p>\n Will teaming up with Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley finally give him the fairytale ending he\u2019s hoping for? We\u2019ll have to wait and see.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The post \u201cNothing About James Harden Spells Champion\u201d: Emmanuel Acho Goes Off Following Clippers-Cavaliers Trade Story<\/a> appeared first on The SportsRush<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the NBA trade deadline approaching on Thursday, teams across the league are scrambling to assemble rosters they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,670,193,791,9924,864,10679,576,292,560,423,192,251,6,678,69677,422,427,3972,255],"class_list":["post-579327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-utah-jazz","tag-basketball","tag-brooklyn","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-darius-garland","tag-delta-center","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-emmanuel-acho","tag-evan-mobley","tag-houston","tag-james-harden","tag-jazz","tag-la-clippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia","tag-rob-gray-imagn","tag-utah","tag-utah-jazz","tag-utahjazz","tag-warriors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116006242439705270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}