{"id":581312,"date":"2026-02-04T06:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/581312\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T06:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:44:15","slug":"james-harden-denies-asking-clippers-for-trade-excited-for-better-chance-to-win-a-championship-with-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/581312\/","title":{"rendered":"James Harden denies asking Clippers for trade, excited for ‘better chance’ to win a championship with Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Clippers reportedly dealt James Harden<\/a> to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Darius Garland Tuesday in the biggest trade so far of what’s already been an active NBA trade-deadline week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not long after the deal, Harden spoke about it with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. He denied requesting a trade, per Shelburne. But he’s “excited”<\/a> to make the move to Cleveland.<\/p>\n

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Harden, who’s one of two top-10 all-time NBA scorers without a championship<\/a> alongside Karl Malone, believes he’ll have a better chance to secure that elusive NBA title with the Cavaliers than with the Clippers.<\/p>\n

“In Cleveland I see an opportunity to win in the East,” Harden told Shelburne. “They got a very good team, coaching staff, all of the above.<\/p>\n

“So as much as I wanted to stay in LA and give it a go, I\u2019ve never won one before. As a basketball mind I think we have a bit better chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Harden make the Cavaliers contenders?<\/p>\n

Harden’s right. He joins a Cavaliers team that finished 68-14 last season for the best record in the Eastern Conference. They’ve already exceeded that loss total this season in a campaign in which Garland missed nearly half of Cleveland’s games with injury before being traded.<\/p>\n

But they’ve still been competitive at 30-21, which was good for fifth place in the East as of Tuesday night. And the East is wide open. Swapping in a healthy Harden for a hobbled Garland has the potential to propel the Cavaliers toward the top of conference.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

James Harden hopes the move to Cleveland will finally net him an NBA championship.<\/p>\n

(David Jensen via Getty Images)Is there a better backcourt in basketball?<\/p>\n

In pairing 10-time All-Star Harden with six-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell, the Cavaliers have assembled arguably the best backcourt in the NBA. Both players are capable of dropping 50-plus points on any night. Mitchell’s an elite scorer in his prime. Harden’s a three-time scoring champ and and a high-level playmaker who’s twice led the league in assists.<\/p>\n

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Good luck to opposing teams in deciding who to double in crunch time.<\/p>\n

The Clippers, meanwhile, have returned to competitiveness at 23-26 following a brutal 6-21 start. But even if they’d retained Harden, this was not a team that was going to compete with the Thunder, Nuggets, Spurs or Rockets to get out of the Western Conference. The addition of Garland doesn’t change that equation.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers are going all in to compete for a title in Mitchell’s prime, and they might not be done making moves with nearly two full days remaining before Thursday’s trade deadline. The Clippers, meanwhile, remain in limbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a hell of a two and a half years,” Harden said of his time with the Clippers. “We didn’t reach the goals that we all wanted to reach, but I think we built some great memories, had some great wins and fun moments for all of us.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, it is a business, and I think both sides got what they wanted, are in a great place and are very happy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Clippers reportedly dealt James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Darius Garland Tuesday in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,305,193,791,864,560,135,6,302,9664,211,534],"class_list":{"0":"post-581312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","11":"tag-darius-garland","12":"tag-donovan-mitchell","13":"tag-james-harden","14":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nuggets","17":"tag-ramona-shelburne","18":"tag-rockets","19":"tag-spurs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116011012775097620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581312","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=581312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}