According to Shams Charania of ESPN, James Harden has declined his $42.3 million player option with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and now, he and the team will work on a new, multi-year extension. Well, with that news, the Cavs are about to live in the ugly reality the rest of the NBA already knows about when it comes to Harden.
Seemingly, the Cavs missed the memo. The memo that so many other teams around the league have picked up on and received. If you are dealing with Harden, he’s going to ask out eventually. Yet the Cavs are still going to commit a ton of long-term money to him, and things probably aren’t going to work out.
Because historically speaking, Harden-led teams just can’t get over the hump.
Cavaliers are about to extend James Harden -- that's a mistake
In 2017, the Houston Rockets handed Harden a monster contract extension. At that point, it made sense. But by the time his tenure in Houston came to a close, it was ugly.
Then, five years later in 2022, Harden signed a deal with the Philadelphia 76ers. In between those years, he was traded to the Brooklyn Nets, and then again to the Sixers.
From there, he was traded to the LA Clippers, and at the deadline this past year, the Clippers shipped him off to Cleveland. Neither the Nets nor the Clippers ended up extending him before they traded him to his next location.
But it’s a pattern. A repetitive reality. Harden goes somewhere, comes up short in the playoffs, then eventually requests a trade to a new team. Then he does the same thing.
Now, some break-ups have obviously been worse than others. His time in Houston came to a relatively bitter end, and his relentless call-outs of Daryl Morey prove that the same can be said about Philly. When he left Brooklyn, it wasn’t ideal, as evidenced by Kevin Durant’s infamous All-Star Team selection in 2022.
It didn’t seem like he left LA on terrible terms, and the Oklahoma City Thunder traded him, so that wasn’t really his fault, either. But the majority of his exits haven’t been amazing.
But all of those teams – and the rest of the NBA – know the deal with Harden. Yet in the big 2026, the Cavaliers are still deciding to go through with an extension.
And unless Harden shocks the world by taking a pay cut, it feels like Cleveland is about to spent way too much money to keep Harden around.
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