Harden, an 11-time All-Star, was traded for the fifth time in his career after two and a half seasons at the LA Clippers.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers and Clippers \u200chave finalised a trade that sends \u200d11-time All-Star James \u200dHarden to Cleveland, with Darius Garland and a second-round pick going to Los Angeles, ESPN and The Athletic both reported late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Harden, 36, \u2060was held out of the Clippers\u2019 lineup the \u200blast two games for what the team labelled \u200dpersonal reasons.<\/p>\n
The former NBA MVP and three-time scoring champ is averaging 25.4 points, 8.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds in \u200d44 games this \u2060season, his 17th in the NBA.<\/p>\n
Harden could block any trade because he is technically under contract for just this season, which requires his approval for the swap. The second year of his two-year, $81.5m deal is a player \u200boption, which is not fully guaranteed.<\/p>\n
Garland, \u200c26, has been sidelined since January 14 with a Grade 1 right toe sprain.<\/p>\n
The two-time All-Star is averaging 18.0 points \u200cand 6.9 assists over 26 games this season. He is in the third \u200cyear of a five-year, $197.2m \u2060contract.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers (30-21) are in contention in the Eastern Conference, one of four teams with either 30 or 31 wins behind first-place \u200cDetroit (36-12), which explains the desire to make a big move by acquiring Harden.<\/p>\n
The Clippers, 23-26, remain in \u200dplay-in contention in the West, currently in ninth place.<\/p>\n
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday at 3pm \u200cET (20:00 GMT).<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Harden, an 11-time All-Star, was traded for the fifth time in his career after two and a half seasons at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}