The Los Angeles Clippers have traded 11-time All-Star and one-time league MVP James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for two-time All-Star Darius Garland and a 2026 second-round pick, according to multiple reports.
ESPN was the first to report the trade.
This represents the fifth time in his career that Harden has been traded.
Harden was having one of his best offensive seasons in recent years, averaging 25.4 points a game for a Clippers team that had won 17 of its last 22 games after a 6-21 start to the season. That run had thrust the Clippers into ninth place in the Western Conference.
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, sit fifth in the Eastern Conference. Garland has been in and out of Cleveland’s lineup during an injury-riddled 2025-26 season dealing with foot and ankle injuries.
The well-traveled Harden joins his sixth team in a 17-year NBA career. A first-round pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2009, Harden was traded after three seasons to the Houston Rockets, where he won the MVP award during the 2017-18 season. In 2021, Harden was traded to the Brooklyn Nets after requesting to be moved. In Brooklyn, Harden joined Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but the star-studded team could not advance past the conference semifinals. In February 2022, Harden was dealt to the Philadelphia 76ers, for whom he played in 79 games before being traded to the Clippers.
Harden was not in the lineup for the Clippers’ game Monday night against the 76ers for personal reasons.
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday, Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. ET.
