{"id":175682,"date":"2026-02-03T00:34:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T05:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=175682"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:53:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:53:43","slug":"clippers-cavs-deep-in-shocking-trade-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/02\/03\/clippers-cavs-deep-in-shocking-trade-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers, Cavs Deep In Shocking Trade Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just three days remain until the clock strikes 12 on the NBA&#8217;s trade deadline. To this point, there&#8217;s been more smoke than fire. A string of stars have become available but they&#8217;re not quite so attainable. The only real <em>blockbuster<\/em> or <em>splash<\/em> deal being the Atlanta Hawks parting ways with the (former) face of the franchise, who <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/01\/29\/wizards-trae-young-same-long-term-plan\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">may or may not remain<\/a> with the Washington Wizards. However, in a shocking turn, the Los Angeles Clippers and Cleveland Cavaliers &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/trade-deadline\/chris-mannix-sources-james-harden-darius-garland-trade-in-advanced-talks\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have had advanced discussions<\/a>&#8221; about trading their own point guards.<\/p>\n<h2>Clippers, Cavs Deep In Shocking Trade Talks Headlined By James Harden, Darius Garland<\/h2>\n<p>On Monday, the Clippers suited up for their clash with the Philadelphia 76ers. During the game, Sports Illustrated insider Chris Mannix was proving information about L.A.&#8217;s trade talks with the Cavs. Surprisingly, the Clips are looking to flip <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hardeja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Harden<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garlada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Darius Garland<\/a>, who&#8217;s considered one of Cleveland&#8217;s building blocks. Soon after, ESPN&#8217;s Shams Charania provided supporting evidence for Mannix&#8217;s report. Apparently, Harden is working with the Clippers front office to &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">find a deal<\/a>&#8221; by Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>He was a scratch from Los Angeles&#8217; game against Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been made clear that there are multiple teams in pursuit of Harden. The Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans and Toronto Raptors have also <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-clippers\/inside-clippers-james-hardens-sudden-trade-talks-days-before-deadline\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tested the waters<\/a>, according to ClutchPoints beat reporter Tomer Azarly. Nevertheless, Yahoo Sports insider Kelly Iko reports that the Cavs are &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/article\/sources-clippers-cavaliers-engaged-in-james-harden-trade-talks-042052754.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">at the forefront<\/a>&#8221; of the line, while acknowledging that L.A. has &#8220;held a longstanding interest in&#8221; Garland. In short, it&#8217;s fair to say that most people would have their bets on Harden being traded to Cleveland, if he is indeed moved.<\/p>\n<p>Harden has sounded committed to the Clippers publicly. However, he does have a history of leaving franchises for one reason or another. Should he be shipped off by the trade deadline, he&#8217;ll be playing for the sixth team of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Ken Blaze-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just three days remain until the clock strikes 12 on the NBA&#8217;s trade deadline. To this point, there&#8217;s been more smoke than fire. A string of stars have become available but they&#8217;re not quite so attainable. The only real blockbuster or splash deal being the Atlanta Hawks parting ways with the (former) face of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":175688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,9,2,27,3,4721],"tags":[1937,444,4774,1382,662],"class_list":["post-175682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-cavaliers","category-featured","category-clippers","category-news","category-trade-rumors","tag-darius-garland","tag-james-harden","tag-rumors","tag-nba-trade","tag-nba-trade-deadline"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175682"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175718,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175682\/revisions\/175718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}