James Harden hopes to remain with Clippers beyond 2023-24 season

“I’m here, home,” Harden said. “We have an opportunity. I want to be able to keep the core together for a few years and I haven’t had those opportunities the last few years. So things are going well and I’m happy.”

It took a few games for the Clippers to hit their stride following the acquisition of Harden on November 1, but the club has been on a roll since getting off to a 3-7 start, winning 23 of its past 30 games. L.A. now holds a 26-14 record, good for the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference.

Harden’s 16.9 points per game this season would be his lowest mark since he was a sixth man in Oklahoma City in 2011-12, but he’s among the NBA’s assist leaders with 8.4 per night, and his 41.9% three-point rate would represent a career-high.

Before Harden’s postgame comments, Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report and TNT reported during Tuesday’s TV broadcast that the former MVP would like to sign a long-term contract and spend the rest of his career with the Clippers. That suggests that Harden is conveying that desire both publicly and privately.

Still, as Timothy Rapp of Bleacher Report observes, this wouldn’t be the first time that Harden’s desire to spend the rest of his career with his current team was reported by the media or expressed by the guard himself, only for that not to come to fruition. 

Similar reports surfaced during Harden’s time in Houston, Brooklyn and Philadelphia, and he ultimately asked to be traded out of all three spots.

Harden acknowledged on Tuesday that he “thought the same thing last year” about signing long-term in Philadelphia, per Youngmisuk, which is why he “did all those sacrifices” — that’s presumably a reference to the pay cut he took in 2022, as well as the role he accepted in the Sixers offense, which he later said felt like being “on a leash.”

Still, as long as his relationship with the Clippers front office doesn’t break down as dramatically as his relationship with Sixers president Daryl Morey did, it sounds Harden plans on remaining in L.A. past 2023-24. 

For what it’s worth, after Kawhi Leonard signed a three-year contract extension with the Clippers last week, he expressed a belief that “everybody is coming back,” while Paul George said he’s optimistic about reaching an agreement on a new deal of his own with the franchise.