How the Portland Trail Blazers can acquire superstar James Harden

James Harden has named the Portland Trail Blazers as a team he would consider being traded to. Which factors should be considered in a trade for Harden?

James Harden recently indicated that the Portland Trail Blazers are on the list of teams he wants to be traded to. The NBA Superstar has been part of a messy situation recently, where he and his teammates have had their first NBA game of the season postponed, and Harden himself has been fined for breaking the NBA’s COVID protocols.

He clearly wants out of Houston. With other key players like PJ Tucker and Eric Gordon also expressing unhappiness, Rockets management is better to move him sooner rather than later.

Kelly Iko of The Athletic had the news that Harden had the Celtics and Blazers on his destinations list.

It may seem strange that Portland is a destination because of the small market size. The Athletic’s Portland beat writer Jason Quick had some interesting info on Harden’s connection with Blazers General Manager Neil Olshey though.

If you know a little about Olshey’s history, he used to work out NBA prospects and players before his ascension into NBA front office’s.

If Harden feels like he has trust and a connection with Olshey, this could give the Blazers a chance at a potential Harden deal.

Let’s break down how a trade for Harden would work

Trade Factor #1 – Salary mechanics

The most important factor to any trade to go ahead, is that the trade has to fit under the CBA’s guidelines.

Harden has the following contract that the Blazers would need to match to make a legal trade.

2021 salary – $41,254,920. Only the current year’s salary needs to be considered when trying to match salaries.

When looking at the above number, the Blazers have an upper and lower limit of salary that they can send out.

The minimum amount they could send out is $33 million, and the maximum amount is $51.5 million. When considering both of these numbers, the first thing to think about is the luxury tax line. At the moment, the Blazers are approximately $500,000 under the tax. So if they brought back more salary than they sent out, they would be in the tax.

Olshey probably wouldn’t be bothered if the Blazers went into the tax if they had Harden. At that point, you would have two top 7 seven players in the league who are both over 30, so you only have a limited amount time to contend for a title.

For the Rockets though, if they moved Harden, they wouldn’t want to be in the tax and making extra payments. Even with Harden there, owner Tilman Fertitta didn’t like paying the tax. He certainly wouldn’t want to if Harden were gone.

This means that the Rockets would likely send out the salary of $41 million, and look to bring back slightly less in return. The Blazers could make this number up with any different combination of players, but it would very difficult to do without McCollum’s salary being in there.