It's February 2, 2027. The Cleveland Cavaliers are 28-20 after a devastating loss in Game 7 of the second round of the NBA Playoffs. Your phone pings. It's an X alert from Shams Charania.
Breaking news to ESPN: Donovan Mitchell has informed the Cavaliers he wants to be traded. One year after swinging for James Harden, Cleveland finds itself on the other end of a star wanting out.
That morning, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, but it wasn't to indicate six more weeks of winter; it was to indicate that James Harden ruined another NBA franchise. The Cavaliers are beaten, dejected, and left without a soul that was instead absorbed into James Harden's graying beard.
February 2 is no longer Groundhog Day. It's James Harden day. And just like Bill Murray, the NBA finds itself caught in the same repeatable cycle. Who will be the star-crossed franchise that blindly sells itself on the idea of fixing Harden? Time will tell.
Cheers to those who celebrate.
James Harden's franchise-wrecking future, outlined:
February 2027: Harden goes to Disney World
The Cavaliers are the perfect Harden team in 2026: They have an overpaid asset who they don't fully believe in and are panicking about the ever-shrinking championship window. There's bound to be a team a year from now in a similar position as the Cavs.
Enter the Orlando Magic.
Orlando's Desmond Bane trade wasn't enough. It got the Magic to the NBA Playoffs but failed to get them outside of the first round. After another up-and-down start, this time to a 2026-27 season filled with even more Jalen Suggs injuries, the Magic pull the trigger on trading for someone who they never could've landed in free agency otherwise.
The Magic convince themselves of selling Suggs at the lowest price because of injury concerns, much like the Cavaliers did with Darius Garland. Orlando falls in love with an Anthony Black-Harden-Desmond Bane-Franz Wagner-Paolo Banchero small-ball lineup that is bound to fail.
And boy, does it.
July 2027: Big Easy blues
By golly, is that The Undertaker's music!?
No, it's the sound of a proverbial gong of despair as Harden leaves one franchise and joins another. Prior to ruining the Cavaliers, Harden actually signed the two-year extension that he couldn't get with the Los Angeles Clippers. That takes him through the 2027-28 season and gives Orlando plenty of reason to get rid of him.
New Orleans was named as a potential suitor for Harden this go-round, but with a no-trade clause, it was never an option. Harden doesn't get a no-trade clause on his new deal, allowing the Magic to ship him off to the Big Easy.
Both Dejounte Murray and Zion Williamson are also on expiring deals and probably still won't have much of a market. Thus, the Pelicans sell themselves on the idea of trading for Harden to sell tickets and increase his trade value on a bad team before flipping him again at the deadline.
There's just one problem: Harden has no problem putting on weight when he's not happy with a situation, and he now plays in the city with the best food in America. The beignets quickly add up as the former MVP goes from James Harden to James Hardly-knew-em.
There's no trade market for Harden, who ends up getting bought out two years after being traded to the Cavaliers. Will that be enough to deter an NBA team? Of course not.
February 2028: Back to Florida we go
Floridaaaaaaa
is one hell of a drug
Harden channels his inner Taylor Swift and stays on the East Coast by joining Bam Adebayo and the Miami Heat.
(Sidebar: How are we in the year 2026 and the New Orleans Pelicans are still in the Western Conference? I get that there has to be an eastern-most Western Conference team, but the league needs to hurry up and give Seattle and Las Vegas franchises so New Orleans and Memphis can play in the right conference.)
Adebayo will be entering his last year under contract at this point, and who knows what other stars the Heat somehow stumble into. Either way, Harden will be a minimum signing the Heat can sell themselves on being the missing piece to a title run.
Harden has a better time in Miami than Orlando, which is the most obvious sentence ever written in the history of spoken word, leading to better play for the Heat. Oh my goodness! Has he done it? Will Harden finally change the narrative at 38 years old and bring championship gold back to Miami?
Nope. The Heat lose in round one to the Atlanta Hawks and the young big three of Jalen Johnson, Darryn Peterson, and Zaccharie Risacher.
July 2028: Single-handedly ends a dynasty
The Oklahoma City Thunder have won three of the last four NBA Championships and are looking for some veteran depth to give one last run to a group with an expiration date, even if there's a sense of inevitable foreverness currently surrounding the team.
Harden agrees to a veteran minimum deal to return to the place where it all started. Just like Chris Paul with the Clippers this season, he attaches himself to a wagon that will quickly realize he is dead weight.
It won't be a matter of if the Thunder figure it out; it will be a matter of when. The 39-year-old Harden will wear out his homecoming in Oklahoma City, and even the most patient GM in the sport will reach his breaking point.
Much like he did 15 years earlier, Sam Presti will ship Harden away. But instead of trading him to the Houston Rockets for luxury-tax reasons, he will send Harden to his couch. Harden is told to stay home. His services are no longer needed. His NBA career ends with a whimper.
February 2030: Harden ruins America's favorite reality show
Harden accepts that his NBA fate is over and lands a gig to appear on NBC's The Traitors. There is no place better for him than a reality-based game show that pits faithfuls against traitors in a massive game of whodunit.
But with James Harden, you simply cannot have nice things. Harden, showing up clean-shaven as a sign that the NBA is staying in the past, wasn't chosen to be a traitor despite what he thought his agent worked out. Once the faithful numbers start to dwindle, Harden demands a trade to the traitor side and, in classic Harden fashion... somehow gets his wish.
With the lights now even brighter, Harden does what he has done in the NBA Playoffs so many times: He blows it as a traitor. He gets voted off at the next opportunity and, instead of following the rules, outs every other traitor on the show and completely ruins the rest of the season.
But hey, it wasn't his fault. It's never his fault. It's always the team's fault. Nobody is unluckier than James Harden.