The Clippers Already Ran This Experiment. The Results Were Ugly.

The last ten games of the 2025–26 season were not a sample size problem. They were a warning. When James Harden's shot attempts climbed from 16.7 to 19.4 per night down the stretch—the kind of volume spike that happens when a co-star goes quiet or a coach runs out of other options—his field-goal percentage didn't hold steady. It cratered, from 43.7% to 36.1%. Seven and a half percentage points, gone, in the exact moment the Clippers needed him most. The team went 5–5 and was outscored across those games. That is what Harden under expanded load looks like. The front office just traded away the player who prevented it from happening all season.

Kawhi Leonard's value to this offense was never fully captured in his 27.3 points per night on 50.4% shooting, remarkable as those numbers are. The deeper function was what his presence did to everyone else's shot diet. When a defense has to account for a 50% shooter who can create off the dribble and punish help rotations, Harden gets cleaner looks. He operates in space. He can hunt his spots rather than force the offense. Remove that gravitational pull and defenses compress, closeouts get faster, and Harden ends up taking the same volume of shots in worse conditions. The late-season data is a preview of what that looks like at scale over 82 games.

I wrote two weeks ago that the Clippers are building around a version of Harden that the numbers say doesn't exist—the efficient, high-volume, primary-creator iteration that the organization seems to be pricing in. Nothing since has changed that read. The additions this offseason have been sensible in isolation: Rui Hachimura at two years and $28 million brings perimeter scoring, Jamarion Sharp adds elite shot-blocking at the rim, Johni Broome gives them another big body. Bradley Beal re-signed on a two-year, $13.2 million deal, and the organizational commitment there is real. But none of those moves replace what Leonard did for the offensive ecosystem specifically. Hachimura and Beal are scorers, not creation engines. Sharp and Broome are rim presences. The spacing question around Harden remains open.

The Leonard trade to Toronto—pending since June 30 while the NBA investigates salary-cap circumvention allegations involving sponsor deals—has frozen the one piece of the puzzle that might actually matter. Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick are not officially Clippers yet, and until that investigation resolves, the front office can't fully build around what it's getting. Ingram, if healthy and engaged, is a legitimate secondary creator who could do some of what Leonard did structurally: draw attention, manufacture his own shot, give Harden a release valve. Dick is a different profile—a young wing shooter who could help floor spacing. Neither is Leonard, but together they represent the only realistic path to rebuilding the offensive conditions Harden needs. The investigation clashing with the front office, as reported this week, means that path stays blocked for now.

What the Clippers cannot afford is to enter the season with Harden as the unchallenged primary option and hope the efficiency holds. The late-season collapse was small in sample but precise in its mechanism: more load, worse results, in a predictable and replicable pattern. John Collins is a 55.5% finisher who needs creation, not a creator himself. Kris Dunn distributes but doesn't score. Derrick Jones Jr. is a high-effort role player. This is a supporting cast built to complement a two-headed offensive attack, not to generate one. The moment Harden becomes the whole attack, the box score at the end of those final ten games is the most honest projection available for what comes next.