The Clippers are interested in the championship control! The annual salary of 30 million is exactly matched by Harden. The countdown to Brother Deng s career of the Clippers?

The time is coming to the end of May, and the 2024-25 NBA playoffs are in progress. At the same time, the offseason of many teams has begun early. In this year's playoffs, the overall performance of the Los Angeles Clippers was pretty good, but they failed to go further. After the first round of tiebreak battle, they lost to the Denver Nuggets, ending the journey of this season. Although the Clippers' performance is not bad, they still failed to achieve their goal of winning the championship. This offseason, the Clippers still need to continue to strengthen.

The Clippers have an important task this summer, which is Harden's contract renewal. Harden has the right to jump out of his contract during this offseason and sign a new contract with the Clippers. What is more confusing for the Clippers is whether Harden stays or not? Stay Harden, he is still struggling in the playoffs this year. Don't leave Harden. Considering Xiaoka's glass attributes, someone must provide a guarantee in the regular season. Harden's ability to keep the lower limit in the regular season is still undeniable.

If the Clippers don't want Harden, unless they can find a ball-handling core that can replace Harden. Based on this goal, the Clippers seem to be interested in Celtic point guard Holiday. Recently, according to Brian Robb, a Celtics reporter who works for MassLive, a source revealed that Zhu Holiday is expected to be chased by multiple teams in the trading market, and the Clippers are expected to be one of the teams that will be interested in the 34-year-old veteran defender this offseason.

Former Celtic journalist and salary expert Keith Smith talked about the rumors about the Clippers and Holiday in his podcast show "NBA Front Office", saying: "Yes, I know. Before he (Valdy) was traded to the Celtics (2023), the Clippers were interested in him. This makes more sense than other teams, because the Clippers are looking to win in the present and they can afford his contract." In April 2024, Holiday and the Celtics signed a four-year, $135 million contract, with his salary of $30 million this season, and the total contract amount for the remaining three years is $105 million. Next month, Holiday will turn 35. This season's regular season, Holiday played 62 games, averaging 30.6 minutes per game, scoring 11.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.1 steals; in the playoffs, Holiday played 8 times, averaging 33 minutes per game, scoring 9.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4 assists per game.

Holiday is indeed a good player, and he also has rich championship experience, helping both the Bucks and the Celtics win championships. But in my opinion, if the Clippers want to replace Harden with Holiday, the risk is quite high. The main reason is that Holiday is no longer the same as Holiday in the past. He no longer has the same state and ability as he won the championship in the Bucks and the Celtics in the two years.

This season, Holiday's data and efficiency have declined significantly, both in the regular season and the playoffs. Holiday, who is already 35 years old, has obviously begun to decline in his career. Although his annual salary is similar to Harden, from a contract perspective, he can completely achieve one-to-one order exchange. However, compared with the 36-year-old Harden and the 35-year-old Holiday, it is obvious that Harden's current offensive ability and organizational ability are better than Holiday.

If Harden was replaced last season with Holiday, I believe the Clippers will not be able to make the playoffs. You should know that it was Harden who led the team with a single core and brought the Clippers to the top eight in the West in the regular season before waiting for Xiao Ka's return. It can be said that Harden's ability to keep the lower limit is beyond the reach of most players in the league. The Clippers must not seek medical treatment in a hurry. If they make random adjustments for the so-called reinforcement, it may be counterproductive. My opinion is that for the Clippers today, Holiday's role is definitely not as good as Harden.

All this depends on the decision of the Clippers management. If they decide to give up Harden, there is nothing they can do. Let's see if Harden can stay with the Clippers after this summer ends!