Damian Lillard and James Harden Are 5 Years Too Late to Truly Supercharge a Superteam

Greetings, readers! My name is Neil Paine and I am thrilled to be starting at The Messenger this week as a sports editor and writer. Before this, I kept a Substack and also worked for FiveThirtyEight, the Atlanta Hawks and Sports-Reference, among other places. While we tirelessly prepare for our sports vertical to have a proper launch next month, you’ll see me writing columns in the meantime on just about every sport, with a focus on data and analytics. Thanks for reading!

In an NBA offseason so far characterized by sub-star players getting blinding amounts of money, the two biggest luminaries on offer — Damian Lillard and James Harden — have yet to settle into new orbits of their own.

Lillard asked the Portland Trail Blazers to trade him last weekend, reportedly with an eye on the Miami Heat as his preferred target. And while there’s always the chance Harden might retract his own trade request and return to the Philadelphia 76ers, rumors are that he wants the Los Angeles Clippers to be his next team. Although both players can theoretically help their new clubs — whether in those favored destinations or elsewhere — win an NBA title, they’re a little late to truly move the superteam needle as much as they would have just a handful of years ago.

According to my Consensus Plus-Minus (CPM) metric, which combines a wide variety of publicly available advanced stats into a single number that represents the player’s effect on his team’s efficiency margin, both Lillard and Harden were plenty good last year. Dame ranked fourth among all point guards at +4.5, while Harden ranked seventh at +3.5; both even bounced back from comparatively down seasons in 2021-22 to post numbers more in line with their career norms. But neither was as good as they had been in 2017-18, when both Harden and Lillard peaked statistically:

Harden will be 34 next season and Lillard 33, so it’s unlikely either star will rediscover the fountain of youth and rank among the league’s top 5 players like both did five years ago. And unfortunately, players of that caliber are who really tend to make a difference in the NBA title chase — meaning the hype around Dame and The Beard being available isn’t quite as warranted as it would have been in the past.

However, even older versions of Harden and Lillard are still good enough to play a crucial role on a championship squad. If Lillard gets his wish and joins the Heat, he would immediately be the best No. 2 star Jimmy Butler ever played with in Miami — assuming he can deliver something close to that +4.5 mark from last year.

And Harden would be more than a bona fide No. 3 alongside Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in L.A., assuming both are healthy next season. (Leonard reportedly is expected to be ready for training camp, while George is set to resume physical activities very soon.) According to my previous research, the third-best player on a historical NBA champion averaged a CPM of +2.8, which is a threshold Harden has cleared every season of his career since 2011-12. (By that standard, Harden might even be the Clippers’ No. 2 — he actually had a better CPM than George last year because he was a more efficient scorer with a better assist rate and a greater on-court offensive impact.)

Lillard in 2022-23 also perfectly matched the average CPM for a championship No. 2 (+4.5) from throughout history. So both offseason headliners figure to elevate a hypothetical Big Three more than, say, Bradley Beal or some of the other names on the move this summer. But that’s also the point: They can help more by elevating an existing title contender than being the centerpiece of one themselves. While the days of Harden and Lillard being the center of a team’s championship gravity might be over, they still have plenty of time to shine in the orbit of an even greater star.