James Harden is getting the trade he wanted.

The Houston Rockets are sending their former MVP to the Brooklyn Nets in a massive blockbuster deal that includes four teams and multiple star players, according to reports from ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic's Shams Charania.

Harden has been pushing for a trade to the Nets, specifically, since initially requesting a trade during the offseason.

He played with Kevin Durant with the Oklahoma City Thunder for the first three seasons of his career, and now that the two of them have reunited, Brooklyn should have the NBA's best offense by far.

The Rockets made the trade of Harden official on Thursday morning, with owner Tilman Fertitta thanking the superstar guard's time in Houston.

"On behalf of the entire Rockets organization and the City of Houston, I'd like to thank James Harden for an amazing eight-plus seasons in a Rockets uniform," Fertitta said.  "James has provided us with so many great memories as we've watched him grow from Sixth Man of the Year to a perennial All-Star and MVP.  My family and I also want to thank James for his many off the court contributions, including generous charitable donations and multiple annual community events.  We wish James the best of luck and will always be grateful for the memories.".

Harden is not known for his defense, and neither are most of the role players that remain in place.

That should only be confirmed when Kyrie Irving returns, but the fringe benefit of this deal for Brooklyn is that Harden provides a measure of insurance against either injury or personal absence on Irving's part.

The Rockets, meanwhile, appear headed for a full-scale rebuild, and it was one that they needed considering the assets they've already lost.

Houston owes first-round picks to the Thunder in 2024 and 2026, as well as swap rights in 2021 and 2025, and with no path to immediate contention in sight, needed to use Harden to refill their coffers.

The deal may not grant the Rockets the franchise centerpiece they'd been hoping for, but it gives them more freedom to rebuild at their own pace without necessarily tanking.

It will be a frustrating few years in Houston, but once Harden publicly declared the situation unfixable, the Rockets had no choice but to move on a deal.

The Pacers were proactive in turning Oladipo, who will be a free agent at season's end, into LeVert, who is under contract through the 2022-23 season.

The budget-conscious Pacers will now pay LeVert only $52.5 million over the next three seasons when they might have had to give Oladipo the max to keep him.

The Lakers are the only other team in the NBA that can comfortably say that they have two top-10 players, but Brooklyn also has Kyrie Irving.

The proper Brooklyn grade here is incomplete.

Kevin Durant will play some center, but right now, the Nets are not equipped to deal with players like Joel Embiid or Anthony Davis in the playoffs. .

That was a need prior to the Harden deal, and it remains one after Brooklyn failed to extract P.J.

Durant has proven capable of defending those players in the past, and having Irving and Harden limits his offensive burden enough to make it feasible, but is tiring out maybe the best player on the planet defensively really an optimal use of his talent.

Brooklyn was at 113.4 even before this trade, and that includes games that Irving has missed.

The opportunity cost of a deal is as important as the actual cost, and the opportunity cost for Houston here was Ben Simmons.

Based on the extensive reporting of Philadelphia's involvement in the Harden sweepstakes, it seems almost certain that the Rockets could have acquired a 24-year-old All-NBA forward for Harden had they not asked for so much more on top of him.

The two best young players in this trade were Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen.

Houston could argue that LeVert, a shaky shooter, wouldn't fit alongside Wall, and it could argue that Allen would prove redundant with Christian Wood and DeMarcus Cousins in the building, but those aren't considerations that should matter when dealing a player of Harden's caliber.

If things go south here, Brooklyn could lose all three and be without control over its first-round picks for five full years after that.

Yes, the New York market could help them lure future free agents, but would players be eager to commit to Brooklyn if this situation faltered.

Houston could find itself in the same position Boston did after trading Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn: perpetually adding high lottery picks from a team with no immediate path to improvement. .

He's under contract for the next two seasons beyond this one for only around $36 million, which might amount to around half of what Oladipo gets from Houston or on the open market

The deal saves Indiana around $4.8 million this season, which will grant needed flexibility at the trade deadline. 

There's no such thing as a perfect trade, but Cleveland came about as close to it as any team could with this deal

The first-round pick they surrendered in the deal originally belonged to Milwaukee