NBA rumors: New suitors emerge for Peyton Watson, Bennedict Mathurin, plus Harden set to sign

The month of July is nearly over, and the majority of the needle-movers are off the board in NBA Free Agency. LeBron James is now a member of the Philadelphia 76ers. Austin Reaves, Trae Young, and Isaiah Hartenstein all re-signed with their respective teams. Jaylen Brown, Kawhi Leonard (hopefully), LaMelo Ball, and Giannis Antetokounmpo were all traded to new teams.

Still, some big pieces remain unsigned. Here are some rumorsf regarding the most prominent names left:

New players in the Peyton Watson sweepstakes

As I mentioned before, Peyton Watson is my favorite of the restricted free agents that are still left unsigned. I also believe that he will likely end up returning to the Denver Nuggets. However, it seems that there are some interested parties that we weren't initially aware of.

According to NBA Insider Marc Stein, it looks like the Milwaukee Bucks are the team we are talking about. In previous posts, we've discussed the New Orleans Pelicans, Los Angeles Lakers, and Los Angeles Clippers as potential suitors. However, nowadays it seems that the Bucks are the leading candidate (outside the Nuggets) to sign Watson.

Of course, the Nuggets still own all the leverage in this situation. The Bucks don't have the cap space to sign Watson outright. So, they would need a sign-and-trade with the Nuggets to make the deal happen. And as of right now, the Nuggets aren't settling for anything less than two first round picks in return for Watson (kind of like what the Utah Jazz got for Walker Kessler).

Bennedict Mathurin returning to Clippers is not a guarantee

In that aforementioned post where I predicted that Watson would return to the Nuggets, I also said that Bennedict Mathurin would come back to the Clippers. The Clippers were going to try and get Watson, but once they failed at that, they were going to settle for Mathurin as their backup option.

Well, it looks like Mathurin may not have to wait around for them to strikeout on Watson. Again, our good buddy Stein has some reporting. According to him, the Pelicans (who have been insanely quiet this offseason) and another unnamed party are interested in Mathurin's services.

Unfortunately, like the Bucks, the Pelicans are limited in what they can do. To get Mathurin, they would need to either execute a sign-and-trade with the Clippers or shed salary to offer Mathurin the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception and hope that Los Angeles doesn't match it (because, like Watson, Mathurin is a restricted free agent).

James Harden returning to Cavaliers

One domino people kind of forgot about is that James Harden opted out of his player option for the 2026-27 NBA season with the Cleveland Cavaliers in order to give them the flexibility to chase The King. Unfortunately, Harden's sacrifice didn't lead to James' third stint with the Cavaliers. But now that the whole fiasco is over, it's time to get the Harden situation figured out.

Fortunately, Harden hasn't changed his mind and still plans on returning to Cleveland. Once more from our guy Stein, the NBA insider reports that Harden is coming back on a contract for no more than two years. We also don't know the exact dollar amount yet, as the Cavaliers are still trying to find a way to bring Harden back, add another impactful player (like Jonathan Kuminga), and stay under the second apron.

I feel like Harden, who has been notorious for being more of a me-guy than a team-guy when it comes to getting paid, is being selfless in a pretty underrated way right now. Hopefully, he gets rewarded with his first NBA Finals appearance next season.

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