Tuesday was the night James Harden finally became president

James Harden had a 60-point triple-double against Orlando on Tuesday. Holy smokes. It’s the first 60-point triple-double ever, and one of only eight 50-point triple-doubles ever. Russell Westbrook had the highest-scoring triple-double ever at 57 points before this, picking it up last March against, oh huh, Orlando. The Magic: facilitators of history.

Harden now has three of the five highest-scoring triple-doubles ever. It’s a new career high for Harden as well (and a Rockets team record), and perhaps most importantly it saved Houston’s bacon as the team was missing Chris Paul and Trevor Ariza and lost Eric Gordon early.

Here’s Ethan Rothstein on the incredible performance and how it situates Harden atop the MVP leaderboard again. The dagger step-back three was just incredible.

OKC 96, WAS 102
BKN 95, NYK 111
MIN 104, TOR 109
CLE 114, DET 125
ORL 107, HOU 114
SAC 114, NOP 103
DEN 104, SAS 106
GSW 99, UTA 129
POR 104, LAC 96

Yep, the Warriors lost by 30 to the Jazz. Salt Lake City nightlife is undefeated!

Yep, the Cavaliers lost to a Pistons team missing half its players due to the Blake Griffin trade. (The Cavaliers also lost Kevin Love for at least six weeks due to a hand fracture. Yikes.)

Yep, the Pelicans lost to the third-worst team in the NBA, a second straight loss since losing DeMarcus Cousins.

The league announced Andre Drummond as the injury replacement for John Wall in the All-Star Game. Now they’ll have to replace Love, as well. It will be the next-highest vote getter from the Eastern Conference coaches’ vote. We don’t know for sure who that would be, but Kemba Walker or Goran Dragic seems like a good bet. (Ben Simmons is next on many lists, but there are a number of folks philosophically opposed to putting rookies on All-Star teams, so he’s probably lower than you’d think on the list.)

Zito Madu writes that Blake Griffin should have made sure he got a no-trade clause in re-signing with the Clippers. You wonder if — had he been successful in doing that — L.A. wouldn’t even have broached trade talks with Detroit or anyone during the season. There’s too much potential for melodrama. Better to do it in the summer.

I wrote about the Clippers’ big swing and how they appear not to be satisfied with playoff berths anymore. This is the beginning of a full rebuild, in my estimation: Not an attempt to retool on the fly.

Here’s the great Lee Jenkins on the teardown of Lob City, and the great Zach Lowe on how the Griffin trade affects the prospects of both squads.

All hail Trae Young.

Ken Berger says it’s worse than you think in Cleveland. To wit: He reports that franchise owner Dan Gilbert is running the front office and has a very close relationship with Isaiah Thomas. Yikes!

The Bulls were trying to trade Nikola Mirotic to the Pelicans for Omer Asik and a first-round pick. Tying into the above Griffin narrative, Mirotic has a de-facto no-trade clause because he signed a one-year deal with a team option. Mirotic insisted — as is his contractual right — the second year get guaranteed before he approved a trade. The Pelicans didn’t want to pay him $12 million next year — the trade was meant to clear space and get a solid big man for the rest of this year. So the trade fell apart.

All 30 teams are participating in Vegas Summer League, if you wanted plans for July.

Absolutely wild story out of D.C. Catholic high school basketball involving shady free throws and Under Armour money.

ESPN has Knicks-Celtics at 8 p.m. ET and Mavericks-Suns at 10:30. The only League Pass game in which both teams have winning records is Miami-Cleveland at 7:30. Take a night off, you deserve it.

Be excellent to each other.