The Los Angeles Clippers have, once again, renewed hopes when it comes to winning a championship after finally pulling off the much-awaited blockbuster trade that brings James Harden to town. Now, the Clippers have three All-Star-caliber players in Harden, Kawhi Leonard, and Paul George, with a high-variance player in Russell Westbrook leading the way for the team's title chances in Year 5 of the 213 era.

Now, all of those players will be commanding the ball to some degree; thus, it'll be interesting to see how head coach Tyronn Lue allocates touches and who'll end up taking a backseat. Now, infamous pundit Kendrick Perkins and former teammate of Harden and Westbrook's believe that it's the Beard who should end up sacrificing the most, with Perkins even suggesting that Harden come off the bench like he did for the 2011-12 Oklahoma City Thunder.

This spawned some pushback from yet another former teammate of both James Harden and Russell Westbrook in Patrick Beverley, saying that it's coaching/organizational malpractice for any team, including the Clippers, to bring Harden off the bench.

“That’s cap 🧢 No you won’t. U would start him or you would be fired that summer,” Beverley wrote on his official Twitter (X) account.

Given James Harden's stature as a multiple-time All-Star and an eventual first-ballot Hall of Famer, it will certainly be a tough sell for the Clippers to get him to buy into a bench role. After all, Harden, despite suffering a decline in his production over the past few years, is still a nightly 20-10 threat, and he'll be coming in as the Clippers' most lethal playmaker given the threat he provides as a scorer off the bounce.

Head coach Tyronn Lue also knows the importance of managing egos; after all, he has coached plenty of alpha personalities over the years, including LeBron James, and has made it work plenty of times. So there's close to 100 percent chance that the Clippers end up starting Harden for the rest of his stint in LA, however long that may last. Thus, Patrick Beverley may be right and Kendrick Perkins, as he ends up being most of the time, may be a bit misguided in his assertions.