Cavaliers Take a Step Back By Swapping Garland for Harden
Two teams that have both fallen short of expectations decided that swapping former All-Star guards will solve their problems (or at least reduce their problems to a a more manageable size); the Cleveland Cavaliers seemed poised to be championship contenders this season after leading the Eastern Conference with 64 wins last season, while the L.A. Clippers had high hopes after pushing the Denver Nuggets to seven games in the first round of last season's playoffs--but the Cavaliers are clinging to the Eastern Conference's fifth seed while the Clippers started the season 5-16 before getting rid of Chris Paul and are now battling for the Western Conference's 10th seed (and final Play-In Tournament berth).
Cleveland sent Darius Garland and a 2026 second round draft pick to L.A. for James Harden. Harden's signature move is his step back--which was called a travel when the NBA at least loosely enforced the traveling rule and which bears little resemblance to the step back moves perfected by Adrian Dantley, Larry Bird, and Dell Curry--and that is a fitting description of this move for the Cavaliers: a step back.
On paper, Harden looks like the superior player. He has averaged 24.1 ppg and 7.3 apg in his 17 season NBA career. Harden is an 11-time All-Star who has received eight All-NBA Team selections (including six First Team nods). He has finished in the top five in regular season MVP voting six times, including winning the 2018 award. During his seven year NBA career, Garland has averaged 18.8 ppg and 6.7 apg while shooting .453 from the field. He is a two-time All-Star (2022, 2025) who has never made the All-NBA Team or received a regular season MVP vote.
The Cavaliers rank 11th in defensive field goal percentage but just 28th in defensive three point field goal percentage. The Cavaliers rank 13th in rebounding, fifth in scoring and eighth in field goal percentage. Last season, the Cavaliers led the NBA in scoring while ranking second in field goal percentage, sixth in rebounding, third in defensive field goal percentage, and 13th in defensive three point field goal percentage. Those numbers--and the eye test--demonstrate that this season the Cavaliers have fallen off in terms of rebounding, overall defense, and perimeter defense while maintaining their status as a top offensive team; thus, the Cavaliers need to add players who are tough, physical, and mobile to bolster their paint presence and their shaky perimeter defense. Harden does not help the Cavaliers in any of their areas of need. He will throw some flashy lob passes to big men Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, but his overdribbling will not help overall offensive continuity and will make it difficult to play him alongside All-Star Donovan Mitchell, the team's primary scorer and ballhandler. Harden is a stout, physical defender when switched on to big men in the paint, but he is an awful perimeter defender whose lackadaisical effort at that end of the court will put a lot of pressure on Mobley and Allen to clean up his mistakes and blown assignments.
Harden is 10 years older than Garland, the largest age gap in an All-Star for All-Star trade in NBA history. The Cavaliers made a win now move with a player who has not won before and is unlikely to be a key contributor to a team focused on winning now. There are two consistent themes throughout Harden's career:
1) He chases money and individual accolades more than the opportunity for team success; as a result he often becomes unhappy with his current team because he is dissatisfied with his contract, which results in him forcing his way out. In 2012, Harden rejected being the third option for an Oklahoma City squad that had just reached the NBA Finals, so the Thunder dealt him to the Houston Rockets. Harden's Houston career ended in 2021 when he sulked and did not play hard until the Rockets shipped him to his desired destination, Brooklyn. In 2022, Harden complained and whined until Brooklyn traded him to Philadelphia. Harden played just 79 regular season games for the 76ers before he forced his way out of Philadelphia in 2023 to get paid by the L.A. Clippers. Cleveland is Harden's sixth team--and his fourth team in the past five years--and he has played more than three seasons for only one of his previous five teams.
2) He disappears in the playoffs. Harden specializes in the "Harden" (a game in which a player has more turnovers than field goals made) and the "concert tour" (a game in which a player's field goal numbers look like concert tour dates). In 2022, I summarized his horrific elimination game resume, and in the next three years he added more sad lines to that resume by scoring nine points on 3-11 field goal shooting in Philadelphia's 112-88 loss to Boston in 2023, by scoring 16 points on 5-16 field goal shooting in the L.A. Clippers' 114-101 loss to Dallas in 2024, and by scoring seven points on 2-8 field goal shooting in the Clippers' 120-101 loss to the Denver Nuggets in 2025.
It is not logical for the Cavaliers to assume, believe, or hope that acquiring Harden improves their chances of advancing past the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2018. I can write the template for the Cavaliers' 2026 elimination game loss now, and after the game I can fill in the blanks around the words "James Harden disappeared" and "James Harden scored just xxx second half points."
Harden has been more available and durable than Garland, but that availability and durability do not matter much when Harden disappears in the games that matter the most. The Clippers understand that they are not winning the 2026 NBA championship, and that it will be an uphill battle for them to even win one playoff series, so it is logical for the Clippers to get younger while avoiding dealing with Harden's large contract, moody attitude, and annual playoff collapses. If Garland becomes a dependable second option and playmaker alongside Kawhi Leonard--who has played at an MVP level for the past few weeks--then the Clippers can retool for next year; if Garland cannot get healthy or does not mesh well with Leonard, he is young enough and talented enough that the Clippers can trade him either in exchange for players who fit alongside Leonard or to stockpile draft picks if the Clippers choose to pull the plug on the Leonard era.
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, James Harden, Jarrett Allen, Kawhi Leonard, L.A. Clippers
posted by David Friedman @ 11:42 AM
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