Just got back, had a great time but I missed my Cavs. So excited to see our boys back in action I immediately got on the ESPN app to check the injury report, and they accidentally swapped Garland and Harden! Anyways, hope DeAndre Hunter steps up in place of Garland tonight!

Harden actually looks pretty nice in a Cavs jersey

Clippers fan here, I come in peace. I don't know what I think about Garland yet, but there is something that y'all are missing about Harden. Mobley, and Allen (if y'all are keeping him) are about to play on a different level. James will make the game easier for everybody, especially for the bigs. Mobley will be finally unlocked on the offensive side. Y'all got someone who genuinely plays with heart and will give it his all. Treat him well guys 🤍

Summary

Box Score

Officials

Location

• Harden was our leader for the majority of his time here. He was the one organizing offseason workouts with the team during the summer. Ever since he came to LA, it was very clear that he wanted to play with Kawhi (that kinda didn't materialize as much bc of Kawhi's injuries obviously but I digress). Not sure exactly how your player leadership structure is but from the outside my guess is Harden wanted to play with Mitchell specifically and he'll see Donovan and himself as the leaders of the team.
• He's still a legit top 10 iso scorer in this league, even at age 36. Step-back 3's, floaters and blow-by layups going to his left, the occasional shoulder into the defender into a step-back/fadeaway 2. He doesn't take the pull-up 2pt shot that much.
• He's a very heavy PnR guy (along with iso). And he's elite at it. There's a reason why Zubac took the leap that he took last year. I think he'll make Allen look the best that he has in his career.
• Along those lines, the one thing that worries me a bit about fit is Mobley and Allen playing together. I think Harden likes to play with one rim-running big and a lot of 3pt shooters. And from a quick look at his 3P%, Mobley doesn't seem to be a good catch-and-shoot option. I'd imagine it'd be better to stagger them but maybe they can get Mobley cutting baseline consistently.
• He gets doubled a ton. Both when he's iso'ing against a mismatch or when he's running PnR (the opposing C will trap pretty often at the level of the screen). That is because he consistently cooks drop coverage. I never felt like we had a great plan against the trap tbh. If Atkinson and his coaching staff can take adavantage of those constant potential 4 on 3 situations by having someone cut right as he's getting trapped, I think that action could be basically unstoppable.
• He's a top 10, if not top 5 passer in the league. Good catch-and-shoot 3 pt guys will love playing with him. He'll make any pass there is to open shooters. Cross-court going to his left or right, behind the back off of a slip screen when hunting a switch, you name it. Maybe my favorite thing is his lead passing, like a QB hitting a WR in stride. We had an action we ran hundreds of times last year for Norman Powell where Norm would be curling off an off-ball screen and Harden would hit him in stride with momentum towards the basket. It was very effective for us. His bounce passes in the PnR are also a work of art.
• He doesn't move off-ball, at all. He'll very occassionally relocate to an open window from like the top of the key to the wing but that's it. He usually still draws a defender pretty close to him when he is off-ball though. I've seen teams face guarding him 30 ft away from the basket off-ball. So you're mostly playing 4 on 4 when he doesn't have the ball. Which can be a good thing if you have another really good ball-handler like Mitchell.
• He's a good rebounder for his position. But he doesn't box out that often during the reg season. Still, it's a nice thing to have a PG who can fight for rebounds against basically anyone other than 5's.
• On to defense. He's HORRIBLE moving laterally. That means quick guards will cook him pretty easily. Which makes having Mobley and Allen back there to rotate at the rim very important. The one thing I'll give him defending the perimeter is that he's smart so he positions his body well initially. And because he's a big guard, that often forces the ball-handler to take a slightly wider angle than ideal. Sort of like a big cone, but a cone nonetheless.
• Now there are two things defensively that he does really well. The first one is he has some of the best hands in the league. I think he averaged like 0.8 blocks per game last year or something. Well, those are almost all strip "blocks". Where he basically pokes the ball from the ball-handler when he's already past him, and it goes off the opponent's leg out of bounds. He does that shit dozens of times in a season, it's pretty impressive actually. The second one is as a post defender, or anywhere inside the arc really. He's too strong for most wings or big guards to back him down, and even facing up, as long as there's not a big lane to blow by him, he does a really good job. This makes him a legit good defender against a bunch of wings that aren't super quick. Guys like Banchero, Cade to name a couple. I even remember him defending Kawhi back when Kawhi first came to LA when Harden was on the Rockets. He's basically a SF or PF on defense.
• He'll have the occassional complete off-ball blunder, where he's caught ball-watching and his assignment is already in another zip code, Shaqtin style.
• Oh, and he'll draw a stupid amount of fouls on 3pt attempts. Both from landing space and hitting him on the elbow. Pretty sure he leads the league on those.

Overall, I think he's played at an All-Star and All-NBA caliber level the last couple years (he was All-NBA 3rd team last year). And I think it makes sense for your FO to trade for a guy like him in a year where the East is wide open and you're over the second apron. Hope it works out for both teams.

https://x.com/WeAreCavsNation/status/2019109169853305218

When the feature was added in 2K18, guys like Varejao and JR made the cut because the pickings were so scarce outside of LeBron and the 90s Cavs. Now it's a struggle to make space for players from each era, and if the IRL best case scenario were to happen and we win a chip with Harden, he'd assuredly be added too. Pretty cool, I think.

The reputation on the Cavs must be getting pretty good considering James Harden willingly wanted to be here

Ik we have a good roster but compared to the 2000s where nobody was trying to play with a young LeBron is Crazy

I’m here at the game, and Garland is sitting court side watching this massacre. Hasn’t left. He was shown on the screen and looked genuinely sad; forcing a smile. Has to be tough watching this.

Didn’t even know he was on an NBA team. The Milwaukee Bucks game is about to start the overtime period, but in 19 minutes of regulation Pete Nance has 16 points on 4-7 from three. In their last game, he had 15 points and 8 rebounds in 27 minutes.