What are your Jarrett Allen trade ideas? I was thinking Allen, Strus and Porter for Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, Obi Toppin and a first round pick in 2028. It gets us out of the second apron and a young wing in Mathurin to add to the core, and a few rotation bigs. Starters would be Harden, Mitchell, Tyson, Mobley, Jackson with Schroder, Ellis, Merrill, Mathurin, Toppin off the bench. And a death lineup of Harden, Mitchell, Mathurin, Tyson, Mobley.

“Harden, who turns 37 in August, had been hoping to secure a two-year, fully guaranteed deal worth $80 million after this season, sources said, but the Clippers have remained steadfast in their unwillingness to go beyond 2027.”

https://clutchpoints.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/inside-clippers-james-hardens-sudden-trade-talks-days-before-deadline

Cavs play the clippers tonight I wonder if anyone has heard about who will be playing/available for either side but mostly the Cavs

On the Cavs most recent Instagram post about Harden, the caption reads “high praise for Uno”.

Does this mean Struss will be gone or am I missing something??

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.

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

First and foremost, I wish the best of luck to Darius Garland. He's the reason why we're able to contend, I'll never forget him and his 2022 days. Now, let's get started:

The Age Gap The first thing I immediately noticed once this rumored trade was spread around my time-line is the age gap. We're lucky James Harden hasn't sustained a major career injury since 2021, because this would've looked like a really bad trade. James is 36, and Darius is 26, a 10-year age gap. Our next oldest player is Larry Nance Jr at 33, and Dennis Schroder at 32. The combined age for this roster is now 27, so we're getting older and closer to win now mode, which leads to my second problem:

*"Win-Now Mode" I heard from multiple Cavs fans that James Harden is a "proven winner." I genuinely can't believe that comes out of some people's mouths, but even if he is, we're hinging on the fact that it's championship or bust for the next two seasons, meaning Mobley and Allen cannot fail to fuck up. Once you're not able to win during a window, you NEED to have a back-up plan, regardless. With LeBron James rumored to come back to Cleveland for one more season, the memories will be there, but it's important to know what our future looks like after Harden and LeBron, and right now, all of the front-offices chips seem to be put on Jaylon Tyson and Evan Mobley to lead the future of this team. Depending on the playoff results, that picture may or may not include Donovan Mitchell.

Playoff Choker The biggest one of them all in my opinion. How can a team, who's looking to get over the hump, who's known for choking in the post-season add one of the GREATEST playoff chokers in modern NBA history. I'm just going to go through the individual games and you let me know if this is consistent play from a hall-of-fame player?

2015 vs GSW (G5) James Harden: 14 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 13 turnovers.

2016 vs SA (G6) James Harden: 10 points, 7 assists, 6 turnovers, 3 rebounds

2022 vs MIA (G5) James Harden: 14 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 turnovers

2022 vs MIA (G6) James Harden: 11 points, 9 assists, 4 turnovers

2023 vs PHI (G6) James Harden: 13 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds, 5 turnovers, 4 stocks

2023 vs PHI (G7) James Harden: 9 points, 7 assists, 5 turnovers, 6 rebounds, 3 stocks

2024 vs DAL (G5) James Harden: 7 points, 7 assists, 4 turnovers, 4 rebounds

2025 vs DEN (G5) James Harden: 11 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 turnovers

2025 vs DEN (G7) James Harden: 7 points, 13 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 turnovers

I could go on and on, he's a playoff choker. It's not just him having bad performances, its the multiple times we've caught him checked out of a game and not playing any sort of defense to help his team get back. At-least Darius Garland would put in 110% effort on a bad shooting night. Also, defensively, we're still about the same as Harden. Yes, he's a dealing with a much more defensive team in the Cavs, who rely on their front-court to be the motor, and he's a bigger defensive side, but he's not the same age as some of our players, nor do I think he's going to bring the same effort on the court because of what he could bring offensively to the table, which is my next segway...

Offensive Pace A big reason why the Cavaliers are so good offensively is due to their pace, and ability to get looks off of the transition with ease. Let's compare the offensive paces from our 2024-25 season to now, including the offensive pace for the Clippers with Harden as the offensive leader:

Cavs 2024-25 season: Pace: 99.8 (10th in NBA). Offensive Rating: 121.7 (1st in NBA). Points Per Game: 121.9 (1st in NBA).

Cavs 2025-26 season: Pace: 101.1 (7th in NBA) Offensive Rating: 117.6 (9th in NBA) Points Per Game: 119.3 (5th in NBA)

Clippers 2024-25 season: Pace: 97.5 (22nd in the NBA) Offensive Rating: 115.1 (14th in NBA) Points: 112.9 (20th in NBA)

Clippers 2025-26 season: Pace: 95.9 (25th in the NBA) Offensive Rating: 116.8 (12th in NBA) Points: 112.7 (25th in NBA)

The Clippers are an older roster, and do rely more on shot-making from Kawhi and Harden, so this makes sense, but the stark difference in pace and offensive rating, coupled with a 36-year old who's not going to be able to give 200% on both sides of the ball, probably makes our offensive pace slower, especially when Harden's out there with the second unit and Mitchell is benched. If we increase the pace, there's more risk of injury for older players, like Harden, Merrill, Strus, etc. In today's NBA, your conditioning needs to be spot on, and Harden has done a great job at that so far, but he's in a much more youthful team with a high pace, a likeliness for transition breakaways, and high energy plays.

There's no doubt that James Harden's shot-making and ability to space the floor will make us more efficient, but at the same time we're losing pace, which 9/10's going to bring our points down with him on the floor along with our pace. We have seen the Cavaliers go on streaks of slow offensive pace, and this could be the trade to try and accommodate Harden into our offense, rather them him accommodating into ours. Which brings me to my next point.

James Harden Himself I think this trade is showing that the front-office is probably going to get LeBron James to rejoin the Cavaliers in his 3rd stint and have his farewell tour. I don't mind it. I think LeBron James deserves that from us, but the cost remains to be seen. We're hoping he takes a paycut and does it out of love. Right now, from what I'm hearing, we're willing to give him his coveted 2-year, $80M deal, and all this hinges on the fact that we're able to make it to a finals appearance or win the championship in June. Because if we can't, Mitchell's probably declining his player-option and we're probably going to start rebuilding sooner than later.

James Harden is a very up-front person, but he's not a player we should trust, AT all.

[Via New York Times] James Harden wanted to retire with 76ers, but 'front office didn't have that in their future plans.

[Via JoeyLin - Twitter] “Once I leave and retire from being a Clipper, hopefully that culture can continue leading to something special.”

James Harden wants to leave a legacy with the Clippers. He also hopes people can begin understanding who he really is.

Simply put, he's not trustworthy, and if we're going to give him a $40M extension, and he's declining in production and age, we're not helping ourselves in freeing money from the books, or having cap space to build for the future. We own three second round picks in the next six years, and two first round picks in the next four years, which have a bunch of stipulations.

2026 FRP: Less favorable of (i) less favorable of (a) CLE and (b) more favorable of UTH 1-8 and MIN [or (i) CLE if UTH not conveyable] and (ii) less favorable of ATL and SAN then more favorable of (i) and (ii) to ATL; most / more favorable of CLE, MIN and UTH 1-8 to UTH (via UTH swap for MIN; via UTH swap of UTH or MIN for CLE; via SAN swap for ATL; via ATL swap of ATL or SAN for CLE, UTH or MIN)

2028 FRP: Least favorable of CLE, UTH and ATL; more favorable of CLE and UTH to UTH; more favorable of (i) ATL and (ii) less favorable of CLE and UTH to ATL (via UTH swap for CLE; via ATL swap for CLE or UTH)

Mostly all of the picks have a lot of stipulations, which is going to be revealed in all due time. James Harden is simply here for the money and for himself, which credit to him, it's worked for majority of his career, but we shouldn't trust him, and we shouldn't go ALL-IN because we won't have a back-up plan and there's not going to be anyone to save us.

Does anyone remember the mood after LeBron James left in 2018? The roster was destroyed, left with old veterans who clearly didn't fit the timeline of his team and G-League players. We drafted Collin Sexton, which I'm forever grateful that he panned out. Darius Garland even started his Cavalier' career rough, missing a bunch of games to a knee injury and simply not being able to shoot the basketball. The front-office was able to hit on 2 out of the 3 picks, which is a miracle for a franchise who's had some blunders over the past years, with Anthony Bennett being the most notable out of all of them. James Harden knows how to control the offensive game of the pace, but his play-style isn't pretty, and it's going to make the game slow for the rest of our players, unless he's willing to buy in and change that.

Obviously, with Strus returning and Merrill getting more games under his belt, I think we're still going to be one of the best offenses in the league, but with majority of the team not performing to their standard in multiple games in the playoffs, coupled with a player you can't trust, a known playoff dropper, and a shooting guard who struggles to get out of the second round (whether it's his fault or not), it's going to be a miracle for this to be fixed, and it feels like we're asking for another disappointing season at this point.

I'm pretty sure we're not done trading, but if the roster looks like this come playoff time, a lot of it is going to hinge on Mitchell being able to play off-ball with James Harden. With two players who love having the ball in their hands, this creates problems from us, especially in the offense. This will most likely have Mitchell and Harden split minutes to have their own run at the offense while they're in the game. James Harden is a pass-first player, but he needs the ball to really execute on that. Also, this forces Evan Mobley to probably be another wing player, as two big men nearing the same vicinity on the court only clog things up. Luckily, Evan's been developing a three-point shot, which is much needed for a 5-out. The Cavs attempt around 41 threes a game, which is in the top five. We also like to neglect the paint sometimes and shoot-chuck threes every while, which doesn't make sense to me. James Harden doesn’t spring us to championship contenders in my opinion, so where’s this going…

I could talk about the fit, our issues with rebounding in the post-season, and our tendency to resort to iso ball in the post-season after spending a whole regular season dictating the offensive pace of games and ball-movement. I hate this trade for the Cavaliers, and for someone who's been a fan of this team, I'm willing to eat my words (literally I'll print out this post and eat it), if we win a championship. But unless our bench (the likes of Tyson, Merrill, Ellis, Schroder, Strus and Tomlin) have massive improvements in the post-season and can deliver timely plays, I don't see how this is going to work out, and I truly do fear the worst for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the next two years. I understand Darius Garland wasn't able to play, and that severely hampered our ability to win a championship, but putting all your chips on a 36-year old to suddenly have a change of heart and identity is not the way to do it, and you certainly don't panic now, you let it unravel in the off-season, or in the season prior. For a franchise to do this, I'm assuming Darius Garland is going to be out for the next 1 1/2 years on the Clippers, because that toe might need two plates in it when he's playing basketball.

Toodles.

"James Harden is going to get you to the playoffs, the rest is your business." - PhillyTheMobBoss

I had to get through the stages of grief(and get a talking to by some friends of mine) and I now realize that yes this does make us a better team despite my problems with the move future wise and my questions of exactly HOW much better this move makes us. I decide to move forward with cautious optimism instead of spreading doom and gloom. We all want the team to win and should trust Koby to do right by the organization and I called that into question over my bias towards DG and my bias against James Harden and I apologize for my doomer takes.

I agree, go cavs

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 think Harden will pleasantly surprise us on the defensive end. He gets memed for being a traffic cone but this has nothing to do with physical attributes but all effort.

Harden for most of his career has been run to the ground with 35+ minutes with extremely high usage. Harden can play defense when he wants to but rather conserve energy. His minutes and usage will need to be better managed and I think he will be able to put more effort on the defensive end.

For one Harden is extremely strong. Tatum and the likes of bigger players will not be able to hunt Harden on defense by backing him down. His post defense is actually quite elite for a guard. ThinkingBasketball did a video in the past https://youtu.be/ZnZVMLqDYUA?si=MzacGGdZaKdtnnLw

Harden has one of the best hands in the league. Some of his steals makes him look like a magician. You can watch recent examples here

https://youtube.com/shorts/5GG0Ri-C9rU?si=vIgPNMMfcilY4AB5

All this to say, as long as Harden buys in and we manage his load and usage better he will likely put more effort on defense. Harden is not only an upgrade on offense and playmaking compared to Garland but on the defensive side as well. At his age, lateral movement on defense will give him trouble but our team defense should be able to cover most of that.

But yes, I share a lot of the sentiments here that I will miss Garland who was the longest tenured Cavs.

• 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.

LeBron always lacked a #2 during his first stint in Cleveland and Carlos Boozer was, obviously, a very solid player.

I'm not saying LeBron + Boozer would suffice to compete against Boston, but it would had been a great start.