James Harden is going to Cleveland. Three years, $97 million fully guaranteed. The 11-time All-Star turns 37 on Wednesday, and the Cavaliers just handed him the second-largest guaranteed contract ever given to a player at that age.
The other guy in that club is LeBron James. That is the entire list.
Cleveland’s front office deserves credit for the audacity of this one. Nobody had them as a Harden landing spot when free agency opened. The Beard was reportedly deciding between a Clippers reunion and a Miami pitch. Then Koby Altman flew in with $97 million and closed it in a weekend.
The basketball fit is the thing to argue about.
Donovan Mitchell needs the ball. So does Darius Garland. So does Harden. Cleveland’s offense last year was already crowded with ball-dominant guards, and adding a third one changes the calculus of every possession. Kenny Atkinson is now tasked with figuring out how to keep three top-20 scorers happy without turning every fourth quarter into a hero-ball tournament.
Atkinson has done more with less. He is going to earn every dollar of his contract this year.
Here is what the deal actually gets Cleveland. Late-clock offense. A guy who can create a bucket when the possession falls apart. A playoff scorer who has been through every situation the postseason can throw at a team. The Cavs got bounced in the second round the last two years partly because they had nobody to lean on when the shot clock hit six. Harden solves that problem.
He also creates a new one. He does not defend. He never has. Cleveland now has a starting lineup where three of the five players are minus defenders, and Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley cannot cover for everyone. The Celtics and Knicks are going to attack this team in switches every night.
The bet Cleveland is making is that offense wins in April and May, and that Atkinson can scheme up enough defense in the regular season to get to the playoffs with home court. That is a real bet with real risk. Three years and $97 million is the kind of number that ties up the books if it does not work.
Harden’s counter-argument is that he averaged 23 and 8 last year and shot 38 percent from three. He is not the version of himself from Houston, but he is still one of the 20 best offensive players in the sport. Attach him to Mobley and Allen and let him operate in space, and there is a version of this that works beautifully.
The Eastern Conference just got a lot harder to predict. Philadelphia added LeBron. Cleveland added Harden. New York and Boston still exist. The path to the Finals is going to look completely different than it did in June.
Give Cleveland credit for swinging. Now they have to make contact.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
