{"id":583940,"date":"2026-02-05T11:46:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/583940\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:46:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:46:01","slug":"seven-ways-james-harden-will-help-the-cavs-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/583940\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven ways James Harden will help the Cavs this season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> mortgaged part of their future for a better chance at winning a title now<\/a> when they sent out a 26-year-old former All-Star in Darius Garland for 36-year-old James Harden<\/a>. And even though Harden has his playoff warts, he\u2019s an upgrade over Garland and will address multiple weaknesses with the roster.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at how exactly he\u2019ll help the Cavs.<\/p>\n

Ability to drive to the basket<\/p>\n

One of the Cavs\u2019 biggest problems at the beginning of the season was a lack of drives. They didn\u2019t have a guard who could consistently get to and score at the basket. This led to a lot of side-to-side actions and pull-up threes. As a result, Cleveland is 16th in attempts at the rim<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harden\u2019s presence will solve a lot of those issues.<\/p>\n

He is ninth in the league<\/a> in drives per game this season with 14.8 per game<\/a>. Harden\u2019s ability to get past his defender and either draw a shooting foul, get all the way to the basket, or find an open teammate is still elite regardless of his age.<\/p>\n

Harden has the rare combination of strength, touch around the basket, and straight-line speed. This is coupled with an uncanny ability to stop and start on a whim to create angles for attack. The skills that have made him one of the best offensive combo guards of all time are still there.<\/p>\n

Harden\u2019s rim attempts have gone down as he\u2019s aged. The in-between runner has become much more a part of his game than it was during his peak years with the Houston Rockets<\/a>. Still, he\u2019s in the 60th percentile<\/a> in shots at the rim for a point guard and in the 71st percentile<\/a> for finishing at the rim (66%<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Cavs aren\u2019t a heavy pick-and-roll team. That will undoubtedly change with Harden in the fold. And the Cavaliers have two good bigs that Harden can play off.<\/p>\n

The pick-and-roll works so well for Harden because of his ability to read the floor and create advantages. If you try not to switch the pick-and-roll, Harden is good enough to keep his defender on his hip and get the easy layup.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t switch and have the big drop, Harden is going to take the open three or mid-range jumper.<\/p>\n

The jump shot hasn\u2019t been as deadly this season. His 34.7% three-point shooting clip is the lowest since 2021-22. This includes hitting 34.4% of his pull-up threes<\/a>. That number isn\u2019t too much lower than Donovan Mitchell\u2019s (35.9%<\/a>), but not the level you\u2019d want it to be considering Harden takes the second-most pull-up threes<\/a> per game.<\/p>\n

More than his scoring, the ability to playmake off on-ball screens is what makes Harden so dangerous. Seeing passes and making passes are two different skills. He does both at an elite level. That doesn\u2019t always show up in impressive, otherworldly passes. The greats are often that way because they routinely do the little things right.<\/p>\n

If the defense helps from the corner, Harden is going to pass out to where the help comes. If the defense is going to give the roller any space, he\u2019s not afraid to make the simple bounce pass.<\/p>\n

Basketball doesn\u2019t always have to be complicated when you\u2019re consistently executing at a high level.<\/p>\n

People don\u2019t necessarily think of Harden as a basketball savant, but when you watch the reads that he\u2019s consistently making, it\u2019s clear that he processes the game incredibly well.<\/p>\n

Harden\u2019s entire offensive game is based on creating and exploiting advantages. He uses that mostly as a scorer, but if he sees a mismatch elsewhere on the court, he will make sure the ball gets there as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

One of the most difficult things about exploiting mismatches is that by the time the offensive player sees it, the defense is also reacting and trying to help if they can. One of the ways the offense can keep that advantage is to throw an entry pass that keeps the offensive player away from the trouble.<\/p>\n

Proficiency at handling double teams<\/p>\n

The Cavs have historically struggled when teams would blitz their guards. Part of that is due to both of their primary offensive engines being 6\u20192\u201d or under.<\/p>\n

Harden will help in this area. It\u2019s risky to double-team Mitchell if Harden is on the court because of his skill as an offensive player. And if you were to double Harden, he\u2019s more often than not going to make you pay.<\/p>\n

Being 6\u20195\u201d with good strength helps Harden not get bullied when teams blitz him. This allows him to patiently accept the double, survey where the open man is, and get the ball out.<\/p>\n

Also, you need to be careful when you do double to make sure he doesn\u2019t split both defenders and score himself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. You can buy the Let \u2018Em Know shirt HERE<\/a>. You can also shop all of Homage\u2019s Cavs gear HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have had trouble with rebounding, particularly from their guards. Harden fixes some of those issues.<\/p>\n

Currently, Harden is in the 83rd percentile for defensive rebounding percentage<\/a>, which translates to 4.2 defensive rebounds per game. While that isn\u2019t earth-shattering, it is helpful.<\/p>\n

Harden also does a good job of holding his own when he\u2019s forced to guard small and power forwards. His strength makes him difficult to bully in the post and on the glass. This can be useful in situations where he gets a big switched onto him or if you\u2019re in a matchup where you\u2019d be better served with hiding Harden on an offensively weaker forward so that Evan Mobley or Dean Wade could cover an opposing guard.<\/p>\n

Harden gets a bad wrap, partially because no one likes the way he continually gets to the free-throw line. He\u2019s the poster child of inventing new ways to initiate contact and bend the rules to his advantage. And while that\u2019s annoying when he\u2019s playing against your favorite team, there is an undeniable skill and craft that allows him to do this.<\/p>\n

Getting to the line is something that the Cavs have struggled with for the past several years. They\u2019re 20th in free-throw rate<\/a> and haven\u2019t been above league average<\/a> the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

Harden\u2019s presence alone is going to help immensely. He\u2019s in the 90th percentile<\/a> in drawing shooting fouls. This translates over to a team context. This season, the Clippers were in the 95th percentile<\/a> in free-throw rate when Harden was on the floor. Over his 17-year career, his team has been in the 75th percentile for free-throw rate or better <\/a>when he\u2019s playing.<\/p>\n

The Cavs\u2019 offense under head coach Kenny Atkinson has been powered primarily by their shooting from the field. That will change some with the boost that Harden will provide here.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have gone as Mitchell has this season. When he\u2019s on the floor, they\u2019ve been great (+6.6 net rating<\/a>) and without him, they\u2019ve been awful (-3.3 net rating<\/a>). This includes somehow being worse when Garland was on the court without Mitchell (-9.5 net rating<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Harden will help drastically in the minutes without Mitchell. He\u2019s been a one-man offense over his entire career.<\/p>\n

One of the most consistent things in the NBA over the past decade and a half is that your offense will be good if Harden is on the court. This season, the Clippers had a 120.3 offensive rating<\/a> with Harden on the floor (87th percentile<\/a>). That plummets to a 109.6 offensive rating<\/a> (12th percentile<\/a>) without him. And if your offense is that bad, you\u2019re going to lose those minutes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to wonder whether Mitchell and Harden can mesh their games when they share the floor. The Cavs aren\u2019t going to win a championship if their new core-four players don\u2019t play well together. If they are going to play well together, Harden will likely have to adjust his game to play at Atkinson\u2019s pace.<\/p>\n

Those concerns aside, you can almost certainly guarantee that the Cavs will still have a great offensive attack when Harden is on the floor without Mitchell.<\/p>\n

The Cavs are sacrificing future stability to increase their chances of winning now. Despite his age, Harden raises the floor and ceiling of this team. He will help their offense tremendously, especially when compared to this season\u2019s version of Garland. Whether or not that will translate over to the playoffs remains to be seen and will ultimately determine if this was a worthwhile gamble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers mortgaged part of their future for a better chance at winning a title now when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,2268,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-583940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cavs-videos","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116017862395570041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}