Progress Report: Grading James Harden’s first 14 games with the Cavs

It’s been a month and a half since the Cleveland Cavaliers traded for James Harden. So far, the results have pretty good.

The Cavs won their first five games with Harden in the lineup. Since that time, he’s broken a finger, and the team has lost four of their next nine games with him. The Cavs are now 10-4 in games Harden plays.

In that time, Harden is averaging 19.4 points, 7.7 assists, and 5.1 rebounds per game with .480/.436/.808 shooting splits.

The three-ball has boosted Harden’s efficiency. The outside shot will undoubtedly cool off. He’s never shot over 40% from three for a season. The closest he’s gotten was converting 39% of his triples back in the 2011-12 season.

Harden has done a great job of bolstering the offense while adjusting to a secondary role alongside Donovan Mitchell. Harden’s usage rate in Cleveland has been 27.9% (67th percentile). That’s the lowest it’s been since 2023-24, when he first played alongside Kawhi Leonard and Paul George with the Los Angeles Clippers.

More impressively, Harden has done a great job of fitting into head coach Kenny Atkinson’s offensive system. The Cavs are playing slower with Harden on the court compared to their season-long average, but since he’s come to the team, they’re playing at a slightly faster pace when he’s on the court compared to when he’s off.

Atkinson’s system isn’t built on just playing fast. It’s a movement-based offense that runs a lot of off-ball action. That’s the opposite of Harden’s isolation system, where every player stays perfectly spaced at all times.

The Cavs have done a good job of blending the two. They’ve been able to incorporate a decent amount of off-ball movement around Harden, which has allowed him to showcase how good a passer he is.

As a team, the Cavs have scored 122.7 points per 100 possessions (94th percentile for offensive ratings) when Harden is on the court. An individual player’s offensive rating isn’t usually indicative of how well they’ve performed. In this instance, it shows how well he’s bought into the team’s philosophy, leading to their success.

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More importantly, the offense has remained elite no matter which core player he’s been paired with.

Harden has paired incredibly well with Mitchell. He’s allowed Mitchell to keep the reins as a scorer while finding ways to fit in around him. As a result, the Cavs have posted a 128.8 offensive rating with both Mitchell and Harden on the court (99th percentile). This has led to the Cavs outscoring their opponents by 11.3 points per 100 possessions when both are on the floor (94th percentile for net ratings).

The same has been true with Jarrett Allen. The duo has developed an impressive pick-and-roll game, which has led to the Cavs posting a 124.2 offensive rating (97th percentile) and a +8.5 net rating (87th percentile) when both are playing.

Harden’s fit alongside Evan Mobley has looked the most awkward. The duo hasn’t developed great pick-and-roll chemistry yet, which has left the offense feeling clunky at times. However, that clunkiness isn’t reflected in the numbers. The Cavs have still posted a superb 122.1 offensive rating with both on the floor (92nd percentile) and a +9.1 net rating (89th percentile).

As seamless as the fit has been, there are two things that we can clearly knock Harden for.

First, he’s been able to stabilize lineups without Mitchell — which was a big issue before the Harden trade — but those lineups haven’t been too impressive.

Atkinson hasn’t found the right bench combinations to play alongside Harden. There hasn’t been much consistency in those lineups, which makes it difficult to have too strong an opinion as to why they haven’t thrived. This has led to the Cavs outscoring opponents by 1.6 points per 100 possessions (59th percentile for net ratings) when Harden is on the floor without Mitchell.

Secondly, the defense has been rough with Harden.

Opponents are scoring 4.7 more points per 100 possessions with Harden on the floor compared to when he’s off (17th percentile). This is due in part to how poor Harden is at the point of attack.

The Cavs have tried different ways to cover for Harden defensively, but haven’t found much success in doing so. They’ve experimented with the 3-2 zone with Harden at both the top and the bottom of the zone, but he’s fared poorly in both situations. He doesn’t provide enough resistance at the top of the zone, and the rotations are too slow when he’s at the bottom.

These issues are amplified when he’s playing alongside Mitchell, who’s been a poor point-of-attack defender in his own right recently.

The defense has been without either Mobley or Allen in most of Harden’s tenure with the team. Harden has only played with both bigs in five of his 14 games. The defense has been exceptional in the brief time he’s shared the floor with both bigs — they’ve posted a 95.4 defensive rating (100th percentile) in 72 minutes together. The issue is that the Cavs play a majority of their minutes with just one of the two bigs on the court, even when both are healthy.

Harden isn’t magically going to become a great defender in his 17th season. However, there are likely better ways to cover for him on that end. The question is whether the Cavaliers can find those before the postseason.

Overall, Harden has fit in well with his teammates. He was brought in to boost their chances of going to the Finals this season and in the next few seasons. Based on the early returns, they’re in a better situation to do that even with him playing through a broken finger.