The James Harden era in Cleveland is off to a strong start. He’s played in four games for the Cavaliers with wins in each contest.
Cleveland started the season 15-14 but has turned a new page, winning 12 of its past 13 games, yet to lose since bringing the 11-time All-Star guard into the mix. The Cavs parted with two-time All-Star guard Darius Garland in the deal. He’s a decade younger than Harden, signaling a true win-now move for Cleveland after an early exit from the playoffs last season as the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Garland has dealt with injuries all season. He missed Cleveland’s first seven games of the year while recovering from offseason toe surgery. He has yet to make his Clippers debut, currently sidelined with an ankle sprain which has kept him off the court since Jan. 14.
After six-plus seasons with the Cavs, Garland admitted that he knew his time in Cleveland was bound to end, but he’s optimistic about what the future in Los Angeles could hold.
“It was going to happen regardless, either at the [trade] deadline or this summer. [My agent] Rich [Paul] had that conversation with me last summer,” Garland said in an interview with Andscape’s Marc Spears. “But yeah, the toe definitely had a factor in it. They didn’t know if I was going to be healthy for this season, which I will be. But they thought that James had something that I didn’t, I believe. He has experience in playoffs and All-Star numbers still to this day, even though he wasn’t an All-Star this year. But yeah, they want to win right now. They have a group, too. And I guess I really wasn’t part of the plan.
“But now, I’m over here in a really good situation. I have the ball in my hand a lot more where I could do me a little bit more. I have another superstar [Kawhi Leonard] next to me. I can go get it as well.”
L.A. had a dreadful 6-21 start to the season before winning 16 of its next 19 games and inching back closer to .500. The massive turnaround made the Harden deal quite shocking, but as the Clippers remained in the play-in tournament conversation, it appeared L.A. dug itself in too deep of a hole. On top of the Harden trade, the Clippers sent star center Ivica Zubac to the Pacers which left Leonard as the only piece of the team’s core remaining.
Despite pressing the rebuild button, the Clippers have been in good form since the deadline, winning four of the past five games. According to Andscape, Garland plans to make his Clippers debut “really, really soon” and has no hard feelings for the Cavs, saying the trade was a “good change” for him. It’s too early to tell for certain but as of now, the Cavs and their former All-Star guard are feeling good about the massive deadline deal.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Darius Garland Thinks Cavs Traded Him to Clippers for James Harden.
