CLEVELAND, Ohio - James Harden spent Monday at Rocket Arena talking like a player who knows exactly why he came to Cleveland and exactly what he thinks is still on the table.
The Cavs opened media day before heading to The Embassy in Andalusia, Spain for training camp, and Harden used the podium to frame his first season with the team around one central idea: he wants a championship, and he believes this group can help him get there.
“This is something that I want to do, and I want to win a championship,” Harden said. “So what does that look like?
Okay, you know, making the team better, making the team whole to where we can give ourselves a chance. By the way, you can have the best talented team, which I’ve been on before, and still not win.
You know what I mean? So everything has to line up.”
Harden said he and the Cavs took their time before he signed his three-year contract in Cleveland, making sure the front office had a chance to build the roster the right way first. He said the wait mattered because he views the move as another sacrifice in a career that has already included sacrifices of time, money and role.
“This isn’t the first time that I’ve sacrificed and done something like this. Whether it’s time, whether it’s money, whether it’s role. I’ve done this before, and the only thing that I’m missing is a championship,” he said.
One of the biggest themes of Harden’s comments was how much the team has tried to build chemistry away from the court. He pointed to summer gatherings, movie nights, bowling and a recent stretch of public appearances, including a high school football game Friday and the Browns game Saturday, as part of that process.
“I feel like me just getting traded here with 20 something games left, we really didn’t have an opportunity to have that team bonding,” Harden said. “Those 20 games and then you’re preparing for the postseason.
And then it’s the postseason, it’s like everything is intensified. Everything is just like, focus, focus, focus, focus.
You don’t really understand each other.”
He said this offseason gave the group time to slow down and learn one another in a way they couldn’t last season.
“So just building it just one day at a time, literally,” Harden said.
Harden also addressed his role in the Cavaliers’ pursuit of Peyton Watson, saying the decision fit with what Cleveland is trying to build. He described Watson as young, athletic and still improving, while also noting his postseason experience in Denver.
“I think it was a no brainer,” Harden said. “He fits, he’s young, he’s athletic, he’s gotten a lot better and he has a long way to go, and it just fits what we’re trying to do.”
Asked about the team’s identity, Harden returned again to the same idea: comfort breeds communication, and communication should carry over once the games start.
“We will carry it over,” he said. “Like I just said before, like understanding somebody, like in any job that we have or that’s any job in the world. Like if you don’t know anybody, you don’t know how to communicate with the person.”
He said the early months have helped teammates like Evan Mobley and JA get more comfortable around him.
“So now it’s like giving them comfortability to come talk to me or me talk to them in ways that we never really had before, you know what I’m saying?” Harden said.
“Because everything happens so fast. So that’s very, very important in any situation.
But I think we’ve built some really good stuff over these last few months.”
Harden also spoke about his long-running connection to China and the way he sees that relationship fitting into his legacy beyond the NBA.
“I think China has some of the best basketball fans in the world in,” Harden said. “So I think a part of my job is to, you know, amplify that and show the world how they embrace and they love the game of basketball.”
He said he hopes that connection helps build the game there even more, including development for younger players.
“We’ve seen how global this game is grown, and a few more Chinese players in this league will make the game even better,” Harden said.
On the injury front, Harden said the thumb issue that bothered him after the trade healed on its own and that he pushed through it because there was no other option.
“I mean, it’s my left hand, but I mean, it was swollen at the time, so it was kind of difficult to dribble or shoot or be effective like I would be,” he said. “But, I mean, there’s no time for excuses so just figure it out.”
He said he attacked it with treatment around the clock and simply tried to get through it.
“It’s healed. I had a few months before to heal. Unfortunate, but it’s a part of the game,” Harden said.
Harden also said the Cavs’ biggest challenge with Donovan Mitchell is not any single adjustment, but figuring out how everything fits over the course of a full season.
“Well, I mean, we got to do a lot. I can’t put fingerprint one thing on it,” Harden said. “That’s the beauty of entire preseason and then entire regular season to understand each other.”
He said the team had to make do on the fly in the playoffs, but that the coming season should give the duo more time to sort out what works.
“I got thrown in the fire, which is not a bad thing at all,” Harden said. “So we kind of had to try to figure it out on the go. Now we got a whole season to figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and then kind of go from there, which definitely a bonus for us.”
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