Cavs' James Harden gamble made sense, but it's busted in a way his former teams know all too well

Yes, Garland is younger, and sure, maybe it somehow comes back to haunt the Cavs down the line, but they have too many timeline-aligned contracts to keep them all anyway.

The gamble to trade for Harden was logical, and that remains true even now.

He just happens to be proving that it probably isn't going to work out.

Not all of Harden's playoff performances are created equal. They don't all feel like a player who can't handle the big stage.

But the results are the results, and so by Thursday night, it was a story even Cleveland fans are starting to become much too familiar with.

And hey, when you've got an excuse to use some Taylor Swift lyrics to sum it up, you've got to do it.

That idea, his former teams knowing this all too well -- well, Taylor has a song called All Too Well.

And one set of the lyrics goes like this:

Maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up
Running scared, I was there
I remember it all too well.

Something about Harden feels like it fits that stanza a little bit too well.

He'll go into the Hall of Fame some day. But on these biggest nights of his career, there's something lesser about the historically great lefty.

At this point, it's just a bit sad.

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