Which two-man pairing is most important for the Cavs’ success?

The first one comes from Brian in San Diego who says, "We all know James Harden's game.

We know the upside, but we also know the downside of more dribbling, slower pace, less defense, and less athleticism on the floor.

Any chance he could be part of spearheading a second unit off the bench in the first half for 10 minutes, and then 15 minutes in the second half, including the last six minutes? Playing him 25 minutes preserves him a bit at his age, but also lets the rest of the team continue to grow and play in other ways.

Any chance of that happening this season?" Well, Brian, I want to start by saying this.

I don't think there's a scenario where the Cavs trusted in James Harden to not only bring him back on a three-year contract, but because of everything he did this off-season for them and the salary cap restrictions and also recruiting Peyton Watson and all these different things, that they are not gonna start him this season.

But that could change.

But the biggest thing to understand about Kenny Atkinson in this scenario, because he is the decision-maker, is that he treats the regular season as an 82-game laboratory.

He uses those 82 games to prepare for the situations the Cavs will ultimately encounter in April, May, and June.

We saw that over his first two seasons in Cleveland.

He was experimenting with lineups, pairings, roles, and different ways of using his personnel.

But there was always a playoff component to that experimentation.

He wasn't waiting until the final 15 games to suddenly decide, "Okay, now we have to become a playoff team.

Okay, now I'm going to switch this guy to the bench or bring this guy into the starting lineup." He was trying to establish those habits throughout the season so that when the games became more physical, the rotation shortened, and the stakes increased, the Cavs already had answers.

Or at least that was the hope, although we know that it wasn't necessarily the case in all of these series.

So I think one of the first questions Kenny Atkinson will be asking himself is, how can he distribute James Harden's 28 to 34 regular season minutes in a way that preserves a 37-year-old guard while also developing the players who are going to have to help him and Donovan Mitchell in the playoffs? Because if Cleveland keeps the general rotation structure it had at the end of last season, James Harden probably starts the game alongside Donovan Mitchell.

Donovan Mitchell will then come out after roughly seven minutes.

James Harden stays on the floor, and then Donovan Mitchell comes back either late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter to start that next period.

So you could still get James Harden functioning as the primary organizer of that second unit without actually having him come off the bench to start the game.

So most importantly, the Cavs need James Harden to be at his best when the playoffs arrive.

That's the biggest key for this Cavs team when it comes to James Harden's health and his durability because we know he was dealing with a fractured thumb during some of the stints when he was in Cleveland last year, and we don't necessarily know if that was fully healed during the postseason run.

We're not making excuses for James Harden or the Cleveland Cavaliers medical staff or anything of that nature.

We just know that there's different levels to James Harden, and especially as he's aging, having him at his best or at most healthy or most conditioned or most rested is the best suited for this Cleveland Cavaliers team.

That way you get the elite play-making, the ability to manipulate a defense, the ability to create a good shot late in the shot clock, and the experience of somebody who has spent nearly two decades playing this game at the highest level.

Although we know he has only gone to one NBA finals in 2012 with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he's hoping that 15 years later he can help lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA finals for the first time since 2018.

But you also have the other side of this equation with James Harden and his game at this stage of his career because he's not the athlete that he once was.