How long will Cleveland's James Harden experiment last?

The Cavaliers sign up for three years of The Beard, who is in his late 30s. It's a bet alright.

Good morning. I hope Dennis Schroder enjoys being back in the Southeast. College football starts this weekend, that's cool. Let's basketball.

After landing Peyton Watson in a sign-and-trade that cost them Max Strus and Dennis Schroder, the Cleveland Cavaliers had one more obvious piece of business: signing free agent James Harden to a new deal. Harden, who opted out of a $42 million deal for next year at the beginning of the season, signed a 3-year, $97 million contract on Thursday. The option on the third year is Harden's, not the team's. Congratulations to Harden for learning to trust again after he was allegedly burned by Daryl Morey and the Philadelphia 76ers: The Beard had two wait almost two full months for Cleveland's front office to settle its business and take care of him. There was a pay cut involved, and we'll never know if the pay cut would have been steeper had LeBron James elected to come home. But this is likely more than Harden, still productive at his age, could have dreamt of receiving as a free agent.

And that's the question for the Cavaliers, who moved on from Darius Garland last season to bring in Harden for this championship window: is there a path to this all working out well? Because Cleveland is in championship-or-bust mode, having spent their draft picks to acquire Donovan Mitchell and build around him. The Cavaliers went further into the playoffs than they had in prior years with Mitchell and Evan Mobley as their core, but were thoroughly crushed by the title-claiming Knicks. How in the mix with a Mitchell-Harden backcourt are the Cavs really?

And at this point, isn't the only likely off-ramp waiting out Harden's contract or flipping Mitchell?