The Cleveland Cavaliers made it to the Eastern Conference Finals this season, but they were swept by the New York Knicks. It was obvious that the Cavs were looking to get over the hump, which is why they made the several moves they did at the trade deadline. One of those moves included trading Lonzo Ball, and the big one was sending Darius Garland to the Los Angeles Clippers for James Harden.
Ball and Garland reconnected on the Ball in the Fam podcast, and they spoke about the Cavs’ playoff run. Ball had an interesting take on how things would have gone if he and Garland were still on the team.
“If you were trying to win a championship I don’t think that was the path that you should have took…if you ask me I think we would have went farther, but that’s just me,” Ball said. “I’m going to always bet on myself. Even watching the last series, I’m like, y’all traded people y’all aren’t even using.”
Lonzo Ball & Darius Garland’s thoughts on the Cavs postseason:
Lonzo: “If you were trying to win a championship I don’t think that was the path that you should have took…if you ask me I think we would have went farther”
Darius: “I’m with Zo man”
(via @ballinthefampod) pic.twitter.com/edncDAGe0V
— Kyle Ingram (@SnapshotKyle) June 3, 2026
Garland agreed with Ball and noted that the way the Cavs were playing after the trades was different from how things were at the beginning of the season.
“It was lowkey tough to watch. I didn’t watch a lot, but when I did tune in, it was kind of tough, especially seeing how we were playing earlier in the year. It was a 180; something totally different on the court,” Garland said.
The Cavs thought that adding Harden would turn out to be the move they needed to get them to the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, Harden flamed out several times during the postseason, as well as the Eastern Conference Finals.
It was obvious that they were trying to speed up their process of getting a championship, and that didn’t work out as they had planned.