# Was the James Harden Trade a Failure?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ken-carman-show-with-anthony-lima-1099928/was-the-james-harden-trade-a-failure
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ken-carman-show-with-anthony-lima-1099928/was-the-james-harden-trade-a-failure.md
Podcast: [The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ken-carman-show-with-anthony-lima-1099928)
Published: 2026-06-17T12:35:56+00:00
Episode link: https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Frss.amperwave.net%2Fv2%2Fepisode%2F8459648_2026-06-17-120048
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/serve.castfire.com/audio/8459648/8459648_2026-06-17-120048.128.mp3?rssID=3588
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-ken-carman-show-with-anthony-lima-1099928/episodes/was-the-james-harden-trade-a-failure
Duration seconds: 965

## Resource

Ken Carman pushes back hard on the growing narrative that the James Harden trade was a bust, walking through the numbers and arguing the on-off splits clearly show Harden was a real upgrade over Darius Garland, especially defensively. He and Lima debate what "failure" even means for a team that made a deeper playoff run than anyone expected, and Carman draws a line between not winning a championship and being an outright disaster, pointing to the Knicks' OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges trades as proof narratives can flip fast. The two also touch on Daniel Jeremiah's comparison of Brendan Sorsby to Jaxson Dart before wrapping up ahead of their interview with Cavaliers CMO Chris Kaiser.

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## Transcript

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