[ClutchFans] The Rockets sacrifice their future to get Russell Westbrook

I beg to differ here.

As we have watched the TV series, Chernobyl was pretty quiet until it was too late.

 

WB > CP right now.
a lot of ppl was worry about the fit when CP first came here. Harden is a smart basketball superstar. They will find a way to work things out. just trust the process!

 

Yes, yes, and yes because he effects the flow of the game on so many different levels. The timely steal, the demoralizing dunk in transition, the dagger 3 he has no business hitting, aka the intangibles. Things your eff ratings and shot percentages can never quantify, the will he imposes upon the game as one of the all time greats to ever play the position, leaving you still wondering how we got here in the first place...

 

Yep, but we didn't know they were feuding......well, at least it worked out well enough for a run or two into the playoffs.

Not really fighting but they clearly had different views of how to set up plays.

 

Actually he did mention that he can fast break and that he's excellent around the rim. Unfortunately that is the extent of his scoring skill set. He cannot shoot three pointers. He cannot shoot mid-range jumpers. He cannot shoot free throws. And he's been declining in all of those areas. At the rate his free throws are declining I'm afraid he'll be around 55% this year.

I believe Clutch was MUCH more objective than you.

 

One thing he does not have here.

The pressure to succeed. Sure, he will shoulder some of the responsibilies as the Number 2 dude but in OKC he had much more pressure.

All eyes will still be on Harden, and he can play off him.

It is not ideal but I think that might work in their favor to a degree.

 

Don't always agree with @Clutch but pretty much on the same page across the board on this one.

 

Great article.

This is one of those trades where the more you dig into the details, the worse it looks. As a Rockets fan, you want to be convinced that it was a good deal, but the proponents on this forum and elsewhere (see post #2 in this thread) make such poor arguments that you can’t help but resign yourself to the fact that Morey made a terrible trade.

After an embarrassing first two weeks of the offseason. After an embarrassing trade deadline. After an embarrassing list of transactions last offseason.

The Rockets are just a bad organization now. For me, the benefit of the doubt was stripped from them back in February (I defended signing Melo/MCW/Ennis, losing Ariza/Moute, and flipping Ryno/Melton when those happened).

Now, no one should trust them.

 

LOL, I needed it as well. Just wanted to pass it on.

But it speaks to Daryl Morey. You have to have faith that he can pivot to make moves. The Westbrook trade was not his genesis. It was Harden's and Tilman signed off on it. That said, BEFORE all of this talk, Morey canvased the landscape of the league to get intelligence on the market value of CP and probably many other players on his team and on other teams. This is his due diligence for FUTURE MOVES.

It is a tired phrase but this is morey playing chess. Mapping out an exit strategy if things go south.

 

If you want to see a truly bad organization- please review the offseason moves of Phoenix, Washington, Charlotte, Sacramento, Orlando, among others.

Hell the Lakers are shambolic but in spite of themselves they got Anthony Davis. So...whatever.

 

I am still processing the CP/Westbrook trade. I could make some knee jerk comments but I don't want to right now. I think the above 2 points are important though when trying to look at this trade.

We can look at the skill set of each player and make analysis off that, but there are also chemistry issues at play. We know how chemistry in the past has derailed this team. The last season of Dwight. The Ty Lawson addition. Not saying the CP/Harden situation is those, but who knows where they are at?

 

The CP hammy jokes have been beaten into the ground over the last year, but his durability is a very real concern. That coupled with his quickly diminishing game makes this easy to stomach. Russ' shooting woes are unsettling, but CP was wildly inconsistent from 3 when it mattered most (19% in Utah series / 31% GSW) and struggled in high-leverage iso situations. He's 34 and a different dude now. Russ' window aligns with JH's and the two wanted to play together, so in a day and age where a simple demand can turn a franchise on its head, why wouldn't you do whatever it takes to keep your megastar happy and feeling at home?

Also, an interesting note from r/rockets - Russ on catch-and-shoot 3s post-ASB: 37.7% on 3.2 attempts/game; in the playoffs: 39.1% on 4.6 attempts/game.

 

2026 is Pat Fertitta's problem bro

 

I just don't really see how he can play off Harden. I'm not saying you're wrong. I am a basketball fan; not a basketball mind. But he also rated dead last in pick & roll efficiency of every player who participated in more than 400 pick and rolls. Where Brodie is best is in the fast break, beating his man and driving to the basket and then determining if he's going to score within 3 feet of the basket (where he is excellent at a 63%) or dishing out to his team mates. I do see there being some reason to be optimistic about that. OKC was kind of legendary for how few real shooters they had. We have much better shooters so I could see his assist rate going up and that would be amazing. However, I'm afraid in order to pull that off he's going to have to take the ball out of Harden's hands. I struggle with the idea of that being a positive. Who knows though. Maybe we'll discover James is even better in that role. I hope so because that's the only way I can imagine this working.

Also, while I'm back in here I want to applaud Clutch for the line about this being what it looks like if Corey Brewer thought he was Steph Curry. So true. So perfect. I had called him "MCW with elite athleticism" but Clutch's line is more apt still.

 

All the comments are great.

Not the end of the world.

Take a breath or you will die.

Bottomline. This IS a players league. The only reason Westbrook was available was because PG13 decided it was better to play with KL in LA, even after signing contract to stay, had a worthy MVP like season. Once the demand comes out you got to trade now. That made WB union possible. When the bros want to play together you do it, especially if the relationship with CP3 wasn't as good as before AND he is hurt AND 4 YEAR OLDER.

You run it back and if fails then you will see Harden demand a trade, like AD, PG13, etc.

'You mean there is a chance' This team has but I don't think CP3/Harden had.

My 2 cents.

They are bros from WAAAAAY back. This is still a game and let the boys play.

Enjoy life. NBA basketball is not all that crack up to be.

 

I think this is less about who the better player is and more about Chris Paul creating a sour atmosphere last year. His lack of effort, whether to decrease the likelihood of injury or for some other more cynical reason, was telling in game after game, yet he continued to hold others accountable for their own lapses. That kind of **** doesn't sit well with guys, least of all a guy like Harden who carried the team back from the abyss by playing out of his mind for a few months.

CP3 wore out his welcome here quickly; not with the fans, but with the team. Much more quickly than he did in NO and LA. Everyone involved tried to diffuse the end-of-season tension for the sake of unity, but it was obvious something had gone very wrong.

Harden has indeed had two superstar teammates dropped in his lap in Howard and CP3, but both were known to be among the least-liked teammates in the league. Hard to hold that against Harden. Maybe this time Morey decided to go with a better fit personality-wise. Who knows if it will work, but given the events going all the way back to CP3 pushing for Melo and Biglydick jumping ship, I'm not shocked by this move.

As for mortgaging the future, I'm pretty sure Morey knows if we haven't won a chip by 2024, Harden will be past his prime and it'll be time to finally try that tanking he's heard so much about.

 

Morey has seen more than enough of Harden/Paul trying to emerge from the conference. The Raptors saw enough of DeRozan/Lowry and look what happened.

That’s my reasoning at least. They couldn’t beat the Warriors, and they probably weren’t beating the Clippers and Lakers with Paul so they did something about it. Whether or not it pans out remains to be seen.

 

The title seems to imply a negative, but if the Rockets win a championship, I’m all for it. I’ve never thought this way, but it may be that Morey’s only flaw is that he’s never really gone all in. I don’t know if this was the spot to do it, but we will see.

My biggest fear is that this is Morey saying goodbye. He did what Tilman wanted, and made sure that the repercussions will be felt after he is gone.

I don’t hate the move from an on-court perspective, but I don’t love it, either. What I hate is that it’s probably s farewell to Morey.

 

So much hypocrisy here. You guys have been mocking Westbrook's triple double for the past three years. Now all of a sudden he is a legit MVP.

Do you know in the past two seasons, how many shots Westbrook took per game to score 24 ppg? That's right, 21. And that's with Paul George on the team. (BTW, PG took 19 shots a game to score 25 ppg.)

Incidentally, Harden took 22 shots a game and scored 33 ppg.

 

I agree with most of the article except for a couple of things. CP3's on-ball defense is a negative at his age against the better guards. He can't keep up with them and they can and do expose him. RB takes plays off, so that part seems like a wash to me.

Also, RB creates more problems for the other team's defense than CP3. So the mismatches could work out in our favor. I agree with all of the other negatives mentioned about the trade.

That being said I still lead to being in favor of the trade for the reason that CP3 wasn't capable of being the number 2 option on a team anymore. We weren't going to win with CP3 even if he was able to stay healthy.

So for that reason, we should try something different. This is something different so if it was the best we could do it's worth a shot.