I dont think its underrated. Chris is a smart dude but a lot of this board is of the belief that we'd be better off with Paul and his intelligence over Westbrook and his perfectly working 31 year old hamstrings.
This is so far from a useful statement... If you want to single out the 'butchered future' moment, you might do better to point the finger at the Chris Paul $40million dollar payday. We screwed ourselves by massively overpaying an aging non-all-star. The Westbrook trade is simply the attempt to salvage something from that horrendous contract. OR You could point the finger at the "Luxury Tax Savings" deal that forbade the acquisition of Jam Green and Garrett Temple (and the retention of James Ennis) at the trade deadline last year. Instead we flushed the contracts of Knight and Chriss and dumped Ennis to get under the tax line. Keep Ennis, add Green and Temple, and you never know - we may have broken through last season even with the Albatross contract! Who knows? Let's just hope they get the most of out Westbrook while we have him - get him driving and kicking to shooters more consistently. And give him the green light to go "Russ mode" when Harden is sitting.
I liked the CP3 signing, I just wish we could have done a declining max....but, we made the guy a promise when he agreed on the opt-in the previous season, we were a game/injury away from beating one of the GOAT teams and winning a championship. I think if we still had CP3 and used our future picks to bolster the roster that we could have won a ring. I find WB's contract to be much more horrendous, and I don't think we can ever come close to competing for a ring with WB on the team
Westbrook had good hamstrings tonight and we still lost dude. Westbrook has been great these last couple of games....but honestly I feel like we needed Cp to cover for Harden's weaknesses. I feel like Westbrook has all the same tendencies James does.
I'll be honest. I don't think the Rockets with Harden/Westbrook are a championship team. I do think they give us a better chance than Harden/Paul. If Paul was 31, this wouldn't be a discussion.
Paul doesn't sound too smart. Today in the Chronicle Jonathan Feigan posted this quote from Paul talking about Tucker. "...He needs an extension. That's all the man want. The man play every night and can't get an extension." I don't know if Feigan messed up in quoting him, or if Paul really speaks like that.
Him and Tuck have a close bond and long history together. Paul is also the head union rep for the players so its understandable that he wants his good friend to get paid