Do you really believe Kenneth Faried will make a difference?

Why would I do that? U R Broke.

 

The lineup of death has yet to be beaten.

 

Yeah, well either you believe GSW will continue winning until eternity, or you think they will lose in the future. Which do you believe?

 

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26468868/our-favorite-nba-role-players-watch-season

Time for our eighth annual Luke Walton All-Stars -- an ode to bit players who bounce around the fringes of the NBA before landing in new roles where things click. (Read about the origins of the column here.)

Kenneth Faried, Houston Rockets

On Jan. 16 in Houston, another game in which Faried would play zero seconds for Brooklyn, he noticed the injury-plagued Rockets starting Tucker at center and saw his future. "'They are not even playing a big!'" Faried remembers thinking. "'I could come here and play right away.' It sucked [Clint] Capela was hurt, but it opened a door for me."

That brain wave accelerated buyout talks with the Nets, sources say; Faried debuted for the Rockets five days later.

If you wanted to pick one player to define the league's evolution over the last three-plus years, you could do worse than Faried. (Greg Monroe would like a moment, too.) He became a starter in Denver as a rookie, and averaged double figures in scoring for five straight seasons. But the tectonic plates of the game were already shifting beneath his feet. He couldn't shoot 3s, protect the rim, or switch on defense.

Few players have fallen further, faster. Faried must be shocked on one level, but he says something that happened during his first year in Denver taught him NBA stardom is fragile.

"I saw Denver sign Nene for all that money and trade him that same year," Faried says. "After that, I said, 'OK, this league is cutthroat.' No one really cares about you. They treat [Nene] like that?"

Faried never lost faith. "In my mind, I'm a starter," Faried says. "I always felt I had a place in this league. I never let anyone tell me I didn't belong."

He was a perfect stand-in for Capela, and now fittingly for Nene when Nene contracts a case of Nene-itis. He knows the role: screen for James Harden, roll hard, dunk lobs. He runs the floor, tries on defense, and has even hit 7-of-19 on 3-pointers. (Seriously: Mike D'Antoni lets everyone shoot 3s. He let Michael Carter-Williams fire at will. It's kind of surprising that Capela has taken only two in his career.)

"Everybody is shocked I'm knocking it down," he says. "But soon they're going to be running at me, and then it's pump fake, and next thing you know, I'm at the rim." That is a fitting coda to the Faried saga: use 3s to get more of the roaring 2s that made him famous.​