I don't think he had any idea. He would not be on board with going to OKC and would have made it known, probably publicly (I don't blame him here). I think this came together and was agreed within a few days to keep him from getting wind. I'm sure we'll get an insider account that has an ultra rapid timeline leading from basically Sunday or Monday to today.
Hopefully CP3 ends up in Miami and OKC ends up with even more draft picks. Paul was a good player here but it was time to go. Hope he ends up in a better city.
If there was a rift, maybe it started when Harden refused to recruit Lebron. Maybe it began/continued with the whole Carmelo saga; CP3 was the guy that wanted to bring him in and maybe he didn’t think Harden tried enough to get it to work out. Or maybe, this is what Harden meant by knowing exactly what to do after the last game. Supposedly there are reports out there that Westbrook was trying to get traded at the same time George was...maybe he and Harden has been trying to get him here all along.
The writing was the on the wall that Paul would be a goner when he came back this year and looked washed. I think this team was his best chance at a ring (barring a trade to the LeBrons) and he wanted to do everything to stay for as long as possible....which is why he probably tried to impose his will or style of play (e.g movement) this year. I mean, this is the same guy that bought into iso play last year (wasn’t he like top 5 in points per iso play two years ago?) and now he wants more movement?
I think there's more than a nugget of truth in there. I'm on record as saying I think CP3 went into a funk when we pulled the plug on the Melo experiment. This was his buddy whom he'd personally recruited, and we dump him after 10 games (which was of course the right thing to do). From that point on, CP3 seemed to be "off" a little. Until that one excellent game he had against the Warriors in the playoffs, of course. Hmmm...
One of our best games last season was when we beat the Warriors without Harden. CP3 was great that game. We had ball movement that game. I'm sure CP3 was frustrated with the lack of ball movement with Harden in the lineup, but he really couldn't say anything with Harden having a historic season in so many ways. Everything boiled over that last game and I guess a divorce is what everyone wanted. It's really going to be interesting to see if Harden and Westbrook can make this work. Both players really need this to work. They have both won MVP's, but many view them as flawed players unable to win a championship.
i had a feeling that something was up with cp after the failed melo experiment. it seemed like he really wanted the melo thing to work out on the rockets with melo being his best buddy and all... and after dismissing melo, cp didn't really play full speed at all nor did he seem fully engaged. we all thought he was saving himself for the playoffs but maybe that wasn't the case? still, cp was a more efficient and effective player than westbrook on both offense and defense last season. hope i'm wrong about westbrook and that billy donovan was limiting/overextending russ in some way or that d'antoni can work some magic back into russ's game. and at least russ will be able to hold his own on def when he's iso'd against kawhi/pg/lebron. cp's lack of size would've eventually hurt us big on that end. not a big fan of the trade but whatevers. gotta root for harden, westbrook and the rockets now.
Make no mistake—Russ will NEVER be as efficient as Paul. That being said, he’s an agent of chaos that we needed. Our offense was deemed too predictable at times and Russ might give us that needed jolt of energy when we go on cold runs.
Can you imagine the house he could buy in OKC? He could buy several square blocks downtown and put up a crib there.
Okay that settles it really, this was James pushing for it and not Chris. And Frankly, im really disappointed in James. This sucks.
You don't know the full story. Harden might have tried to work things out and CP3 was a butthead about it. Who knows the truth?
