[Amick/TheAthletic] Fertitta discusses the Westbrook trade and why it made sense

Expect the great this season (honeymoon), then brotherhood broken next season, then WB will be traded in the third season and started the downhill of his career. Need to respect the history

 

Nobody's crying here except you. I never said it was a problem. I said it was a team decision to slow down the pace to take advantage of Harden's isolation game.

But here we have posters and the owners blaming CP3. Its pretty gross. Did our pace go back up when CP was injured? No.

 

Can’t Fertitta follow his own advice?!

 

only on cf's will you see posters get butthurt and insulted over a system that caters to your better players and the way they play.

Adjust the team to playing the way that best utilizes and maximizes your skills?? blasphemy

 

Because I don’t buy for one second that Harden called a meeting with MDA and Morey and said look guys this is what we’re gonna do because I say so.

And plenty of people think that’s exactly it.

 

what don't you buy? I guess its just crazy talk to think everyone gets together and is like lets focus our play to the attributes of Harden first, apparently.

 

Tilman’s the type to accidentally blurt out a huge secret or some confidential info...u talk a little too much bruh

 

westbrook broke a record set by Michael Jeffrey jordan

 

.....exactly what I just said

Harden didn’t lay down some mandate that the poor coach and GM had to just accept or else.

To be honest going off what Rivers was quoted on The Jump saying “Harden is doing exactly what he is being asked to do....”, I think the slow it down strategy was most likely brought up by Morey with numbers to appease any uneasiness by the coach. It was implemented. And we damn near won it all doing so.

 

So harden being an iso player has 0 to do with him. He’s doing everything someone else is asking of him. My how that’s a revelation. He only became an mvp player because he’s doing what is asked of him. Morey and co deserve the mvp trophy then not harden. Smh. The things you read on this forum


What about all the other things rivers has said all summer. That he knows the ball is going to be in hardens hands mostly so he wants to be a better 3 pt shooter to complement him when he iso’s and teams send defenders his way

 

the harden 60+ point game was big time but the best play was the take away and game winning layup involving harden.

 

lol wow man.

Please find and quote me where I said Harden is an isolation player because Morey said so....

Harden has been here a long time. Through most of that time we were very up tempo. Harden also utilized isolation more than most during those early years.

But halfway through the 17/18 year all of a sudden pace plummeted and isolation increased drastically.

All I’m saying is I think Morey had the biggest influence in that change. Mostly to do with his observation of what his star player is so good at.

I’ll say it again. I don’t think Harden made a mandate. And plenty of people think that’s exactly how it went down and that just about everything we do is because Harden says so.

I don’t buy it.

 

That’s bc someone worked and made themselves into a certain type of player. Usually I’d say it’s harden which is true but apparently we have ppl believing he’s just doing what he’s been told to do. So its hard to say now. It’s really that hard to believe a team adjusts to their best players

What about all the other things rivers has said all summer. That he knows the ball is going to be in hardens hands mostly so he wants to be a better 3 pt shooter to complement him when he iso’s and teams send defenders his way. What he has admittedly been working on primarily this summer

 

Clippers pace ranking with CP3

11-12: 27th
12-13: 21st
13-14: 8th
14-15: 11th
15-16: 13th
16-17: 15th

Rockets pace ranking with Harden

12-13: 1st
13-14: 6th
14-15: 2nd
15-16: 7th
16-17: 3rd

Harden has been on fast paced teams the majority of his career, and now that we have Russ, I expect that we’ll see something closer to the pre-CP Rockets where we were a fast paced, high turnover team that was prone to making dumb decisions

Harden can cut back on the isolation frequency and increase his transition and spot up frequency with Russ as his running mate, at least that’s what I hope...we all know CP wasn’t trying to push the pace too much and couldn’t get into the paint and draw the defense in to kick it out to shooters like Russ can

I know Russ was talking about how he can play off-ball, but it would probably be best if Harden was the one who increased his off-ball work since he’d be more dangerous at it than Russ and at least has a lot more experience in that role than 30 yo Westbrook

he can do his ISO thing when Russ is off the floor and in crunch time, but for the most part, I think Russ should control the ball a little bit more when they’re sharing the floor...it can’t be a Harden-CP thing where Harden is dominating the rock when they’re both on the floor

 

Uhh what?

On The Jump after the season... Rivers was asked about Harden and the heavy isolation style we employed. The next words out of his mouth was that James was doing what the organization asks him to do.

Quoted from a player on the team who would know these kinds of things.

I feel like I keep clearly stating my thoughts on the situation and you are skirting around it.

I will try again.

We slowed it down and increased isolation because Harden is really ****ing good at it and the GM and coach felt taking it to the max was the best we could do with the roster and gave us the best chance to win.

We did not start doing this because at the all star break of the 17/18 season Harden decided he was going to lay down the hammer and say I don’t give a **** what y’all think or what my teammates think. We are doing what I want to do and that’s that.

 

IMO - there will be more trust and unity with these two than the previous duo. That could/should make the deal break well for the post-season run.

 

But we’ve actually heard Chris Paul mic’d Up repeatedly saying push the pace and get out and run.

 

Mebbe we’re past needing a mentor?

 

And he’s been on multiple podcasts after that talking about what he’s been doing. I even posted his most recent one with Ben baller. Just because you happen to only hear that one doesn’t mean others don’t exist. Those all too come straight from his mouth

 

Can the article get posted? Thanks.