The Beard: "Westbrook is our leader" Rivers: "Favorite Teammate Ever"

Russ would say the same about Harden (leader). That's the first time our two best players are that secure about their role on the team. With Howard and Paul, egos were clearly involved.

Btw the way people describe Russ as a teammate is like the polar opposite of CP3. That must be great for the locker room.

 

Or like in Miami wade n lbj was the leader.


Lol. If it was switch russ would of said the same thing.

 

"Basketball is easy."

 

Honestly, this is very inherent personality trait of an introvert. Which Harden is. I am the same way, tbh.

 

With Dwight and Paul, those relationships obviously soured on the way out the door. I'm assuming Harden signs off on acquiring or trading away any star player behind closed doors. The aforementioneds acts wore thin, and the juice was no longer worth the squeeze. With Russ, it's pretty clear his drive, passion, and junk yard dog mentality have captured the attention and respect of this team moving forward.

 

No one wanted to play with Dwight, he just wasn’t competitive enough. With Paul, they got along fine. Harden wanted to add Butler to Paul. Even with Westbrook the idea was to add him to Paul. Morey said any deal for Westbrook would involve Paul. Harden said he was fine with that but didn’t push it after Morey said a deal wasn’t likely.

There is no question Harden is closer to Westbrook but he wasn’t pushing Paul out of town.

 

wow, great point. I missed the "our leader" part right after the game. I agree with you, if accountability comes with the cost, I'm seeing it in a different light. This is the best Harden I've seen in Houston

 

sometimes it's all it takes, I strongly agree with your points, just want to point out that for these kind of talented/hard workers/stars, sometimes all it takes is a single detail to take them to another level. I know that Harden has to validate this with results, it's just that as a fan, I feel a renewed energy from the Beard and I think is rubbing the other guys positively.

Hope we can make it consistent and then, a habit.

 

I could have sworn there were a few instances when there was some locker room blowups and pouting on the court. Nothing like KD and Green of course, but I didn't get the feeling that they enjoyed playing with each other one bit last year.

 

Edited - Wrong thread.

 

Chris Paul could get relentless and annoying. Chris has James had spats as James has with a number of teammates. However they never wanted to not play together. They didn’t hang out much away from the court but Paul had his group of friends and a family... so that isn’t a surprise.

The one that had a real dislike for Chris Paul was PJ Tucker. There were times Tucker would get sick of Paul running his mouth and let Paul have it verbally, but Paul always backed down.... and even then, Tucker respected him.

There really haven’t been too many locker room issues since MDA took over.

 

I've met PJ Tucker, served him drinks at a hotel pool bar in Austin. He had some small exchanges with other guests who recognized him and started to annoy him. He's not afraid of a soul on this planet.