That Harden-Paul relationship was broken and this rebuild around Westbrook/Covington is like one last Hail Mary that lands 30 yards out of bounds.
I don’t even care if they lose against the Lakers in 5 as long as they win this series...a loss against OKC would be too embarrassing to take if they lose, all Rockets gear is going in storage and will never be displayed in public or on any form of social media again until a title is won or the team is blown up and back to being irrelevant garbage
Agreed an available 37 year old CP3 is better, I doubt he's available next 2 years like he was this year. Even if the thunder won, what's the chances he gets through the entire playoffs? Everything was hunky dory in 2018 until WCF.
It's possible that CP3's injuries were also contributed to by the heavy demand our style of play put on him. Seems to me that OKC puts far less pressure on him every play, and that because of that he distributes the ball and is able to play more easily. Whatever the case is, his hamstring issues were chronic with us and seemed to come up at the worst possible times. The last season with us, I really think we keep CP3 (and that his relationship with Harden stays in tact) if he stayed healthy all season, or at least 90+% of it. But because he was in and out of the lineup, they never really gained a cadence and we got accustomed to having Harden play extreme levels of iso ball for long stretches. This season, if nothing else, has been a huge improvement in reducing our reliance on iso ball and introducing a lot more ball movement into the offense.
