This was a good listen. I like Stone so far and it seems to me that he has great understanding of what is needed to build a winner. I just hope that TF changes my mind on whether he will do what it takes to build said winner. For anyone saying/thinking Stone was nervous, I didn’t get that vibe even a little bit. I’m excited about the Rockets future and while I really appreciate the Harden era, I’ve definitely turned the page.
He practically was spelling out that Harden's comments triggered other teams to step up their offers. No where did he imply that it was a coincidence.
We really complaining about Stone credibility when Morey has flat out lied about not trying to trade every star player he's tried to trade, taking a year off then signing with another team in a week. We will see what they do with that trade exception, besides that I thought he was pretty candid with everything else.
I shouldn’t have been so quick to hit back, was having a bad day. My bad. i think they win the most unconventional title like the last Shaq/Kobe title (mediocre defense, dominant offense). imo Harden is every bit as good as Lebron and we’ll have a two year window to see that before the 3 of them can’t stay on the floor defensively. He deserves it man. Silly that Durant and Irving are considered in a different tier because of those titles, he is going to show them both up and they will act like it’s their wisdom lol. Good outcome given the circumstances.
True, he didn’t use the word coincidence, and he said he couldn’t speak to how Harden’s comments affected other parties. But he didn’t say the offers were stepped up, either. IIRC, he pretty clearly indicated that the offers hadn’t changed.
He said Harden's comments didn't change "OUR approach" with a pause and emphasis on "our", which to me implied it did change OTHER's approach, which corroborates with reports from other teams - ie calls started coming in for Harden from around the league 10 minutes after his presser.
Yeah. It’s entirely possible that there was greater urgency internally for the Rockets to trade him, but they didn’t actually have to do anything extra to get the deal they wanted to pull the trigger.
I played back the video, and my memory was wrong. He didn't say the offers hadn't changed. He said *Harden's* position on wanting to be traded hadn't changed. My bad.
Gaaaawwww... thanks for saying that. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one here. At some point all this conspiracy turns into Houston self-hate and as someone who loves Houston.. it gets old.
I believe this Allen trade gave us the 4th first rounder we needed and we weren't going to walk away from the trade without four 1sts. Even if we loved Allen, and I bet we do.. he's still playing a position occupied by our biggest free agent acquisitions. That might not go over too well with Wood and Boogie. If we told Christian we see him as our center, we probably showed him he's our center with this move. There's always the chance that this was the best we could do. Maybe Allen was never going to net more than a late first. Centers who get you 10 and 10 without shooting the three are in great supply. Young centers who do hit threes.. they're currently revolutionizing basketball.
In all of our (enjoyable) debates I never denied Harden's greatness as a player, and his ability to win a title when he didn't have to be 1A. It was never about championships for me. It won't surprise me if BKN wins one, but I don't want it to happen, mostly for the sake of accelerating a Brooklyn blow up. I am excited to usher in a new era and leave that debate behind! Looking back on it, some of those back and fourth comments must have been close to 1000 words, lol
