I've known that part of the story for a long time, and with @YOLO, @Nook and others, have been laying the ultimate blame at Tilman's feet on CF every chance I get. What I'd love for the stolen data to reveal are these three things: Who among Tilman/Morey/Harden first brought up the idea of adding Westbrook to Harden+CP3 Who determined that simply adding CP3 wasn't feasible, and why Lastly, who first brought up the idea of trading CP3 to get Westbrook
The full monologue from MacMahon: That trade was made because Tilman Fertitta wanted it made -- he thought Chris Paul's contract was the worst that he'd ever seen in business or sports -- and because James Harden wanted it made. James Harden, obviously there was a personality clash, this stuff has all been well documented and well reported. I still believe, and I wrote this last summer before things went down. I still believe that if necessary they could have managed that situation; I know a lot of people throughout the organization believe that. But once Westbrook became available, they saw an opportunity that Fertitta and Harden wanted to pounce on, and they pounced on that. Daryl Morey was the biggest Chris Paul backer in the organization. Nobody -- Daryl or anybody else -- has ever told me that he made that trade with objections, that he made that trade despite not fully believing in it. But I just can't help but think that it was a deal where basically, his two bosses -- Fertitta and Harden -- said 'hey, we want this deal made, get it done.' And he did what he had to do to get it done. ..... And I think the most overlooked faction is the first domino, who set the locker room culture? Who made it so those two guys got within one game and injury from possibly toppling the warriors when the whole league stood down, people write off his stats, but sometimes we value what we can measure rather then measure what we value, and have to thus validate it with measurements, it matters but basketball probably being a sport that allows more individuality and creativity while at the same time being dependent on cohesiveness to win, let alone a work culture so on to make things gel. I’ll let chris Paul say it, and he doesn’t seem to blame harden : Former Houston Rockets guard Chris Paul was on the Knuckleheads podcast with Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson and explained the impact of the Rockets losing Ariza. “People don’t realize, that’s the biggest thing that we missed. That was tough when we lost [Ariza] because he sorta was like the glue. He was that glue for our team.” ariza was the guy who lobbied and wrote an article for harden to be mvp, he’s been noted as hardens goto guy in the locker room, both him and chris Paul respected ariza as the vet who won title with kobe. His voice was valued in the Locke room and his priorities and voice on defense kept people in line along with tucker. Those things matter, we also botched our associate head coach contract negotiations with Jeff bzdelik, similar to what tillman did with mike dantoni(publicly lying in 2019 summer to espn), let alone getting rid of hardens trainer, then not cutting a minimum Carmelo contract so much that we sent Daniel house home , trading a minimum in rotation james ennis, our ariza replacement, for a top 55 pick. all moves that got us under the cap which helps one person, not future flexibility for the gm, not harden, not the city and fans who saw prices increase, but tillman. -So his “culture” seemed to be put s good enough entertainment product and draw(keep the stars who sell seats and merchandise )skimp and water down quality and margins, demand on the media you want better results(with a worse product), basically a Landry’s restraunt which he’ll tell you himself. You aren’t going there to buy quality food : “All my haters love to say, ‘Oh, his food sucks’ or whatever. But we’re consistent. The hot food’s hot, the cold food’s cold, the music’s right, the property’s clean. You don’t have burned-out lights, you don’t have cigarettes by the front door, you don’t have trash in the parking lots. You know what you’re going to get.”
Ariza is championship caliber but for whatever reason that 0-12 performance really speculated point shaving, not to say Ariza that type of person but it helped seal the window on getting past the Warrors.
I definitely would not go that far. Ariza was an inconsistent scorer, not a 3 pt specialist, but could knock it down enough that the defense had to respect the space. I don’t think he’s good enough to purposely miss or hit it close or something unless he was airballing or hitting only backboard on those shots. His defense was still on point and he was often the leader and commander there, even chris paul wouldn’t be talking about him as the glue X factor that they missed to have the same magic if we mailed it in. That the value of him for us like Paul said, Veteran, had the voice of both of our stars, unselfish glue guys. We’ve seen freak loses, unlikely things happen each year, it’s the frustration part of the game.
Hairy t*** not really my thing! Do we really want to see Mchale's peen? Anyways Rockets financials all get Hacked and Tad Brown has to retire? Something smells weird and it isn't just the crappy Landry's food.