I just want to know why Harden never took what the defense gave. Was that more Morey? More Mike? Or Harden? I think ISO Harden hurt his brand and legacy.
I absolutely hated the trade the second it was made because the draft considerations were ludicrous (thank goodness we dodged the bullet this year) and Russ is so maddening, but there has been some retconning about the circumstances going into the trade. CP3 looked like he was close to falling off a cliff in 2019 with his deal just kicking in. He changed his diet and training regimen and rejuvenated his career but the reasonable expectation was not that he would be as good and play as many games as he has these last two years.
I agree with that, he was mediocre, but why add another worse player with a longer contract? Once CP3 had that contract it was ride or die time. DD
It’s so easy to separate who knows what they’re talking about around here and who doesn’t. The usual suspects fall into the latter, no surprise
Harden was playing for an MVP. But I don't think it was the regular season offensive brilliance that hurt his brand/legacy. It was everything else.
But that type of play carried over into the playoffs. It was an ugly style of basketball that produced more great individual stats than team success. Maybe Harden and Morey thought that they didn’t have choice without it since Tilman was never going to pay for a contender.
in 2019,cp3 played bad generally but we have to consider he played bad was because Harden was not cooperative or attentive when CP3 starts the play. Yes may have regressed a little on 2019 because ofhis injury but you don't have to trade him for Westbrook because Harden likes it and did not make an effort to make it work. We kept on convincing ourselves that westbrook will be better than CP3 because he is younger and injury free at that time. It is really on Harden. He was just not considerate at all
We were never winning anything with CP3 unless we got lucky. We were screwed the moment we traded for CP3 because we were going to be stuck with half our cap on two guards and an owner not willingly to spend. It works for the Suns because they the talent across the board that isn’t on large contacts. Devin Booker will top out at $35 million in 2023.
Personally, I'm rooting against Paul, Harden, Morey, and Westbrook. I blame all of them. None of them delivered, and all of them quit or played liked crap when it mattered. I'm petty, f**k it. I might give them some love when they retire. Right now they are all competition in our way. #Green2021
If we kept cp3 and regrouped we would have had similar success. The locker room chemistry just became toxic but a lot of that is one harden needing to be a better leader. Ariza was the guy that spoke up and people respected we needed a guy just like that
You might be the only person that believes that. Right now, the only thing we are competing for is high draft picks.
This is not a fair post. CP3 didn't regress a bit in 2019, he was downright horrid and anyone who watched games knew that. He couldn't beat a big, much less his own man, in a 4v4 matchup.
IMHO the Rockets never had great young players on cheap contracts during their time, that was the main crux IMHO. Yes, Chris Paul could have gone with just '28 million a year', it was what it was.
But the owner wouldn’t pay to regroup. CP3 locked us into a specific timeline with little flexibility and little room for error. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have traded for CP3 and locking us into that timeline. However you can’t be a beggar and a chooser with stars/superstars.
If your goals are to win a. Ring , we have evidence that pairing him with CP gives your a 70 almost win team. Throwing everything in the blender and hoping you can get similar success is a much inferior route
And we have plenty of evidence that CP3 won’t stay healthy when it matters in the playoffs. He hurt his shoulder and got Covid this year. The hope would be that the Rockets would face injured depleted teams in the playoffs with a CP3 and Harden pairing.
Ride or die.....we didn't ride with the HOF point guard we agreed not to trade, and died with OKC's sixth man reject.
Rockets knew this before they traded for him. We were still up in the series. Yes he got hurt but we could have still won. Rockets led by James Harden. didn't take care of business.
I think we could have won too considering we were up in the series but Harden never takes what the defense gives him. But we didn’t win so in hindsight we shouldn’t have gotten CP3 and gone down that timeline.
