Maybe Stone told PJ “we’ll give you an extension if you convince Harden to back off his trade demand.”
Haha so funny with herro on the list. Can’t believe people even consider him as centerpiece of a trade. But I disagree with Davis on this list. He failed for years to get the Pelicans to the playoffs by himself. Harden then took essentially the same team (ie Anderson and Gordon) and took them deep into the playoffs.
It’s not about wanting Ben Simmons over Harden...or comparing him to Harden in any way. It’s that Harden wants out, is a free agent in 2 years, and the Rockets absolutely cannot lose him for nothing. Ben Simmons isn’t perfect. But he’s the type of guy the Rockets can easily build a winner around. Stone knows this....and Stone is going to set the Rockets up very nicely so that they don’t have to go into full re-build mode when they lose their star. Very few teams will rebound as quickly as the Rockets are about to rebound.
And it would make sense. PJ and Harden are almost a couple at this point. If Harden stays then I could "put up" with PJ, but if Harden is gone then so too will PJ.
I disagree. If Simmons was so easy to build a winner around the Sixers would have done so already. The little success they've experienced is mainly due to Embiid and his ability to play/contribute on both ends of the floor. The remaining success (I'm looking at their last second loss to the Raptors in the playoffs a couple of years ago here) was due to Jimmy Butler. In order to build around a player like Simmons you're going to need scorers. Not shooters but actual legit scorers. You can't just throw 4 spot up shooters on the floor with Simmons because the opposition don't respect his outside shooting enough to warrant any shift in defense or double team him. You have one on the team in Wood already but with Simmons not giving you anything more than 16-19 points a night, you're going to need someone else that can give you around 20 points per night.
At this point....this is where I'm at. Pay the price or be gone. And since we know none of these teams could ever meet the asking price, we keep him. And we do whatever it takes to win a championship.
No way mgmt trades Harden unless you are getting a ransom....the guy is just amazing!!!! He is keeping the Rockets in the game. Once we get the other guys back this team is going to be dangerous!!
No one is saying he is a bad player.. Everyone knows Harden is a great player (When he wants to play) but come the playoffs we all have seen this story before and we all know how it is going to end..
