Tim Macmahon.....also "Daryl Morey quit on the Rockets because James Harden was gonna leave" but another Athletic report says that James Harden asked out as soon as Stephen Silas was hired. So James never asked to spend in the luxury tax? BOTH Years? And James wanted to cancel shoot around when Chris Paul was here(who has also recently said nice things about Harden). And Harden wanted Irv Roland fired??? Yea, he got everything he wanted though.
I think this was an issue of the whole room full of officials getting cold feet about a deal they worked on and Tilman said something like 'come on guys let's take a chance'. I still think it was a chance worth taking. Who knew we were going to be too easy to defend with two MVPs on the floor. The only reason this trade looks stupid is when you captain hindsight it. Two MVPs, two childhood friends and former teammates. It's a recipe for chemistry. Yes, we knew Westbrook doesn't shoot well. Yes, we knew he was bullish at times. But also yes, he does tons on the court to help you win. And when we went small it was looking good. We unfortunately didn't get the best of luck drawing the eventual champs in the second round. We didn't have time to get our chemistry going in the playoffs because of injuries. Westbrook and Harden didn't gel quite like we wanted to. But it had potential and Tilman encouraged our guys to do it, pull the trigger, take a chance, place the bet. It's something we all do, we're all placing bets in our lives, but Tilman is somehow an idiot for placing a bet and doing what we all do? What else was out there that had championship potential? Harden and Chris Paul did not like each other. Saying they liked one another is definitely revisionist history. I get that people are bothered by the bet that was placed, but why the hate? Why not just say, 'damn.. another shot missed'? At least we took a shot and we're taking another one on Wall with Cousins. The only thing that ever bothered me about Tilman is the 2019 Garrett Temple/Jamychael Green trade he waited too long on. But still.. Tilman can't fix Harden and CP's feud by making that trade so what was that gonna lead to? Losing to GSW in 7 games? Who cares, we can move forward. We are moving forward. So much of this hate seems to be stuck on something from the past. Tilman is a loud mouth. I get people hating that. The rest? Whatever y'all... I guess keep hating everything you can find a reason to hate.
I get people predicting that they'd fail. What I don't get is people being like 'that was never ever gonna work no matter what because I said so'. It almost worked. Things were looking great until LeBron started pinning Harden top right over and over. We never tried to come up with an answer to that but if we did I think things could've gone really well.
I can live with Tilman pushing through the Westbrook trade, I can even appreciate him publicly stating he is the one that pushed it through. I think it was crappy to say his basketball people were backing off the deal (when he made the statement the trade looked good) because he was kind of throwing his basketball people under the bus and if Westbrook saw the quote he may have concluded that the front office wasn't in his corner. Those are small issues though. What I cannot accept is that when the trade turned bad, all of a sudden the leaks from the Rockets are that James Harden is the one that demanded the trade. It isn't consistent with what Tilman or Morey said at separate times.... and it is yet again another case of Tilman throwing someone else under the bus to cover himself. Had he said "I pushed the deal through" and it didn't work, okay..... he has big balls and not everything works out.... but when you back off what you said, I have no respect for that. As for Chris Paul and James Harden. They didn't hate each other. Like Paul said, they were not going to hang out but they got along fine. Harden didn't push Paul out the door. In fact Harden and Morey were trying to add to Paul. Initially it was supposed to be Jimmy Butler. Then that didn't happen and it was supposed to be Westbrook. This has been substantiated by Daryl Morey a couple of times. The only person that really wanted Paul gone was Tilman, as he complained about the contract and that he was injured. Tilman thought it was the worst contract in the league. There was no irreconcilable feud between Harden and Paul. As for the luxury tax, Les Alexander never paid it either. However, Tilman knew the Rockets were very close to a title and still didn't spend it. I could even be okay with that, but he repeatedly lied saying he had no issue paying it, so every season the same thing would happen. He could have taken back more salary in the Westbrook deal as well to make the team better. There is the Ariza situation as well. There is the lack of money he spends modernizing his front office etc. Having said that, he isn't the first and wont be the last owner to not go all out.... the difference if he keeps saying he will. You say so much of the hate is stuck on things in the past, these are not ancient events.... they are still on going and still impacting the team. I will gladly praise the man if he learns from his mistakes. You are a good poster and there is some truth in what you are saying.
I've said enough in detail about this for the past year and then some lol. Just pure stupidity from day one by Tilman. If anyone seriously doesn't get it by now, they just never will. There's a reason why westbrick can be easily guarded. Because he isn't a true mvp caliber player. He never deserved that award. It was a gimmick gift that year when everyone with a semblance of a positive bbal iq knew harden by far should have gotten it. but averaging less than 2 rebs extra was the difference. and the mediocre team record by okc. what a joke westbrick averaged a triple double the very next season and okc had a better record than the "mvp" year before. And he barely cracked the top 5 in voting. LMAO
These are Tilman's OWN words but there are still an inordinate number of CFers who still defend and believe the multiple hit jobs white washing his direct involvement. Trump's success with bombarding traditional media and social media with disinformation is strong indication that sheep mentality is still alive and doing very well.
I hope Harden and TF will honor their contract for the next two years. Pretty sure TF will. If TF decides he "wants out" of the contract, everyone OK with that?
