Forgot to mention our 35 million dollar man couldn’t play back to backs. In what world was that acceptable.
I don’t think (or hope) WB has anything else to prove stat wise. He avg a triple double for the past three years... a record probably not going to get broken anytime soon. He should have the mentality to win a ship over stat at this point in his career.
I'm questioning the fit, but Paul was not a superstar making superstar money. he was about as good as ego last year. above average starter, maybe worth 20-25m. if he took that extension he'd probably still be a rocket. but the rockets did him the favor of giving him the max probably with the agreement that they would trade him before it was done. he wouldn't beat Quinn freaking cook off the dribble in the playoffs and that guy can not play defense. yes, Paul runs a very effective motion offense but his iso play, ability to get into the paint even to kick it back out, and his defense had all regressed. with this trade we give up IQ, shooting, and a future late lotto pick or two. we get a dominant scorer, rebounder, single-possession defender (he steps up when it counts, but gets lost from time to time otherwise), and we get about 10 more games per season!
Chris Paul will be the worst contract in the NBA very soon. Barring some kind of miraculous transformation, that is almost undeniable. We got ourselves out of that contract and into a guy who has averaged a triple double 3 years running. You don’t get out of the worst contract in the NBA for free, it costs to fix those mistakes. Will we be there again in a few years? Maybe. Maybe not. But I like our chances much better today than I did yesterday!
Your're reversing the causality. Paul's low numbers is not a result of Harden's high usage rate, but the cause of it. Actually Paul's touches and time of possession of the ball almost doesn't change from 2017-2018 to 2018-2019(about 3% difference), but the difference in production is huge. Since the production of Paul with the same amount of possessions is much lower, Harden had to take more possessions for us to survive. Paul won't be close to 18 and 10 next year. He'll be much closer to 15 and 8, and he probably won't play more than 60 games.
The typical ccfan. We can't win because Chris Paul can't blow by his man, is too old and gets injured too much and Morey sucks and nobody wants to play with Harden and MDA is a loser and Tillman is cheap and we stood still when everybody else made big deals and that is why we are f'ed now because the Rockets made this big trade to get rid of Chris Paul our savior.
Honestly, to the doubters, what other option did the Rockets have? Running it back is not an option, sure if Harden was 23 years old you be patient and wait for the exact right move...but Harden will be 30 (or is) the days of patience are over. It's either go all in with Harden now or deal him and rebuild completely. The Rockets made their decision. We weren't going to trade CP3 for the perfect superstar fit next to him. We weren't going to get the perfect superstar next to Harden with what we had. This was our only option and that option is an all-nba MVP player with elite talents. You just hope you can get him to play to his strengths and get him playing with the right mentality and hope it works out. If it doesn't what did we really lose here? These picks are well protected. This is who Harden wants to play with for the rest of his prime, I think we should respect that and see how it works out.
Actually it'll probably be more than 10 additional games. CP3 played only 58 games each of his 2 seasons with the Rockets. In fairness, a few of the games he missed in 2017-18 were due to rest once the best record was clinched. Also, you could argue he could've returned sooner from the knee injury he'd sustained early that season, but the team was rolling without him, so they had the luxury of being cautious. Point being though, CP3 cannot be counted on to play more than 60 games a season. And I don't see that stat improving as he approaches 35 this year.
For the last two years version of the team maybe. Westbrook is a true point guard and Dantoni is a magician with those guys. Westbrook as a spot up chucker won’t work. Everyone knows that. This is a much better direction than CP3 making 38 million at 34 years old on the downside of his career with hamstrings that have a “Sell By 2017” sticker attached to them.
That may be true, but it was pretty obvious throughout the year that CP3 wasn't nearly as engaged as he had been his first season with us. I think that affected his numbers more than Harden's usage rate.
WB's ability to remain on the court will go a long way to overcoming his not being the floor general CP3 was. How many of us held our breath in every playoff game out of fear that a blown hammy was just seconds away from derailing our season again?
did you not watch Westbrook last year? And his 29% shooting on 3-pointers, 65% shooting on free throws, 46% effective field goal percentage, and appearance of declining athleticism. Chris Paul it's clearly not the player that he used to be, and I don't think too many people are upset that we lost him. However I do think people are upset that we got Westbrook. His fit with Harden seems even more Awkward, and as a team that emphasizes 3-pointers he is one of the worst volume three point shooters ever. Especially considering that we had to give up pics as well. Between Paul, Harden, Gordon, and rivers guard was the least important position for us to upgrade. By losing more picks, it's going to be even harder to upgrade our front Court where we have a bigger weakness and lack of depth.
What about a $40+ mil player who can’t shoot and as his athleticism dwindles so does he. Even in cp3’s decline, his game ages much better than wb’s Much better direction? I disagree. I don’t label a worse fit as being much better. It might cause a fake sense of excitement but that’s pretty much it
Russell has to change his game, AND keep his body fit. The style of play that Rockets play with, Russell can thrive in as long as he puts in the effort to evolve his game. If he does, this was a great trade because Russell has a lot of upside because the stats we normally care about are bad. I have no doubt they can become good w/ the right mindset and hard work.
