What don’t you get?

Harden is Darryl’s guy. Harden hated cp3. Cp3 has the second worst contract in the league other than John wall. So the only way to appease Harden and unload that shit contract is to trade Paul for another shit contract and hope the new shit contract is a better fit chemistry wise. And with no clear favorite in the west, Morey kept Houston’s depth intact thereby putting them on equal footing with the clips as finals favorites.

The Rockets are not going to be anywhere near the favorites in the West after this move. Westbrook makes their spacing worse for all the 3s Morey wants them to take and is a downgrade on defense as well. At best he can theoretically share the load more in the regular season (though he'd have to play much better than he did this year), but I'd be shocked if they make any noise in the playoffs.

And when it comes to Morey, everyone could see the chemistry issues eventually coming from a mile away when they traded for Paul in the first place and also everyone immediately knew that contract last year would quickly become one of the worst in the league. The shitty contract he just got back runs one year longer than Paul's deal for a player whose decline is likely to be even more precipitous and oh yeah he had to give up picks for that contract too. This deal makes Houston worse in both the short and long-term IMO.

Paul is clearly a worse defender than Westbrook.

Paul’s contract is a year shorter but Westbrook is nearly 4 years younger. Both contracts are bad but Paul became the rockets 4th option in the playoffs and he’s injury prone. He had to go. Had to.

I’m not saying morey hasn’t made mistakes but you said this trade little to no sense, but you’re wrong.

And the rockets aren’t amongst the favorites to win the west? They’ll be a top 3 seed I’d bet

All you NBA gurus, this can’t work for the Rockets can it? Doesn’t Harden like to have the ball in his hands and Westbrook too?

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

It doesn't appear that it can. Their style of play isn't suited to Westbrook's game either. He is a poor 3 point shooter that takes pull up mid range shots. Even the layup portion of Morey ball is bad in this instance as Westbrook didn't finish as well last season either.

They have upgraded in Talent and production. Thats a plus. You'd think it would be Westbrook that would defer but i can't see how with his massive ego.

The one thing that may make it work is the fact that they're friends. They have known each other since they were about 10 years old. That might help the chemistry a little bit.

_________________

Westbrook has never been close to the defender Paul is, even as Paul has started declining. I swear it seems like people just assume Westbrook must be a good defender because of his attitude or something. This will be on display even more in Houston because he won't have an elite defender like George or Roberson playing alongside him.

Westbrook's greater reliance on his athleticism and his lower basketball IQ makes a strict comparison of their ages misleading. Beyond that, his shot has started to deteriorate too; his pullup jumper seemed to disappear from his arsenal last season and he couldn't even hit 70% from the line.

The Rockets are clearly behind the Clippers and the Lakers in the West and I don't like this team any more than the Warriors (assuming any contribution from Klay), the Nuggets, or the Jazz. I personally have never liked Chris Paul and have enjoyed watching Westbrook more than him but I don't like this move at all and don't see it working.

All Houston needs to do now is wait for Kyrie to alienate everyone in Brooklyn, get Durant to agitate for a trade and reconstitute the 2012 Thunder.

Chris Paul got sent into exile

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Still has that sweet State Farm gig. Maybe add Hobby Lobby. They are based in OKC.

OKC will trade him for more first round picks.

OKC will be giving up some of those first round picks if they are fortunate enough to find some one to take Paul and the second worst contract in the NBA.

_________________

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yeah I see Paul ending up in Miami now or something.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

My scorching hot take is that the Thunder could actually compete for the playoffs if they don't trade Chris Paul. They already remind me of the Clippers still making the playoffs after unloading Blake and Harris, though that might be in part because so many of them are ex-Clippers. Obviously this is pointless though since they're still likely to move him or others to get under the tax.

Yeah, no.

I think one of the biggest what-if scenarios this decade would be what-if OKC didn't break up the core of Durant, Harden, and Westbrook. They pulled the plug after 1 finals appearance because of ownership being cheap. I think they would have won multiple rings had they not broken up that group.

_________________

Read somewhere that Miami wanted to trade for Westbrook and he nixed it. Would much rather play with Harden than "top 10" Jimmy Buckets apparently.

_________________

And that is false because Woj specifically reported the opposite several times in the last few days.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I've seen OKC fans suggesting they offer Paul for Wiggins to get under the tax. They're actually trying to play out that "trade all the worst contracts in the league for each other" tweet FF posted pages ago

The headline says he likes Miami but nothing in the article says that.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/271 ... ikes-miami

_________________

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

when Paul was with the Hornets I wrote he was a pud and guess what he is

_________________
I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

All NBA players changing teams in the off-season:

1990-1999: 9
This month: 6

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

NBA is just an extension of what goes on in high school.

_________________

I read that as "all of the NBA players" and I was about to go off on you as to how wildly inaccurate that was.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Would have been amusing.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

It was going to be full Friday mode... "you idiot....look at any random year's transactions! 1992 for example! The Golden State Warriors alone during that offseason acquired 5 new players! Where do you get your info from, dumbass!" Yada yada

I would suggest next time formatting it as "All-NBA"

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Nah that hyphen is unnecessary. You just need to read better.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Eh, the official NBA formatting is definitely "All-NBA."

I don't care a ton, but I would argue briefly that "All NBA players" and "All-NBA Players" mean wildly different things.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

READS JUST FINE

_________________

FF owes IMU a tuition payment. Taken to school.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY