How It Ended in Houston
Of all the ways we expected the James Harden era to end in Houston — if one ever expected it to end AT ALL — this wasn’t one of them. On Wednesday afternoon, just hours after the Houston Rockets suffered a second consecutive loss to the Los Angeles LeBrons, I’m sorry, Los Angeles Lakers, James Harden was traded. It was the end result of a number of things, some might have even called it inevitable after everything that had happened in the months leading up to it.
There was the 2020 NBA Playoff Bubble, where Houston was first pushed to 7 games by the out-of-nowhere Oklahoma City Thunder (led by, of all people, Chris Paul after the Rockets had traded him away him the summer before. That series ended with the kind of dramatic finish your favorite television series’ series finale wishes it could have. In the following round, the Rockets managed to snatch one game away from the Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals before dying an unbeautiful death to them in the three games that followed.
With the NBA season expedited due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the off-season actually happened in October and November rather than over the summer, another reminder of our new (but hopefully not forever) normal as a result of COVID-19. In that off-season, the NBA rumor mill rumored like it always does. There was a rift between James Harden and Russell Westbrook, who we’d pretty much swapped Chris Paul for. They’d played together in Oklahoma City before the big breakup after the 2013 NBA Finals, but both players had developed clashing styles by the time they were reunited in Houston.
Groomed by coaches to exploit isolation plays after the “experiment” to try him at point guard in the 2017 season, Harden had grown used to iso to the point that it became his bread-and-butter. Rockets fans got accustomed to most offensive possessions resulting in Harden counting down until the shot clock was near zero before taking a shot or attempting to penetrate the paint. The body language was casual but precise: he wouldn’t necessarily charge towards the net, but almost hop, skip, and jump his way there, leaving bodies in his wake or drawing contact at just the right time. He curated a step-back jumper, often from the three-point-line, that sometimes came with the added bonus of an and-1 following contact. Infuriating for other teams, no doubt, but he was just THAT GOOD at making defenses take bait.
It was a stark contrast to Russell Westbrook’s much more urgent (to a fault) playing style, which involved way more slashes to the net, much more speed in transition, and offensive attacks that could be relentless or reckless depending on the possession. They co-existed well enough for a season but the charade fell apart in the Bubble. But this isn’t about Russell Westbrook.
The Rockets sent Westbrook to the Washington Wizards in exchange for John Wall, who was finally returning to the NBA after two seasons away due to injury. Wall appeared eager for the fresh start, for the opportunity to prove that he still had it. It hadn’t been THAT long ago, after all, that Wall had rallied the Wizards in the Eastern Conference playoffs against the Celtics and provided one of the biggest shots of last decade.
The Rockets would also lose Daryl Morey as their General Manager and fire Mike D’Antoni as the head coach. We’d send away Robert Covington, who emerged as a weapon for Houston at times (and a defensive casualty at others). But they’d acquire Christian Wood from Detroit and sign Boogie Cousins, as well as grab a new head coach in Stephen Silas. It seemed to literally and figuratively send the message that small ball season was over in Houston. Harden was going to get a chance to start fresh, with two new players with extremely high upside and a coach who was willing to stretch his bench instead of rely on a mostly 7 or 8-man rotation.
Harden just moved differently in the 2020 off-season.
Houston fans had of course grown used to the jokes of Harden and Tucker and friends at Turkey Leg Hut or strip clubs immediately after game losses. We laughed along at it, even, because we knew our shooting guard would still show up when it mattered. We defended him from casual critics and sports media alike. We acknowledged what most wouldn’t — that bad luck was just as much a culprit in the Rockets’ playoff failures in the Harden era, as Harden’s playing style was. The ghost of what could’ve been in 2018, when Chris Paul was injured and done for the season as the Rockets were seemingly FINALLY in a position to get over the formidable playoff wall the Golden State Warriors had been to them for years, lingers still and will likely linger forever in Rockets’ fans memories.
But somehow a new cast and a new coach weren’t enough to convince Harden to show up for training camp. New Coach Silas was immediately indoctrinated into the Houston skepticism train of the sports media, but he tried not to take the bait. He insisted when it was brought up that Harden would show up eventually, and claimed to have taken a “hands off approach” and not reached out and badgered Harden. The Beard did indeed show up eventually — at one of the last training sessions just before the season opener. By then, the expectation had already started forming in people’s heads that James Harden would not be a Rocket for much longer, especially as discussions of “potential trade destinations” started becoming louder and more frequent in the media.
A reset doesn’t work if the players don’t buy into it.
After starting the season later than most due to potential COVID-19 exposure, Houston fans got a glimpse of what it COULD be like with the new roster. Harden and Wood seemingly developed instant chemistry. Wood’s ceiling was higher and his skill set was more diverse than Harden’s “last” effective big, Clint Capela. Demarcus Cousins coming off the bench was effective, too. It was refreshing to see the ball actually MOVE during offensive possessions, to the point that even Houston fans got a bit of culture shock seeing Harden move off-ball. Sterling Brown and JaeSean Tate provided glimpses of promise. PJ Tucker continued to use effort on both ends of the court on the nights he couldn’t contribute points on the board.
But perhaps it was too late by then anyway. Perhaps Harden had known from the start of the season that he was checking out. The body language was more lax than usual. The patience in post-game press conferences shorter. Perhaps Harden had simply had enough and wasn’t content with becoming yet another athlete who had wasted his best years in Houston with no ring to show for it. After the Rockets’ loss to L.A., the press conference that followed had Harden using ominous if not foreshadowing language.
Harden’s language would become an instant soundbite and catch wildfire across the internet and social media. Sports media salivated at the opportunity “I don’t think this can be fixed” provided to further point out the Rockets’ dysfunction. “This situation is crazy” could have applied to any number of things — but the majority of us applied it to the Houston reset.
So on Wednesday, Harden got his wish. He was traded in a blockbuster four-team deal that sent him to Brooklyn and that sent the Rockets a handful-and-a-half of draft picks and Victor Oladipo by way of Indiana. The Nets did what they had to do to reunite Harden with Kevin Durant and link him with Kyrie Irving, in the hopes that this Big 3 will provide them with the best chance to knock off the Miami Heat and the Lakers in the playoffs (it’s a literal “win or go home” gamble, when you consider Harden, KD, and Kyrie both will be free agents next year). The Rockets and GM Rafael Stone, meanwhile, seem to have accepted that the Houston reset is going to have to be a full-on rebuild. If you can’t salvage the present, perhaps you can at least position yourself well for the future. The prospect of Oladipo in Houston sounds fun in theory, but already the rumor mill is rumoring that Victor isn’t enthused to become a part of the Rockets’ project.
There is no love lost to James Harden. In the moment, many Rockets may be hurt, disappointed, or just full out sad. The city has a penchant to breed fickle fans who “turn on” their former players. But don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — James Harden will be missed in Houston. We understand his desire to get a ring after everything he’s given us. He deserves that much, if only to silence his most staunch critics.
We’ll always have the memories. So much time has passed that, by now, most will have forgotten it was Harden who saved the city from the “New Era” that would’ve had us featuring Jeremy Lin (the Rockets having fully drank, if not overdosed, on the Linsanity Kool-Aid) as our foremost weapon. It’s easier to remember the people who came and went — Dwight Howard, Trevor Ariza, Clint Capela, Lou Williams, Joe Johnson, Patrick Beverley, and now Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook. Easier to remember Harden switching off of Damian Lillard with Chandler Parsons, thus enabling Lillard to make the “point 9 killshot.” Easier to remember Harden having so awful a performance in the Western Conference Playoffs, that the Rockets literally had to sit him to complete a must-win Game 6 in the 2015 Rockets-Clippers Semifinals series. Easier to remember a fading Manu Ginobili blocking a Harden three-pointer from behind. Easier to remember Harden setting a playoff record for most turnovers in one of the many attempts to try and fail to compete against the Warriors.
But we’ll also remember the MVP season. The so-called “Unguardable Tour” where the Rockets were stymied by injuries and Harden literally and figuratively carried the team by dropping an average of 40+ points any given team. We’ll remember Harden’s underrated ability to make the perfect pass to the open man after drawing defenders toward him on drives into the lane. If the Rockets were just a little more accurate from open three, Harden might well have had some insane insist numbers. We’ll remember his baiting three being so much that Klay Thompson literally resorted to guarding James with his hands behind his back at points during the playoffs.
We’ll remember that — after years of his defense (or lack thereof) being a running joke for many — one of the final signature moments of the Harden era was a game-sealing block in the Playoff Bubble in a must-win Game 7 against the Thunder, consequently spoiling the “Chris Paul’s revenge” narrative that was on tip of every sports writer’s tongue. We’ll remember the cooking motion that followed James putting someone in his signature blender on the way to jamming it home. We’ll remember hashtag-Bearding.
The Rockets are rebuilding for real. And though it stings right now, you can’t make a grown man do something he doesn’t want to do or stay somewhere he’s checked out of. Rockets fans can be grateful at least that new GM Rafael Stone avoided putting the franchise in an “AD’s huff and puff on the bench until the Pelicans trade me” type situation. The only thing we can hold against him, is in his last days as a Houston Rocket, James Harden handled “this situation” as he put it, all so poorly. It made no sense to quit on a developing team nine games into the season and disrupt any possibility of gelling with the potential there. It stains Harden’s reputation and, possibly, gives some credence to his critics’ claims that he goes missing in moments when his leadership is most needed.
I wish James Harden well. I just wish it hadn’t been such a bitter breakup.
