The Thunder and Rockets have rewarded the patience of their stars
Last week, both the Thunder and Rockets got their guy a guy. It’s safe to say this was not Plan A for either franchise, as both moves were made to fill the holes left by departed stars. It’s more reasonable to consider the moves made in Oklahoma City and Houston as bullet points along a timeline, because in this context, we can better understand the variability and constant energy that goes into putting a championship contender together in the NBA.
Back in 2013, the Rockets surprised everyone by vaulting forward in their rebuilding process, entering and winning the Dwight Howard sweepstakes. Two summers later, they came very close to adding Chris Bosh to the Howard-James Harden nucleus to form their own Big Three, creating a team that likely would have been able to compete for a championship. With Trevor Ariza as a consolation prize from the falling dominoes of LeBron James’ return to the Cavaliers, the Rockets entered the next season with financial flexibility and a core still capable of competing for a championship, even without Bosh. That year, they made the Western Conference Finals and took a game from the Warriors.
Howard’s contract expired two years later after a disappointing 2015-16 season, and Rockets general manager Daryl Morey responded by changing course entirely. For the first summer in a while, the Rockets focused on role players to put around Harden in new coach Mike D’Antoni’s system. The Rockets used the cap space created by Howard’s departure to Atlanta to add Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon, two veteran floor-spacers. The team won 55 games and challenged for the Conference Finals once again.
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As any executive knows, even 55 wins isn’t enough if the ceiling is the second round. The Rockets looked at what happened in their playoff loss, when the Spurs were able to defend them with limited frontcourt players, and saw a need for further change. By the time the summer came, another opportunity arose to add talent, and Morey struck. At the price of a few young role players, salary filler and a first-round pick, the Rockets added Chris Paul to their team in a deal that undoubtedly raises the ceiling for next year.
A few hundred miles north, another patient superstar saw his team’s timeline accelerate the same week that the Rockets added Paul. Last year on July 4, Kevin Durant stabbed a dagger into the NBA’s heart by joining the 73-win Warriors. The team he left behind had little time to pick up the pieces and form a winning roster around Russell Westbrook, Durant’s former costar. All Sam Presti was able to do was lock up their young talent and hope Westbrook’s new freedom might uncover new possibilities for the team.
In some ways, that did happen. Westbrook was extraordinary, averaging a triple-double for the season and winning the MVP award. You could also look at a first-round playoff exit and little improvement from the rest of the roster as reasons to continue working. Apparently, Presti wasn’t finished; ESPN’s Royce Young recently revealed an interesting perspective that Presti shared on draft night:
"“We’re involved in everything,” Presti said with a clear sniff of aggravation. “We’re going to pursue everything. Don’t be upset just because it’s not spewing out of this building, that we’re not pursuing the same things that you read about on the internet. We’re going to make all those calls. We’re going to pursue all those things.”"
It could have been disregarded as executive speak, eternally optimistic rhetoric from someone whose job it is to make the Thunder better. We know now that it was a pretty direct reference to the league’s biggest news — the availability of Paul George. For the low price of Victor Oladipo (overpaid) and Domantas Sabonis (questionable future), George is now a member of the Thunder. Westbrook, like Harden, has been rewarded for his patience with the franchise.
Taken in conjunction with the moves sending Jimmy Butler and George himself out of their respective towns, finding fresh partnerships for the MVP finalists is impressive and unexpected. Somehow, things between Butler and George and their front offices frayed to the point of tearing over the first half-dozen years of their career. The situation isn’t as simple as the ability to spend; Houston and Chicago are decent markets, but Indianapolis and Oklahoma City are in the bottom half of the league. It seems like a lot of it had to do with the performance of the teams’ front offices.
Morey and Presti are two of the NBA’s premier executives, accumulating and spending assets to near perfection. Generally, each GM pulls the trigger when the time is right and has a finger on the pulse of their team. When one core has run its course, it’s on to the next, all the while making the superstar’s happiness a priority. Harden and Westbrook are each eligible for a supermax extension, as multiple-time All-NBA players (and in Westbrook’s case, a MVP). Instead of expecting loyalty or development, these Western Conference executives emptied their tanks to please the stars.
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Next season, the Thunder and Rockets will assuredly jump in the standings. Both can reasonably expect a better chance at dethroning the Warriors and emerging from the West. In this awkward period of competitive unbalance for the NBA, the Rockets and Thunder decided that with two of the best players in the league, now made a ton more sense than someday.