Houston Chronicle: Jim Hardens decline shows Rockets should’ve traded him earlier

I know most people agree that Harden was the reason for the stupid Chris Paul/Westbrook trade.


And it was also clear through later reports after he left that he had the run of the place when Les Alexander still owned the team, and he utilized that freedom to the max. Even Russell Westbrook was alarmed at the lax behavior of Harden (missing film sessions and other important team activities). Personally I can't believe a professional athlete was allowed to behave so childishly and its even more sad because he still had a ton of success.


With that being said, the Harden era ended for me when they got Westbrook. The new era with Tilman is already started and it still has a ways to go to make me care.

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but they got to a huge Game 7 against GS and got so hosed by the officials everyone agreed it was bad.

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Rockets got hosed in Game 7, but they also couldn't make any three pointers that night.

Golden State got a third title because CP3's hammy gave out.

You might not remember how bad it was. But I do. The refs were pretty obviously one-sided, and I’m not one to complain about refs.

But they missed all of those 3’s, so that didn’t help. But several blatant no-calls happened on 3-point attempts.

And even with all of those missed 3’s and bad calls, they still only lost by 9 and the refs definitely could have swayed the outcome.

Yeah going 7-50 from three had nothing to do with it

For the ref blamers



P…. Bucks missed 26 straight 3s on Sunday and Giannis was 4-16 in the second half.

Any discussion about how they choked though? How come?

They lost to a obviously much lesser team team than KD Steph Klay Green

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but they got to a huge Game 7 against GS and got so hosed by the officials everyone agreed it was bad.

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I, for one, don’t remember the officials having anything to do with 37 missed three pointers. Including Jim, who was 2 of 13.

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weird how the CC fans completely disappeared once the winning stopped.

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amazing, annually top seeded team gets talked about a lot and tanking team several years out doesn't

90% of the rockets threads were just boom bait anyway

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Letting him force the front office into the Westbrook trade was a giant mistake obviously because Westbrook is trash. But generally I’d rather my team hold on a year too long then hit the reset button a year too early.

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i think the other thing is that i doubt paul wanted to come back. Harden being a statue without the ball gets old

How much earlier should they have traded him? He was just 2 years removed from averaging 35 ppg, taking his team to G7 of the WCF.

Paul was crushed by the trade. He said so himself. It caused him to go vegan for heavens sake. He was def worse that year than harden was in this season.