ATLANTA — James Harden is warming up to this whole ‘foundational player’ thing. The Rockets’ new $80 million man spoiled Atlanta’s home opener by dropping a career-high 45 points on the Hawks in Houston’s 109-102 win on Friday night. Not a bad encore to his 37-point Rocket debut on Halloween. Working those mammoth stat lines into wins should be even more encouraging to Kevin McHale, Daryl Morey and everyone else (outside of Oklahoma City) who had a hand in making Harden so
Happy Halloween everyone. As the NBA has its second night of games, opening night for most teams—including the practically rebuilt Houston Rockets, the rest of America embarks on the age-old tradition of wearing costumes and stockpiling candy. Hopefully your costume—if you’re wearing one—is up to snuff. In a retrospective tweet, Rockets point guard Jeremy Lin seems to think that he had the best costume as a kid.
Fans of the Thunder, Rockets and the NBA were stunned with Saturday night’s news that James Harden was traded to Houston for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and draft picks. Among those stunned was Harden. “It happened pretty fast,” Harden said. “I was at dinner and (Oklahoma City general manager) Sam Presti called me and said I was traded to the Rockets and I was kind of in shock.” It extended to Kevin Durant, who took to Twitter with a simple, “Wow.” During Monday’s news
Who do you think won the James Harden trade? We have two widely varying opinions today in new items posted on the site — the first, by Chris Bernucca, skewering the Thunder for breaking up a key member of a potential championship threesome; the other an examination by Jeremy Bauman of how Kevin Martin’s game might be successfully worked into the Thunder’s offensive schemes. Both are very good articles, and they exemplify how hard it is to make a full judgement on
When the Oklahoma City Thunder traded James Harden on Saturday night, they revealed to everyone that they are a team far more concerned with the bottom line than the top of the heap. Probably a bit ahead of schedule, the Thunder reached the NBA Finals last season. As we have said before, they were a questionable foul call away from opening a 2-0 lead on the mighty Miami Heat that would have cultivated the doubt and derision that has swirled around
I would love to Thank Oklahoma City for 3 amazing years! Teammates and Fans were thee best. The love will always be there. Thanks Again. — James Harden (@JHarden13) October 28, 2012 This tweet pretty much speaks for itself, but something Harden might want to ask himself over the ensuing five years: Was it worth it for the extra $6 million? After coming soooo close to a championship, was it worth it to take a half-decade step back for an extra $1.2
The Oklahoma City Thunder traded guard James Harden to the Houston Rockets on Saturday night, four days before the deadline for a contract extension. Harden was sent to the Rockets with center Cole Aldrich, forward Lazar Hayward and guard Daequan Cook. The Thunder received guards Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb, two first-round picks and a second-round pick. Oklahoma City received a top-three-protected 2013 first-round pick that Houston acquired from Toronto for Kyle Lowry, a 2013 first-round pick originally belonging to Dallas (top
