A few days before the official start of the NBA free agency period, the Houston Rockets made a huge splash in trading for Chris Paul. A daring move to get one of the premier point guards in the league for a price that many believe to be a steal. The Rockets traded away Patrick Beverley, Sam Dekker, Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, a 2018 top 3 protected first round pick, and a host of other players picked up by Houston from other teams for cash considerations.
On the surface, it is a steal for the Rockets coming away with easily the best pure point guard in the league in Chris Paul without gutting the roster of essential parts. Sure, it sucks to give away Pat Beverley less than a week after being announced as part of the NBA All-Defensive First Team, and a fairly effective scorer in Lou Williams, but that's a small price to pay. What I have apprehensions of, is fit. I've seen this happen before and twice, it didn't work out. Let me explain.
During the 2012-2013 season, the Rockets already supposedly had two ball dominant guards in their starting five: Jeremy Lin and James Harden. Now, you might be saying that I'm crazy for even bringing up Lin in a conversation about Chris Paul, and I'll tell you I get it. Not at the same level, not even close. So let's get that out of the way. This was a time when Harden was still strictly a shooting guard, and he ended up being more of a playmaker than Lin. Lin ended up being a spot up shooter, a role that he never really excelled in. The next season rolls around and they relegated Lin as a backup, and placed Pat Beverley as the starter alongside Harden which is a better fit since a.) Beverley was a better shooter from 3, and b.) he didn't need to have the ball to be effective.
The Rockets managed to snag Dwight Howard in free agency, and flourished the next two years, winning 54, and 56 games respectively and reaching the Western Conference Finals before falling to the eventual champion Warriors. Lin was sent to the Lakers after two years with the team. It clearly showed that the Rockets were moving in the right direction and had the results to show for it.
Now came the second time they tried to make some changes with their guards. During the 2015 offseason, they picked up Ty Lawson from the Denver Nuggets. A move, which at the time was a steal since it was a move to further bolster the roster. I felt that this would be a good pick up. That didn't turn out so well, either. While part of the blame is Lawson's troubling incidents off-the-court, it also showed that is pairing with Harden was a wash. Worse, he doesn't have the defensive acumen of Beverley, and was promptly waived after playing only 53 games.
Now those two don't measure to Chris Paul by any means, but have similar styles in needing the ball to be effective. The other concern is where Chris Paul normally operates on the offensive side of the floor. Last year, Paul himself almost had the same total of midrange jumpers made as the entire Rockets team. That's not an area they are operating in. The Rockets clearly moved to either take a lay-up, a dunk, or a three point shot in their offensive sets. Who'll be the team's primary playmaker then? Didn't D'Antoni just hand over the keys to Harden and it yielded brilliant results. Why fix something that was not broken?
CP3's career has been predicated with him being the team's main ball-handler and playmaker. He did it in New Orleans, Oklahoma City [before the Thunder came], and in Los Angeles. Asking him to be off-the-ball may not work, just as making Harden do the same. On the flipside, Harden was the unquestioned point guard, as he was already doing it years before. It was only elevated with Mike D'Antoni's offensive plan, so asking him to give up the ball might not be ideal.
How much control will one give up to the other? Egos can get bruised and could potentially trigger chemistry issues with the team. Chris Paul got used to having J.J. Reddick rolling through screens and moving without the ball, and Harden got used to having Pat Beverley at the ready for threes as he draws in defenders.
All of this is conjecture, of course, as we will have to wait until the season comes in before finding out how this actually plays out. All these noted, with both guys being All-NBA players, I am hopeful that they would be able to adjust and make it work.
A reason to be cautiously optimistic is that they have a brilliant offensive-minded coach that can mesh these all-world talents together. It is now up to the mad genius to bring these talents together and cause an array of problems to opposing teams.
As a fan, I want to see this work, but there's a part of me that tells me that I've seen this before. I hope to be wrong.
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