After Paul George was shipped to the Los Angeles Clippers for an armada of picks, there was speculation regarding what's next for Russell Westbrook, the Thunder's other star. The Miami Heat, Detroit Pistons, and Houston Rockets had emerged as the favorites for landing Russ, but a trade was still not guaranteed.
Yesterday, that changed, as Westbrook was traded to the Rockets for Chris Paul, two first round picks, and two more pick swaps. He will join James Harden in Houston, and the fit will be...interesting. Westbrook and Harden could both make cases to being the most ball-dominant player in the league. In fact, Russ had the highest usage rate ever in 2016-17, and Harden came a couple percentage points from matching that in 2018-19. Coach Mike D'Antoni will have a lot of work to do, as neither Westbrook nor Harden wants to stand on the perimeter and be a catch-and-shoot player. One possible solution is to start both of them, but stagger the rotations so that both of them are not on the court together unless necessary.
Poor, poor, Chris Paul. After coming one game away from reaching the finals in 2017-18, there was hope that he could finally get a ring and cement himself among the point guard elite. After a disappointing year last season, he is now on a team in the midst of a rebuild. The Thunder have an absurd amount of picks in the next 10 years, and have a very bright future if they draft well. That means that they will not be contending, and there is a low chance that CP3 wins a championship.
Sam Presti deserves a lot of credit. He took an extremely bad, seemingly unfixable situation, and turned it into a promising young point guard(Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), a veteran forward(Danilo Gallinari), one of the best point guards ever that will at least provide some leadership(CP3), and more draft picks than we have ever seen before.
Grades:
Thunder: A-
Rockets: B
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