Yeah, yeah, yeah Finals something something… the real game that everyone cares about right now is “Where in the world is Kevin Durant going?”
“I saw him with green socks on… he’s clearly going to Boston!”
“I saw him watching a movie! He wants to go to LA!”
“He was hanging out with James Harden! He’s going to Houston!!”
Well… part of that is true…
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Sources told ESPN.com that Harden’s Houston Rockets are not a team Durant plans to consider when he becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1, despite Harden’s presence there and the Rockets’ long-known intent to chase him.
I still won’t believe anything about Durant’s free agency until it’s done, but I’m not shocked at this report. I’ve been saying ad nauseum that in a year where everyone has money, the situation will be more important than ever… and last year the Rockets were the league’s biggest dysfunctional disappointment.
A team that many predicted to make noise in this year’s playoffs, Houston quickly became one of the league’s biggest jokes. It cost Kevin McHale his job, and soon, maybe, it might cost Daryl Morey his.
Let’s be real here… Morey has had nine years to do his job in Houston and he’s only gotten to the Conference Finals once. The Rockets have been bounced in the first round four times, including three times in the four-year James Harden era. He is the darling of the hard-core analytics set for having constructed competitive teams who missed out on the playoffs in the ultra-competitive Western Conference despite having winning records in those three years… and he most certainly deserves the credit for that… but he has whiffed in his pivot to star-chasing.
And that’s what Morey is going to do again this summer, just like the rest of the GM’s out there. He’s chasing stars because this is a star-driven league. Our Celtics looked great for a big chunk of the 82 game season. They were a loveable bunch of scrappers lead by an anomaly of an All Star. But in the end, we all saw that teams needs those transcendent guys to make the big runs.
They need LeBron.
They need Steph Curry.
They need Kevin Durant.
Who knows where he’ll ultimately go, but if he truly spurns Houston… especially if he does so without even meeting with them… it’s time to start wondering how much longer Morey is going to have to make his plan work there.
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