IT WAS THE bottom of the ninth inning inside Houston’s Minute Maid Park, and James Harden and Russell Westbrook sported matching orange Astros jerseys, taking in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series from the first row behind the backstop.
Some 20 feet away, Astros All-Star Jose Altuve had just stepped up to the plate with two outs and hammered the walk-off home run that punched Houston’s World Series ticket, delivering a moment similar to what the two superstar pals plan to bring to Rockets fans this season.
If you’ve seen the Beard in Houston over the past few months, Brodie has probably been by his side. They laughed with each other at the comedy show that kicked off Harden’s annual charity weekend. They danced together at rap concerts, getting called up onstage, along with other teammates, by Meek Mill. And, of course, Harden and Westbrook have worked together, a pair of recent MVPs trying to lay the foundation for the NBA title run that neither has experienced.
“When you have a friendship first outside of basketball, you’re able to communicate, and James and me have been friends for many, many years,” Westbrook said. “When you’re able to communicate and understand each other, in the game, it’s easy.”
Yes, Chris Paul sat in those same ballpark seats next to Harden a couple of falls ago, but that partnership was strictly business. It was also quite successful, despite the creative friction between the two of them last season and their inability to get past the Golden State Warriors — a problem the rest of the Western Conference has shared over the past five years.
But the roots of Harden’s relationship with Westbrook run deep, all the way back to their days as a couple of kids on the AAU scene in Los Angeles. Their bond strengthened during their time together in Oklahoma City, when they were rising stars for one of the NBA’s great dynasties that never happened.
The friendship survived their time as rivals, on the court and in MVP voting, and Harden was the first person Westbrook called when he was looking for a new home this summer.
Which is not to say that the pairing of the NBA’s two most ball-dominant players does not come with questions and challenges. Still, the hope in Houston is that the longtime buddies are too tight, and too talented, for it to fail.
“If Russ got it going and Russ is having one of those games that we’ve all seen before, guess what I’m going to do?” Harden said. “Sit back and watch the show.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Westbrook, both men stressing that their hunger is driven solely by chasing a championship.
“If James has it going, I’ll sit there and watch,” Westbrook said. “No problem with me. If I have it going, vice versa. It doesn’t really matter who scores the points. Who’s scoring, I don’t really care.
“As long as the Houston Rockets are scoring and we [are] winning, that’s all I really care about.”
As Harden and Westbrook exited the ballpark, they casually walked past droves of fans too busy reveling in the moment to stop the superstar guards for a quick selfie. Blocks away sits Houston’s Toyota Center, where the Rockets are expecting their new MVP partnership to ignite similar celebrations.
How exactly, though, will the dynamic look? How can they enhance each other’s games with skill sets that seem to be imperfect fits?
The answer in Houston remains a simple one, for now.
“We don’t know yet,” Harden said. “Just figure it out.”
ABOUT 100 HOURS before the Rockets’ regular-season opener, coach Mike D’Antoni kicked up his feet on his couch and watched the Houston Texans‘ comeback attempt fall short against the Indianapolis Colts. D’Antoni, as laid-back as coaches come, doesn’t worry about much. The fact that he has very little clue of what X’s and O’s will work best with the Harden-Westbrook duo doesn’t concern him a bit.
The Rockets roll into the regular season with general ideas, open minds and ample optimism.
“We’re not going to make it too complicated,” D’Antoni said. “They’re MVPs. They’ll put up MVP numbers. I don’t have to interject how smart I am. That’ll just screw it up. They’re really f—ing good.”
One certainty is that D’Antoni will stagger his stars’ stints on the floor, as he did with Harden and Paul; Harden and Westbrook will actually play together less than half the game. D’Antoni said if he sticks to his tentative plan, they’ll share the floor for about 19 minutes per game, including crunch time.
Of course, that would require convincing a couple of headstrong stars to accept resting more than they’re used to. D’Antoni said he wants to get Harden down to an average of 35 minutes, which would be his fewest since he was the Thunder’s sixth man. The goal for Westbrook is 32 minutes per game, which would be his lowest for any season other than 2013-14, when he was coming off the infamous playoff collision with Patrick Beverley that led to multiple knee surgeries, including one in the middle of the season. Eric Gordon will return to the sixth-man role, allowing D’Antoni to have at least two dynamic scorers on the floor at all times.
The Rockets are adamant about another significant change: revving up the pace, which plays to Westbrook’s breathtaking speed, as well as Harden’s overlooked skill as one of the league’s best look-ahead passers.
The Rockets moved only slightly faster than Houston’s horrendous rush-hour traffic last season, when they played at a slower pace than all but three teams. General manager Daryl Morey believes there’s a “good chance” that this edition of the Rockets will play faster than any previous team coached by D’Antoni, including the Phoenix Suns from the “Seven Seconds or Less” era or the 2016-17 Rockets, who ranked third in the league in pace.
“If Russ got it going and Russ is having one of those games that we’ve all seen before, guess what I’m going to do? Sit back and watch the show.”
Rockets G James Harden
Now Houston wants Westbrook to have the keys on the open highway as often as possible, eager to see how he flourishes when he’s surrounded by 3-point threats. And at the start and end of games, Westbrook will ride shotgun when the Rockets navigate the neighborhood streets of half-court possessions.
“James was one of the greatest half-court players ever last year, but Russell in transition was even better,” Morey said on Oct. 4, before the Rockets faced the LA Clippers during the preseason. “So if we can combine those two things, we can get to an even better place.”
It’s easy to envision how things will click when the Rockets can run with Westbrook in crunch time. He’ll attack relentlessly, with Clint Capela, who prides himself on being one of the league’s fastest big men, providing a finishing option. Gordon and PJ Tucker will open the floor by fanning out to the 3-point line. Harden will get easy 3-point looks as a trailer.
Skeptics among opposing executives, coaches and scouts wonder, though, about Westbrook’s role when the Rockets can’t get out in transition. What will Westbrook do without the ball while Harden works his unique brand of off-the-bounce wizardry?
“That’s the billion-dollar question,” one West executive said.
The doubts about Westbrook’s fit with Harden, who has evolved from the Thunder’s No. 3 option into arguably the best scorer of his generation, focus on Westbrook’s perimeter shooting. Defenses will dare Westbrook, a 30.8% career 3-point shooter, to beat them from beyond the arc.
“We’ll be fine with that,” Morey said. “That’s going to be a very good shot for us, I think. I do agree that that’s going to be one that teams will choose, but I think that’s going to be a tough choice for them. I think he’s going to have his best year shooting.”
That hope isn’t based on recent trends, however. Westbrook’s best 3-point shooting season came during his 2016-17 MVP campaign, when he hit 34.3% from long range.
That’s also the lone season among the past five in which he surpassed the 30% clip, the NBA 3-point shooter’s version of baseball’s Mendoza line. He was slightly better, but still below average, over the past two seasons on catch-and-shoot 3s (32.6%), the kinds of shots Harden frequently generates for his teammates.
The Rockets anticipate that Westbrook’s defender will often sag off when he spots up on the wing, which is where he’ll be on most Harden isolations. The extreme version of that was seen in Houston’s preseason loss to the San Antonio Spurs, who planted Westbrook’s defender in the middle of the free throw line, almost 10 feet away.
Morey expects that Westbrook, even if his shooting doesn’t improve, will be able to “attack that space,” using the sagging strategy as an invitation to a runway and creating opportunities to collapse the defense — and in that way Westbrook could make a positive impact in an off-ball role next to Harden.
D’ANTONI, FOR HIS part, chuckled at the suggestion that Westbrook’s shooting woes could throw a wrench into Harden’s game.
“James doesn’t really need a lot of space,” D’Antoni said. “They can sag all they want. James will just step back and hit a 3.”
Westbrook will be given a green light to crash the offensive glass, but D’Antoni doesn’t want him making random cuts, preferring that Harden know where his potential passing targets are located. And D’Antoni says he has no intention of making drastic adjustments to a system that has pumped out historically elite offensive ratings in each of his three seasons in Houston, with Harden’s scoring average climbing in each.
Westbrook has declared that the duo formed with Harden will be “scary” for opponents, but he doesn’t expect things to always be smooth. He’s already sick of questions about the fit and more focused on gaining familiarity with the rest of the Rockets and playing his way into peak condition after his recovery from knee surgery kept him out of 5-on-5 action until just before training camp.
He’s also dealing with a dislocated right pinky finger but dismissed that as a concern, saying “point guard fingers are always going to be f—ed up.”
“It’s going to come, man,” Westbrook said after the Spurs game, when he finished with 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting and twice as many turnovers (eight) as assists. “It’s just going to be a process, like I mentioned earlier in the season. It’s going to be a season where we figure it out. And teams that have figured it out still struggle, so don’t be, like, alarmed. Don’t be like, ‘Oh, s—, they’ve got it figured out.’
“Because y’all going to ask the question every game. If we play bad, you’re going to ask, ‘How you feeling? Have you guys figured it out?’ Ain’t no need to ask the same question, because I’m going to give you the same answer. It’s going to be fine.”
The Rockets will tinker with some sets and plays early in the season. They might experiment with Westbrook working the corner and baseline, as he often did when Harden took over as the primary facilitator late in games during their OKC days. Westbrook might occasionally set a screen for Harden, sometimes to get a switch, sometimes slipping the pick to use his speed to create havoc for the defense despite not having the ball.
“We can change up some things to help [Westbrook] out as it goes on,” D’Antoni said. “Work on a couple of little wrinkles. To have it mapped out right now, no, don’t know a whole lot.”
“I’m all ears, man,” Westbrook said, all smiles as he pondered the journey ahead. “I’m here, I’m new, I’m excited.”