Optimistic talk sounds like more than normal media day hype
Daryl Morey did not dance around it. There was no effort to lower expectations or deny the heights of the goals, other than to acknowledge the historical might of the Warriors. The Rockets general manager did not even wait for the day’s first question before he jumped right in.
“This is the best team I’ve been involved with since I’ve been in the NBA,” Morey said. “This is my 15th year overall. You can’t ask more than that: to have a real shot at winning the championship.”
Welcome to Houston, Chris Paul. Welcome back, James Harden. Now try to live up to that.
“Wow, Daryl,” Paul said when he took his turn at the media day podium Monday. “Daryl, don’t hold nothing back, dude.”
He didn’t. Morey would have been less believable if he had tried a verbal soft shoe around the notion that the Rockets began to expect to be a worthy championship contender as soon as they went from the indignity of their Game 6 expulsion from the playoffs to their acquisition of Paul.
That was also why Paul decided to leave Lob City and his otherwise successful run in Los Angeles.
“It means everything,” Paul said. “If I was fine with everything else, I would have probably just stayed where I was. ‘I’ll just keep playing, and it is what it is.’ I came here with one purpose and one goal in mind, and that’s to win a championship. The cool part is being here with a guy like James, who has those same aspirations. And a guy like Coach (Mike D’Antoni). Coach has done everything in this league. I know how badly he wants to win a championship.”
Even D’Antoni, long practiced in the coach’s art of tempering expectations, did not blink when Morey made his opening comments to set the tone for the day and, the Rockets hope, the season.
“I echo the same sentiments,”
D’Antoni said. “Normally, my offenses have been one Hall of Fame point guard. Now we have two that will be on the court the whole time. I’m real excited about that. I’m also excited about the new additions that we have — P.J. Tucker, Luc Mbah a Moute and Tarik Black. We’ve added a lot of brawn and defense. They can make 3s.
“We’re trying to get as close as we can or better than Golden State. They seem to be the ones that set the bar. We know it’s a high bar. We have a lot of potential. Now it’s up to us to work and try to get it done.”
Talk of championship contention is as much of a media tradition as reports of weight loss or strength gain. With the Rockets, it sounded different.
There was no more validity to their hopes to pursue a title than those of other teams or previous versions of the Rockets. But the Rockets have a roster loaded with veterans built around All-NBA stars Harden and Paul. No goal other than championship contention seemed worth mentioning.
“You need a lot of shooting. You need a lot of toughness. You need some special players,” forward Trevor Ariza said. “We have all of that. To think that we can’t compete for a championship would be crazy.”
That all begins with Harden and Paul and how they make their backcourt marriage work. Paul said they made strides throughout a summer often spent together, enough to believe they can make it work when tested.
“It helped a lot. It’s been a lot of fun, too, building that chemistry,” Paul said. “We talked about it. It would probably be a little tough if tomorrow, that first day of practice, we just dapped each other up and we’re like, ‘Yo, what up? Let’s hoop.’ We spent some real time. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of stuff to figure out.”
For Harden, the addition of Paul is the latest effort to allow him to diversify his game. The Rockets tried to add a second star when they signed Dwight Howard, but he and Harden never fully meshed. They tried to add a point guard with the trade for Ty Lawson, but he struggled badly. Paul gives Harden not only a passer as accomplished as he is but a reason to want to play off a star playmaker.
“Ever since I’ve been here, we’ve tried several different guys to come in, try to help get me off the ball, create for our team,” Harden said. “Now we bring him in, a future Hall of Famer. Obviously, he’s one of the best we’ve ever seen facilitating. His attention to detail while he’s playing is something I haven’t … played with. I’m excited for the journey. I know he can make me better on the court but off the court also.”
Harden spoke of all he can learn from Paul. As Morey and D’Antoni had, he cited the other additions to the roster since last season. But mostly, he spoke of the only goal that still mattered, the one they shared and did not bother to deny.
“All the individual accolades and stats are behind us,” Harden said. “Championships is what we’re on. We won’t stop