The Rockets irked its already strong contingent of detractors (and some of their own fans) when they added another of the league’s most polarizing players in Westbrook over the summer. Since joining Houston, he hasn’t been very good. He’s shooting 41 percent from the field and 23 percent from three.
Often criticized for his empty triple-doubles, even in his MVP season when he had a league record 42, Westbrook’s had an up-and-down relationship with fans. What was once special became played out, and what was once a historic anomaly became blatant stat-hunting.
Westbrook’s flawed game next to Harden’s criticized one, packaged with the franchise’s complaining antics makes for a whole new beast of Rockets hatred. Even if the Rockets are playing a style conducive to winning, and Harden’s changing the way a single player can dominate the league, fans don’t have to like what they’re doing.
The Rockets are structured by numbers, computers, science, and what ought to happen. It’s smart. It’s supposed to work, and it has worked to some degree. But it hasn’t worked all the way yet. And until then, math isn’t meant to be beloved.
James Harden’s 2018-19 season was historic. He scored the most points by a non- Chamberlain or Jordan NBA player per game at 36.1, along with eight assists and seven rebounds. He pushed the boundaries of how frequently he could shoot from distance, no matter how defenses played him. He was tremendous. But he lost out to an equally deserving megastar in Giannis Antetokounmpo for MVP.
In the moments after it was announced, the Rockets started a Twitter thread with “Congrats to the new MVP, but we respectfully disagree,” so you can do the math on how that played out to fans. Then, months later, Harden spoke out at 97.9 The Box, a Houston-area radio station, on his reaction to losing the award. “It’s out of my control. I think once the media, they create a narrative about somebody from the beginning of the year. I think they just take the narrative and run with it the entire year.”
This has been a year of sore losing for the Rockets. That’s why the team’s latest complaint about Harden’s dunk, no matter how correct (the refs even admitted they were wrong), comes off as another instance of them whining. It coming after a blown 22-point lead to a bad Spurs team is just the icing on top.