Sports // Rockets

The trade: When call finally came, Harden was a Rocket

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey had reached the point in the negotiations that he could do no more than nervously wait and double check his cell phones for an answer from Oklahoma City.

The trade talks were complete, but Morey did not believe there would be a trade. James Harden and the Thunder had reached an impasse in negotiations on a contract extension. Harden's agent, Rob Pelinka, had flown in for face-to-face talks to keep Harden with the Thunder. Morey had done all he could to get Harden to Houston and was stuck waiting for a phone to ring.

It was a familiar, but uncomfortable place to be.

"I absolutely thought they were using our interest to pressure the completion of a deal with James," Morey said. "It (the deal to trade for Harden) was done at that point. We had finished what deal we were going to do. They were just going to call back me if they were in."

When Morey's phone finally buzzed with a text message, it did not come with an answer and really did not bring the relief from the rising tension. Rockets vice president Gersson Rosas, suffering similar and familiar anxiety, was keeping a good thought.

"Gersson texted me about an hour before we were supposed to hear from Oklahoma City," Morey said. "He said 'C'mon, this time has got to be the time. We've done too much, gotten so close so many times for it not to happen.'"

A celebrated student of trends, Morey generally doubts any deal will ever be completed. Rosas is the front office optimist. On the Harden deal, he confidently predicted a breakthrough years in the making.

"I told (Morey), 'This is it. This one has got to go through,'" Rosas said. "I felt really good."

At roughly 1 p.m., Presti called Morey and said they should set up with trade call with the NBA to have the deal approved.

Morey had spent years waiting for that call. Talks picked up a bit around the 2012 draft. Over that summer, he made his case to Rockets owner Leslie Alexander that the Rockets should do whatever would be necessary to build around Harden.

"I think I said 'anything not bolted down,'" Morey said. "Each side's reservation price doesn't mean that's where the deal will be. Usually, it will be somewhere in the middle.

"I mean, we were obviously looking for a franchise-level player since Yao and Tracy went down. He was one of the key guys. We were constantly interested in him for years before. They were not interested in trading him."

He had made the moves that made the trade possible long before Presti was on board.

As much as getting Harden made it possible for the Rockets to sign Dwight Howard as a free agent the following summer, chasing a deal for Howard made it possible to trade for Harden.

The Rockets had come close to acquiring Howard at the 2012 trade deadline, remaining on the phone up until the press conference in which Howard announced that he would not opt out of his final season of his contract with the Magic.

When Howard's relationship with the Magic soured and he was back on the trade block, Morey understood that he would need a better draft pick than his own to anchor a trade offer, dealing Kyle Lowry to Toronto for a first-round pick and protections that made it certain to be in the lottery.

Morey did not blink when Howard indicated he would not sign as a free agent with the Rockets after completing his contract. He put together a package that moved the Rockets ahead of Brooklyn. But when the Magic and Lakers brought Denver into the deal, the Magic chose a deal with guard Arron Afflalo over the Rockets' package with Kevin Martin.

(In many ways, the road to Harden began controversially before Morey's failed pursuit of a trade for Howard when the commissioner nixed a deal for Pau Gasol that would have sent Martin, eventually an irreplaceable part of the Harden deal, to New Orleans.)

The Thunder went to the NBA Finals that season, but had already had locked up Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka to long-term contracts, potentially making it difficult to sign Harden, too. Still, Morey believed that the Thunder and Harden would reach an agreement on a contract extension.

Talks between Morey and Presti and with Presti and Pelinka continued simultaneously until Saturday, Oct. 27 when the decision was made to deal Harden, rather than keep him for the final season of his contract and risk losing him as a free agent.

Presti was far from celebratory when he discussed the deal the following day, but he had gotten a package that could have worked. Martin would not be the sort of franchise player Harden would become, or even the Sixth Man of the Year that Harden had been in his final season in Oklahoma City, but he could fill the role of providing instant offense off the bench. Jeremy Lamb, taken 12th in the 2012 draft, had outstanding potential he still has not realized.

The Toronto pick seemed likely to land in the top 10 and was in position to be seventh until the Raptors finished that season with a five-game winning streak. The Raptors took center Steven Adams with that pick and Mitch McGary with the other first-round pick in the deal.

Martin left as a free agent after one season and Lamb never panned out before he was dealt. But for the Thunder, the trade is difficult still to evaluate.

The Thunder never got to find out if Martin could have sufficiently stepped into Harden's role in a long playoff run because Westbrook was hurt in the playoffs first round that season (against the Rockets) and the Thunder could not go far without him. Harden might not have become all he has had he remained with Durant and Westbrook.

Adams and McGary might not reach his level in Oklahoma City, but are still improving. Alex Abrines, a shooting guard selected with the other pick obtained in the Harden deal, the 32nd pick in 2013, remains in Spain.

The Rockets have no such questions and never did.

"We definitely thought franchise-level player," Morey said. "Runner-up MVP, that's a very hard thing to forecast. That's really unfair. We decided he could be the best player on a championship-level team. You don't have to be the runner-up MVP for that.

"A couple things we saw; He was improving every year and he played very well without Kevin and Russell. System-wise, we believed in his ability to shoot, attack the basket, finish and be a playmaker."

More than that, they saw elite pick-and-roll production that they believed could be the foundation of their offense, though in Oklahoma City had offered put aside midways through the fourth quarter when Westbrook returned to the floor.

Harden had gotten all that he wanted. He would be elevated from the Thunder sixth man to be the Rockets star, the face and facial hair of the franchise. Instead of fitting his talents around others', The Rockets would build around him. Rather than accepting the Oklahoma City offer of $52 million over four years or even the $60 he wanted, he would sign for nearly $80 million over five seasons.

He would have taken that deal to remain with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, but he has often said since that he long wanted the role and responsibility of a team's star.

When the trade call with the league was complete, Presti called Harden that evening as he was out to dinner with his family. By the next day, he was in Houston, joining the team as it went through the annual open scrimmage and stealing the show as he would so often in the coming years. But when he spoke, he sounded as if he was still working through the whirlwind.

"It happened so fast, it happened very fast," Harden said that day. "But this is the position I'm in now. Just have to make the best out of it. I'm with Houston now. I just have to come in here and play hard and win games.


He cited the example of Durant with the Thunder and the influence of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James with the Olympic team for his belief that he was prepared for the job. But his time with them also let him know how much was expected of him.

He said he knew he could do what would be asked of him, but if he sounded unsure, almost ambivalent, it was because he was still assessing all that had changed and awaited him.

"I've always been confident, but when things come your way, you sit back and try to figure out your surroundings," Harden said. "Being in Houston, I was confident I would successful. When the trade happened, I thought I was going to be good, but I was trying to figure this thing out."

Four days after the deal was complete, Harden signed his max extension and then had 37 points with 12 assists and seven rebounds.

Morey sat in the front row in Auburn Hills, Mich. behind the scorer's table when finally, late in the game he finally exhaled.

"That," he said, "is why we got that … guy."