Chris Paul is on his way to join James Harden which will give the Houston Rockets two of the best all-rounder players in the backcourt which will lead their chase for the championship trophy. This is NBA’s second chartbuster trade which has taken place in less than a week. The Houston Rockets had acquired Chris Paul from the Los Angeles Clipper this Wednesday in return for Lou Williams, Darrun Hilliard, Patrick Beverly, Sam Dekker, De Andre Liggins, Montrezl Harrell, Kyle Wiltjer, cash consideration and also a first round pick for the next year. According to Houston’s general manager, Daryl Morey, “It’s a weapons race in the NBA and you’re either in the weapons race or on the sidelines. We felt like with James Harden in his prime and Chris Paul in his prime this gives us a real shot to chase the juggernaut teams that are out there. This puts us right there with them.”
Both the Houston and Clippers are going to be very different in the next session compared to how they did. The roster fixes came in after Minnesota had sent five players after five days to Chicago for the all-rounder Jimmy Butler to kick things off with the NBA agency opening on last Saturday. Thirty-two-year-old Chris Paul is going to be playing for the third team after he had opted in for his contract’s last year so that the Clippers would be able to work out a deal. This deal was to be signed earlier on according to Morey so that Paul could help them encourage more agents to join the Houston. “Now that we have James and Chris I think people are going to look in free agency and say: `Hey I can make this money there but maybe for close to the money but not quite as much I’m going to come to Houston and try to win a ring,”‘ Morey said. “So that’s a big difference walking in with that kind of a situation.” Even though he has been criticized for failing to help the Los Angeles Clippers get out of the playoffs second round, Chris Paul is nine times an all-star player who has an average of 18.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 9.9 assists and 2.3 steals over the course of his twelve years career.
