Getty Houston Rockets guards Chris Paul and James Harden.
Chris Paul no longer wants to be a Houston Rocket.
According to a report from Yahoo Sports Vincent Goodwill, the relationship between James Harden and Paul has been called “unsalvageable” and the star players no longer want to play for the same franchise.
The report goes on to say that Paul demanded a trade following the team’s playoff exit to the Golden State Warriors in the second round and that Harden gave the team an ultimatum: him or me.
The bombshell report says the stars did not speak for nearly two months and also lists Paul’s injury issues as a reason for Harden growing “annoyed” with the nine-time NBA All-Star.
“It can’t be fixed,” a league source told Yahoo Sports in the report. Another unnamed source in the story said Harden has “no respect” for Paul and hasn’t returned his requests to communicate this offseason.
The report comes just one day after Houston general manager Daryl Morey was on ESPN’s “Golic and Wingo” radio show. He said Paul did not request a trade and the tensions between the stars was a good thing.
“We have two high-level competitors, Chris and James, who their only goal in life at this point is to win the title. They’ve accomplished everything else, they are both going to be first-ballot Hall of Famers. Two competitive superstars at that level, there’s going to be times when they are extremely competitive, extremely focused on how do we get to that next level, and when we don’t there’s going to be frustration,” Morey told ESPN. “I’m frustrated, our top players are frustrated, [coach] Mike D’Antoni is frustrated. We want to take the last step and be the champion and I think it’s good that there is tension in the sense that we all want to win.”
Chris Paul
Rockets Looking At Major Shake-up This Offseason
Earlier this month, it was reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that Morey was making everyone available for trade to reshape the roster, which seemed to include Chris Paul.
“Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey has made his entire roster and future draft picks available in trade talks, a dramatic initiative with hopes of reshaping the team into a championship contender, league sources told ESPN,” Wojnarowski reported.
Morey has maintained the team will be firm on getting better this offseason to “be the favorite” in the west.
“We feel like we should be the favorite in the West, and we’re going to do moves to show people that we should be the favorite in the West, and that’s going to create a little tension when we do that. But at the end of the day, we’re going to have at least our starting five back, which again most teams are scrambling to keep it together and we’re going to spend midlevel, we’re going to spend into the tax. We’re going to be one of the most expensive rosters like we were last year and this year and we’re going to be right there,” he told ESPN.
Paul has a history of not being the easiest teammate to play with. Before landing in Houston in 2017, there were reportedly growing tensions between Paul and others in the Clippers organization, including star Blake Griffin.
The next three season’s Paul is due $38.5 million, $41.3 million and $44.2 million, which will make finding a trading partner extremely hard, especially at Paul’s age of 34 with a sharp decline in production.
Paul scored just 15.6 points last season and his 3.11 assist-to-turnover ratio ranked 40th in the NBA. He shot a career-low 41.9 percent from the field.
There have been rumors that he could land with his Banana Boat buddy LeBron James in L.A. But after the team acquired Anthony Davis, Paul would have to take a pay cut to land there.