Kenneth Faried aka “the Manimal” is loving life on the Houston Rockets.
“Me being on this team is a blessing because it gave me new life to my career. People see Kenneth Faried can do this and Kenneth Faried can do that. And Houston is letting him do this and letting him do that,” the power forward/center told NBA.com’s Sekou Smith in an interview that posted on Monday.
Faried talks about his up-and-down career in the NBA.
He signed a four-year, $50 million extension with the Denver Nuggets in October 2014 as a seeming staple of the franchise’s future.
Faried’s string of injuries, friction with a new coach, the rise of young bigs (Nikola Jokic and Jusuf Nurkic) and an All-Star free agent pickup (Paul Millsap) made Faried basically an “afterthought,” writes Smith. He traded to Brooklyn in July 2018, played in just 12 games and then agreed to a buyout in January 2019.
Since joining the Rockets in late January due to an injury to Clint Capela, Faried is averaging 13.6 points and 8.8 rebounds per game.
The wide-ranging interview, the 29-year-old big man seems quite pleased about being on a Rockets team led by James Harden and head coach Mike D’Antoni, and feel as if he is in the “career reboot” stage of his life.
Faried explains: “So I give coach D’Antoni a ton of credit for that, and a ton of respect for letting, not just me but also James Harden be who he is, Chis Paul be who he is, Clint Capela be who he is. I mean, Austin Rivers, he’s got him over here letting him be who he is after everybody thought he was down and out when he went to Washington. But he’s back on track. Gerald Green, P.J. Tucker … think about where all these guys have come from. And now you’ve got a strong group that’s confident and knows how to get the job done. A group that knows what it takes to be in this league and is going to bring the grit and heart to the floor each and every night.”
Be sure to give the full interview a read — can’t recommend it enough!
