Both James Harden and Russell Westbrook are 2020 All-Stars and former MVPs, and they have a close friendship dating back to their time playing together in Oklahoma City from 2009 through 2012.
Despite those commonalities, though, they have a unique approach as it pertains to working with their team’s coaching staff and front office.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox Sports 1’s First Things First, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey explained that Harden is much more involved than Westbrook when it comes to having input on organizational decisions.
“We love working in close harmony with our superstars,” he said. “That’s why people love playing in Houston. Besides that it’s a great city and a long winning tradition, we’ve had a really good team of people over time.”
“Stars in the league understand that we’re a good place to come,” Morey added. “Part of it is because we see us as in partnership with them.”
From there, Morey explained the differences from his perspective in working with Houston’s veteran guards. Harden and Westbrook are now 30 and 31 years old, respectively, and their extensive NBA experience and knowledge of the league would seem to give them unique insight.
I would say with James, there’s more conversations. He likes to get involved in that.
Russ just loves to play. There wasn’t a whole lot of conversation with Russell. He gets basketball, and he just wants to go out there and kill people. I think you see it on the court.
[Westbrook] trusts what Coach D’Antoni is doing. He trusts what we’re doing. James does, too, but James likes to have more conversations.
“We basically work with our stars as much or as little as they want to be involved,” Morey concluded in his interview remarks.
Though they have different personalities, the pairing certainly seems to be working for the Rockets (39-21), who entered Wednesday with wins in six of their last seven games.
In his 11th NBA season, Harden leads the NBA in scoring at 34.9 points, and he’s also in the league’s top 10 in assists at 7.4 per game. Meanwhile, in his first season with the Rockets and 12th overall, Westbrook is averaging 27.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 7.1 assists per game.
Harden, Westbrook and the Rockets resume play Thursday with a critical home game versus the Los Angeles Clippers (42-19), who they’re chasing in the race for Western Conference playoff seeding. With a national TNT telecast, tipoff is set for 7:00 p.m. Central from Toyota Center.
