Russell Westbrook, in perhaps a warning to the rest of the NBA, says he will form a “scary” duo with fellow All-Star James Harden in Houston.
Harden, for his part, told reporters that he will be happy to “sit back and watch the show” when his new Rockets teammate has the hot hand.
It’s time for the two former MVPs to “accomplish something together” added Harden.
Per ESPN:
“It’s going to be scary, that’s all I can tell you,” Westbrook said during Houston Rockets media day Friday. “It’s going to be scary — not for us.”
They pushed to reunite with the Rockets, who traded Chris Paul and a package of first-round picks to acquire Westbrook from the Thunder, in large part due to their desire to finally win a championship.
“We’ve accomplished a lot of individual accolades,” said Harden, who led the league in scoring the past two seasons after Westbrook did so during his 2016-17 MVP season. “Now it’s time to accomplish something together that we haven’t accomplished before.”
Some questioned the pairing of two of the league’s most ball-dominant players, as Harden has elevated from a Sixth Man of the Year to perennial MVP candidate since he last played with Westbrook.
“If Russ got it going and Russ is having one of those games that we’ve all seen before, guess what I’m going to do: sit back and watch the show, and vice versa,” Harden said. “It’s just a part of basketball. So you can’t sit up here and say, ‘Oh, Russ is going to have the ball for the first half and I’m going to have the ball the second half.’ No, things happen through the course of the game that you just flow with and go with. All of us in this locker room and this front office has one goal, and that’s to win it. However that happens, it’s going to happen, and we’re just going to figure it out.”
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