No. 1: The James Harden Trade
This one is easy. On Oct. 27, 2012, Morey agreed to trade Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, the aforementioned Toronto draft pick, and other future draft considerations to the Oklahoma City Thunder for James Harden, and it changed the course of modern NBA history.
Oklahoma City has traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets, league sources tell Y! Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 28, 2012
Since then, Harden has become an MVP, a multi-time scoring champion, and one of the league’s most dominant and unstoppable players. At just 30 years old, the future Hall of Famer is already among the best two or three players in Rockets franchise history, and he’s increasingly creeping into the conversation about the NBA’s best players of all-time.
His current scoring average of 38.1 points per game is the highest of any NBA player in the last 56 years, and his scoring streak last season of 30+ points in 32 straight games was the second longest in NBA history.
He’s also shown extreme loyalty to Houston by signing multiple contract extensions with the Rockets in an era where many of his NBA All-Star peers have routinely switched teams. In turn, his willingness to secure his future for multiple seasons moving forward has helped make the Rockets attractive to other star talents such as Howard, Paul, and Westbrook.
Harden is still seeking his first title as the Rockets and the NBA transition into the 2020s. But his arrival is easily the biggest reason the Rockets have had chances and should continue to have them in the years ahead.
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(Editor’s note: There will be a separate list coming in the days ahead of Houston’s top games of the decade. Happy holidays!)