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Houston Rockets GM Says He Has No Regrets On James Harden’s Trade Return

Dating back to the month of January, the Houston Rockets were one of the teams featured in a four-team blockbuster trade which was centered on the now-Brooklyn Nets superstar James Harden. In the trade, the Rockets received Victor Oladipo, Dante Exum and a number of draft picks ranging from 2021 to 2027.

Following that blockbuster deal that sent shockwaves through the entire NBA, the Rockets caught everyone’s attention once again when they traded away Oladipo to the Miami Heat for Kelly Olynyk, Avery Bradley and a 2022 draft swap, leaving them with no household name from the ‘James Harden’ trade.

Knowing that the Rockets could’ve gotten Caris LeVert from the Indiana Pacers or Ben Simmons from the Philadelphia 76ers during their initial deal, the Rockets promptly received a ton of criticisms and mockery for their questionable move. 

Despite this, Rockets general manager Rafael Stone says he has no regrets.

Per ESPN:

“I would for sure, 100 percent, do that deal again,” Stone said. “Again, you guys don’t have the advantages of knowing everything I know, but literally no part of me regrets doing that deal. I have not second-guessed it for a moment.

A lot of what I said about being in a position maybe to not have to be bad (to rebuild), there’s some other things that we’ve done, too, but it’s primarily that deal that’s allowed us to say, ‘Hey, we want to compete on a slightly quicker time frame.’ We’re not going to go down this path of intentionally trying to lose games for years on end.”