Houston Rockets coach Ime Udoka confirmed that he wanted the team to pursue Fred VanVleet rather than James Harden in free agency. Udoka told ESPN's Zach Lowe that the preference was about ball dominance -- or, in VanVleet's case, the lack thereof. VanVleet will start at point guard, but he's also an excellent spot-up shooter and will allow the Rockets' young guards, Jalen Green and Amen Thompson, to make plays with the ball in their hands.
"Nothing against James, but Fred is just a better fit," Udoka said. "I coached James in Brooklyn. He's one of the smartest players I've ever been around. The words 'Ime doesn't want James' never came out of my mouth. It was, 'Let's look at the best fit.' If we want Jalen and the young guys to take the next steps, we need them to have the ball. As for me saying I don't want James, that was never the case. It was about fit."
Some previous reporting on this:
- On June 23, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reported that Udoka didn't want Harden and the team would be moving in a different direction.
- On June 30, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Yahoo Sports' Jake Fischer reported that, once Houston hired Udoka, VanVleet moved to the top of its list.
- On Aug. 19, Heavy.com's Steve Bulpett quoted a league source saying, "From everything we've gotten out of there, it was a matter that Ime didn't want him. At the beginning, were they thinking about Harden? Yeah. But then they hired Ime, and Ime said, 'It's not going to work here.'"
- On Sept. 6, ESPN's Ramona Shelburne reported that the Rockets' interest in Harden diminished after hiring Udoka: "Udoka was trying to set a new culture in Houston, not bring back the past. He wanted to target defensive-minded players like Memphis' Dillon Brooks and Milwaukee's Brook Lopez."
- On Oct. 3, Fox Sports' Yaron Weitzman reported that Udoka was not a fan of Harden's in Brooklyn, so the hiring meant there would be no reunion.
Udoka is disputing some of this reporting, but this is mostly about semantics -- he's saying it's not that he didn't want Harden, it's that he didn't want Harden on this particular team, particularly when there was a lower-usage alternative available. It surely also helped that Udoka knew VanVleet would get after it on defense and mentor the Rockets' young players.
All of this is ... sensible! It would have been weird for a rebuilding team, even one trying to take a step forward, to bring back its former franchise player at 34 years old and, as Paul George put it on a podcast with Green, hinder Green's growth. Given that Udoka wanted to establish a defensive culture and get the ball moving on offense, there were no shortage of basketball reasons to choose VanVleet over Harden.
