When Kevin Durant first joined the Warriors back in 2016, there were skeptics that wondered if Golden State could make it work.
Would Durant and Steph Curry be able to co-exist? Would there be enough shots for Durant, Curry and Klay Thompson? Would everyone remain happy with their role and numbers?
Those questions were answered pretty quickly. It took a few months, but the Durant, Curry and the Warriors gelled midway through their first season together. They went on to capture the 2016-17 NBA title and ran it back the next season en route to a sweep in the 2017-18 NBA Finals. Everyone seemed happy. Everyone got their shots. The third season wasn't as smooth, but it still almost ended with a third straight title.
After losing the 2019 NBA Finals to the Toronto Raptors, Durant decided it was time to move on and signed with the Brooklyn Nets.
But looking back, the experiment was a success. Durant and Curry co-existed, forming one of the most dominant duos in NBA history. Thompson didn't "sacrifice" as much as people thought he would and ended up signing a max contract with the Warriors this offseason.
Now, the NBA has a new duo that has critics wondering if the players can co-exist: James Harden and Russell Westbrook.
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Both are MVPs and are two of the most ball-dominant players in the NBA. So will the Houston Rockets' experiment work? Harden believes it will.
"When you have talent like that, it works itself out" Harden told The Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen. "You communicate. You go out there and compete possession by possession. You figure things out. Throughout the course of the season, you figure things out. That's just what it is. When you have talent, you have guys with IQ, you have guys willing to sacrifice, it always works itself out."
Harden used a key word there. Sacrifice.
The players on the Warriors were willing to sacrifice for the greater good.
Are Harden and Westbrook capable of making the same sacrifice? Harden is confident that their longstanding friendship will help matters.
"It works," Harden told Feigen. "It's that trust factor. I trust him; he trusts me. And with the group that we already have and the things we already accomplished, it should be an easy transition for him to be incorporated right in and things are going to go."
While Harden and Westbrook went to the NBA Finals in 2012 as members of the Oklahoma City Thunder, neither has returned since. Both have reached the conference finals in recent years, but have gone no further.
Other teams in the Western Conference have been loading up, but Houston is bringing back a team that is mostly intact from last season and swapped Westbrook in for an aging and injury-prone Chris Paul.
So maybe this is finally Houston's year.
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"That's my boy right there, since I was like 10 or 11 years old," Harden said of Westbrook. "Obviously, we were teammates for (three) years. Now, we're at different stages of our careers. I'm excited for the opportunity. I hear a lot of negative things: you can't, he can't, they can't. But we'll figure it out. I'm excited for the opportunity. I know the rest of the organization is. It's time."
The Warriors were able to turn the Curry-Durant partnership into two NBA titles. How many titles, if any, the Rockets can capture with Harden and Westbrook is to be determined. But they certainly have the talent to bring the Larry O'Brien trophy back to H-Town.
