The Houston Rockets will enter the 2018-19 season with a slightly different look. After allowing veterans Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute to head elsewhere in free agency, the Rockets added Carmelo Anthony on a one-year minimum deal. Some have expressed concern about how Melo will fit in—will he disrupt the team's chemistry, or perhaps demand too much playing time or too many shots? The reigning MVP doesn't seem even a little bit concerned.
In a conversation with The Players' Tribune, James Harden said adding Carmelo will be "easy" as long as the team communicates. "Coming off an MVP season, now you got to add Carmelo Anthony, it's going to be easy," the Beard said. "The transition is easy. When you got that many talented, high-IQ guys around who love to communicate and love to figure things out, the job is easy."
“When you got that many high IQ guys around, who love to communicate and loves to figure things out, the job is easy.”@JHarden13 knows the combination of @CP3, @carmeloanthony and himself will be dangerous from the tip. pic.twitter.com/en3PqmuXBm
As Harden notes, people also were concerned about how the Rockets' offense would work when the team added Chris Paul last summer—and Houston cruised to the No. 1 seed in the West.
"We all see how it worked out," Harden said of the 2017-18 season. "When you got two high-IQ guys who are unselfish and know the game of basketball, it's easy. The job gets hard when you don't communicate. That's what it's about. That's where it's misconstrued. You got guys that are, 'Oh, how are they going to work?' As long as we're on the court and we communicate, things will be a breeze."
The easy, breezy, beautiful Houston Rockets currently have the third-best odds (+850) of winning next year's title.
