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Rockets GM Daryl Morey completed Russell Westbrook trade while taking Uber to Summer League game

Daryl Morey, Russell Westbrook, Rockets

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is a busy guy, but that doesn’t mean a car ride in an Uber could prevent him from completing one of the summer’s biggest moves—trading for Russell Westbrook.

Per Jonathan Feigen in the Houston Chronicle:

In the course of that 20-minute ride — with Morey and [EVP Rafael] Stone on their phones and the Uber driver, air pods in place, blissfully oblivious that an NBA-shaking trade to send Russell Westbrook to the Rockets was coming together in his back seat — the deal moved from dormant to done.

As the car pulled up to Thomas & Mack Arena, roughly two minutes after Morey and Thunder general manager Sam Presti had reached their agreement to send Chris Paul and draft picks to Oklahoma City, Morey made one more decision.

After that, Feigen describes Morey and the top Rockets’ front-office staff assembling at the Golden Nugget hotel in Las Vegas to finalize the trade instead of attending Houston’s NBA Summer League matchup at the Thomas & Mack Arena Center.

Morey, Houston’s GM since 2007, landed an eight-time All-Star and former NBA MVP in Westbrook to pair with former Thunder teammate James Harden in an attempt to push the Rockets over the hump. Morey sent 34-year-old point guard Chris Paul to OKC, along with multiple picks, despite Paul, Harden, and the Rockets nearly making the NBA Finals in 2018, falling one game short to the Golden State Warriors in the conference finals.

Apparently unhappy with the outlook of the team with Paul, Morey shook up his franchise—along with the league—by acquiring the 30-year-old two-time scoring champion in Westbrook to make wavelengths in the present tense for the Rockets.

The post Rockets GM Daryl Morey completed Russell Westbrook trade while taking Uber to Summer League game appeared first on ClutchPoints.

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