The Rockets are Looking for Reinforcements to Help Cure What Ailes Their Volatile Locker Room, and Have Reportedly Settled on Trading for...Jimmy Butler?

Houston's priority for free agency, league sources tell ESPN: Pursue a sign-and-trade for Sixers All-Star Jimmy Butler. https://t.co/Bsk6g2YhfW

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 25, 2019

Would you look at that? The Rockets went and took the name right out of my mouth. Well, at least I assume that's why I was left speechless upon reading this report. 

​Who needs to be brought in to cure the temperamental locker room of a team led by clashing personalities and explosively opposing ideologies? Why, of course, it's Jimmy Butler! With Chris Paul being unable to get through to a superstar who has unlimited organizational support in playing however selfishly he sees fit, it only makes sense to double-down on difficult blowhards who demand accountability. I can't think of a more perfect way to motivate the most stubborn scorer in the NBA to share the ball and exert the excess effort on the less celebrated end of the floor than tag-teaming him with the most overbearing of peer-pressure. If I know James Harden like I think I know James Harden then people taking turns screaming in his ears for 82 games is what will really bring the cutthroat competitor out of him come playoff time!

In all seriousness, I think it might behoove the Houston Rockets to slap the calculator out of Daryl Morey's hand and enroll him in a chemistry class. Dude is so caught up in the math of basketball that he's completely forgotten that it's a team sport played by those with very distinct egos, emotions, and playing styles. I do rather enjoy the mental image of someone who would gladly die diving for a loose ball rolling his burning retinas while watching James Harden throw himself to the ground like he had just been shot between the eyes by a light brush against his wrist and CP3 bark at an official like the whistle was only discernible to the ears of old dogs who are fresh out of new tricks. However, to think that such an inevitable scene is fitting of a championship caliber basketball team is to think that the relationship between a dried-out forest, a fire, and a can of gasoline is a fruitful one.

Unless the assumption is that everything is already destined for ashes anyway, in which case I would applaud the Rockets for sacrificing their sanity in acting solely on behalf of the sadistic fans of a sports' soap opera, this simply doesn't add up in any non-analytical way.