https://youtu.be/KGo5Wi0r5bo
There was a brief, glorious moment of time where Isaiah Hartenstein was the only man standing between the Houston Rockets and a wholehearted embrace of the concept of “small ball”. In that time period, he had some nice scoring games in rapid succession, and it seemed like the Rockets would continue to use him as their Clint Capela replacement going forward. The Hartenstein Hype Train was chugging merrily down the tracks, picking up steam and steadily adding passengers (including myself).
Then the Rockets perma-benched him, rolled with P.J. Tucker as their center, and the rest is history. It’s not very fun history, but it’s history nonetheless.
It took a while for Hartenstein to recover from that injustice, but it seems like he’s getting back into his groove after getting traded from the Nuggets to the Cavs in exchange for JaVale McGee (who will always be a Nugget in my heart, but should really be on the Wizards for maximum nostalgia). The Cavs are pretty short on skilled bigs when Jarrett Allen is out, but maybe that’s selling Hartenstein short, because he has shown flashes of scoring talent when he’s been given the minutes. He’s sort of like Andre Drummond in that all he does is hit hook shots, floaters, and dunks near the basket, as well as rebound like a mofo, but the difference is that Hartenstein doesn’t force shots, so his percentages are way better. That’s going to be a better fit for the team 10/10 times.
Now the only thing left to do is for Hartenstein to exact some sort of revenge on Daryl Morey for ruining his career which was just beginning to blossom. I’m drawing a blank on exactly what kind of revenge would be appropriate, but I’m sure Hartenstein can come up with something. Perhaps involving a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it.