Daryl Morey’s daughter produces short James Harden documentary

Until the Houston Rockets win another title, the biggest moment of Daryl Morey’s career came on October 27, 2012, when he traded Jeremy Lamb, Kevin Martin, two first-round picks, and a second-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for James Harden (and Cole Aldrich and Daequan Cook). It was a deal that immediately changed the fortunes of both player and franchise.

Now that moment’s been put to the screen by Morey’s daughter Karen, a freshman film student at NYU.

The nine-minute short documentary takes us back to the days immediately before The Beard, where the Rockets were caught in a sort of no man’s land following the demise of the Yao-McGrady days, where they were not good enough to make the playoffs but not bad enough to earn a premium lottery pick. That is until one now-famous mega deal.

The film, titled From 6th Man to MVP, chronicles Harden’s rise from being drafted in 2009 by the Thunder out of Arizona State, to winning a 6th Man of the Year Award in 2012 playing third fiddle behind Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, to his trade to H-town, leading the Rockets back to prominence, and eventually winning MVP.

The doc features a veritable who’s who of Rockets personnel and reporters, including Harden and Morey, Jonathan Feigen from the Houston Chronicle, former Rockets Player Director Gersson Rosas, trainer Keith Jones, and many others.

It’s a nicely done quick look at recent Rockets history, and watching it reinforced my feelings of being lucky to have a top NBA superstar in his prime leading my favorite team. I’m not sure if that’s always appreciated as much as it should be. It’s definitely worth your nine minutes of time.

Nice work, Karen!

Here’s the film in case you haven’t seen it.