Following Feigen's great retrospective, this is my sense as to how it all went down:

It wasn't just that #Rockets lost to the Lakers, it was how uncompetitive they were. Harden, D'Antoni, and Morey all recognized the window as closed or rapidly closing. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/rockets/article/Four-grueling-months-the-road-to-the-James-15890998.php

Considering that all three of those guys have yet to win a ring, that dynamic was especially troubling. In case of D'Antoni and Harden, not many more runs left.

D'Antoni and Morey had to act more "quickly" than Harden, because the market for a superstar player is always going to be there. For a coach or GM, timing matters if you're going to go somewhere else. That's one reason why they acted sooner than James — they had to.

On Harden specifically, one thing that struck me at the end of the "bubble" playoffs was how lost and down he appeared.

At the end of most other seasons, there was a swagger, a confidence that they'd get it figured out. Didn't have that in September 2020.

What's fascinating to me is the split between Harden and Russ, who are close friends. Publicly, Russ was who "wanted out" first, and that shaped some of the immediate fan reaction. But after Feigen's report, I think Russ is actually the one who was more open to salvaging things.

Russ thought a different coach (Lue endorsement) and perhaps a new playing style and/or culture could improve things.

Harden, OTOH, didn't offer many opinions during the coaching search, didn't recruit players from other teams to Houston in the offseason (as he usually does).

Harden was working out with KD during the coaching search, as Woj previously reported, and that cemented his desire to leave.

Rockets probably didn't have a shot at Lue anyway, once the Clippers offered, but the "salvaging it" plan wasn't the best idea once it was clear that Harden's buy-in was a problem.

So, the team went a different direction (Silas) with optionality for both that era and future.

Around that point, Russ asked out, since it was clear the team had gone in a different direction from his guidance. Plus, he likely knew the writing was on the wall with Harden.

Washington was always the suitor that made the most sense, but it took until the eve of training camp for the Wizards to re-engage. (They were hoping that by waiting, Stone would come off his asking price.)

I believe Stone's comments that they never really believed they could convince Harden to stay. What happened was years in the making.

IMO, the final domino was Brooklyn's so-so start and the uncertainty with Kyrie.

In December (first day of school optimism), Sean Marks made comments about not wanting to mortgage everything in a superstar trade, i.e. Harden.

Once Brooklyn offered every pick and swap with zero protections, and Houston had a partner to offload LeVert, that was the end game.

With Brooklyn all-in, it was simply a matter of whether Philly or any other suitor would beat it (in Stone's view). They did not, and then the deal was done.