Report: Rockets were driving force behind CBA's 'super max' provision

Perhaps the most notable wrinkle going in the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement is the ability for teams to offer a designated player who meets certain performance criteria a six-year "super max" extension.

While the provision is ostensibly designed to give small-market teams a better chance to retain their superstars, it was reportedly one of the league's bigger-market teams that conceived of the notion and helped push it through.

The Houston Rockets initially proposed the super max, with an eye to extending James Harden well into the future, a source told the Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen.

Harden is in the first year of a four-year, $118-million extension, but though players are ineligible to sign extensions in consecutive seasons under the current CBA, the new agreement will allow for it, with a grandfathered clause opening that option to players like Harden who signed extensions this past summer.

Harden will need to make an All-NBA team this season in order to be eligible for the super max, but unless he gets injured or he and the Rockets fall off a cliff, that appears to be a near lock.

With the provision in place, pending the CBA's formal ratification by the players union, the Rockets will have no reservations about tacking more expensive years onto the back end of Harden's deal. One team official told Feigen, "We would probably give (Harden) a 100-year extension."

Harden is in the midst of a career year, averaging 27.8 points, a career-high eight rebounds, and a league-leading 11.7 assists for the 22-8 Rockets.

"It feels good to be loved," he said. "All I have to do is go out and play my game."