[2018-2019] Oklahoma City Thunder

One guy makes players around him better the other guy worse

One guy opponents focus to stop the other guy let him have his way

 

You could also say that

 

https://sports.theonion.com/dedicat...ite&utm_source=theonion_copy&utm_campaign=top

 

Not only did they would have - they actually did!

 

Russ still hasn't developed a consistent mid range jumper and a decent 3 point shot.

He's 30 years old and will probably continue to decline at this point.

He attacks the rim with full speed, he basically has no idea how to pump fake people or be crafty around the rim. He's been missing a lot of layups he used to make.

I'm not sure what the Thunder will do to improve but Russ is certainly on decline in my eyes.

 

Imagine not getting out the first round 3 straight years? The Poverty.

 

A team of losers because they defer to an easily goaded, pigheaded "MVP" is a fantastic matchup for the Rockets- which it was in 2017.

The Thunder are not a playoff threat because of Russ potential - they are 4-12 in 3 years because of it.

At some point people - we have to look at what happened instead of what we feared might have happened in some theoretical quantum state.

 

If I was Sam Presti, I quietly shop Westbrook.

If you can't make this work with Paul George, Westbrook was the wrong bandwagon and you need to deal him before he loses anymore value.

 

You can't "quietly" shop Westbrook. In this day and age, things leak. If you want to trade your franchise player, you have to go all out and be prepared for the consequence.

Presti's biggest mistake was trading the wrong star back when they decided to part with one of the Big 3. He could have got more from trading Westbrook than trading Harden. Now he is stuck with a guy who is extremely difficult to build around. Westbrook is pretty much this generation's Allen Iverson. He's great as a one-man wrecking crew. But he can't maximize anyone's talent playing next to him. So the only way to build a team with this kind of star is just bring in a bunch of high end defensive role players and hope that the defense is good enough to sustain an anemic one-man show offense.

 

People assume OKC Harden would be the same Rocket Harden. It's not a given.

He could be 6th man or playing limited minutes for years for all we know.

Could have had a slowing growth.

Even Morey admitted he did not expect Harden to turn out so well, a star player yes, but much more?

It's really hard in a smaller market.

For all we could guess, it might be Harden's quiet persona.

No way to know 100% what's going inside their head.

Maybe Presti thougth Harden could never assert himself in the future, the ceiling was not much higher.

 

Started from the bottom now we here

 

Okay, fine. openly shop him.

RW is the hero the city wants, but PG is the one it needs.

 

The only way this could work is if a dumb team trades for him. If all these years are not enough to show that Westbrick is not the star to build around, then you might even be dumber

 

Unless OKC is willing to trade Westbrook for a stale bag of chips, there isn't anything they could get for him. Why would any team trade for a 30+ year old ball-hogging egomaniac that can't shoot, only relies on his athleticism, and is making the max for multiple more years?? He literally doesn't fit in anywhere, and there isn't a single team that would say, "Yeah, Russell Westbrook is the missing piece to our championship puzzle." OKC is proper ****ed, and it's so delicious to watch.

 

If they traded Westbrook, Harden would not be a sixth man anymore. He would be their starting combo guard. A Durant-Harden tandem together with whatever you got from trading Westbrook would be a contender for years.

 

Dun get why they would not pay all those guys back then when you pay the luxury tax now for Russ, PG, Steven Adamas and all those role players.

 

I'm not completely sure that there's no teams out there who wouldn't trade for him. Plenty of bad teams, and dumb GMs out there. Kings, Timberwolves, Pelicans, Grizzlies, ... Granted, you won't get young talent back without packaging picks.

But at the end of the day, I still have PG as a centerpiece. That's a great luxury that not a lot of GMs have. Sam Presti should be kissing PG's feet everyday.

 

I was actually surprised that Portland smoked them. I didn't want the Rockets to play them.