[Beck] Westbrook Trade Could Come 'Sooner Rather Than Later'

I don't think so. If they trade Westbrook they need a pg, and Smart is not really a pg as today, he has to work a lot in that aspect to be considered a pg, he's more like Beverley at this point, to play him as a pg you need a player like Harden, Lebron in another role.

Not sure what they think about Brown but not sure other teams are that high on him as Ainge.

Jerebko is a decent/good bench guy.

Young played really bad last year, not sure how he's playing today but overall yeah, i think this is not even a good start to a deal for Westbrook.

 

The only thing that has to happen is for a single other team with assets to be interested to take the risk and this package is beaten in a heartbeat.
Young isn't even an asset. Jerebko is only for salary matching and expires. Not something a rebuilding team would be interested.
Smart is a huge bust.
So this proposal comes down to : Salary filler + young bust + young unkown extremely raw question mark project + pick.

 

If the goal is to win a championship, which is what it is (hopefully and eventually) for every single team, why would OKC run out a "freak team" that has no chance of beating Golden State and risks losing Westbrook for nothing? If this team were in a larger city this argument would make more sense. But free agents do not choose to play in Oklahoma City unless they're ring-chasing. Without Durant and Westbrook, there's no ring to chase.

Sam Presti is smart enough to know this and won't get burned twice by letting Westbrook leave for nothing.

 

Harden didn't want out of OKC, he wanted his max deal. He even said he didn't care about staying on the bench for OKC, he just wanted to be paid his max at the time. He was negotiating with them up to the last minute but wasn't going to accept a discount.

 

Yeah i agree, Ainge needs to trade basically all the future 1st he has to have a competitive package. His players are not great assets (especially for a rebuilding team like OKC) since they're nothing more than a bounch of good role players...with good contracts (for a couple of years) and still relatively young, true, but still role players with 0 star potential.