Just got done reading the article awesome response. Link is below http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-nba-bag-volume-1/ Q: You may not want to admit to it because of how strongly you criticized the Harden trade, but it’s starting to become lite version of 2008′s Gasol trade. Trading a star for parts seemed completely one sided at the beginning, but not as bad as guys start to develop. Mainly, I think you completely undervalued what the Thunder got and their vision as an organization. —Tyler, Madison, Wisconsin SG: We’ll be back on Living in Denial after these brief messages! (Dammit! I lost the dare! Oh well, might as well keep going now.) I gotta say — I love Thunder fans. And they spend money on their team — according to Forbes, Oklahoma City has the league’s most expensive ticket right now — which makes it even sadder when OKC cheaps out and its loyal fans just accept it. That they continue to defend the indefensible Harden trade and email me every time Jeremy Lamb or Steven Adams looks good while overlooking things like “We could have just waited a year and traded Harden last summer” or “We cheaped out at the 2014 trade deadline as always and three days later we had 39-year-old Derek Fisher trying to defend a red-hot Jamal Crawford in crunch time on national TV” makes them genuinely endearing. At least for me. I hope my kids will always love me as unconditionally as much as Thunder fans love the Thunder. Here’s a fun game: “How One-Sided Would the Trade Have to Be for a Thunder Fan to Turn on Their Team?” For instance, let’s say they lost the 2014 Finals and traded Durant to Phoenix for the Morris twins, Channing Frye and three first-round picks, then told their fans, “This will make us better and deeper long-term” … would the Thunder fans get mad? What if you removed all three first-round picks and it was just Durant for the Morris twins and Frye, along with $3 million cash and 40 second-round picks through 2055? Would that push them over the edge and piss them off? What about just Durant straight up for Channing Frye? They’d definitely get mad at that, right? I’d love to know where the line is. Because it’s clearly not “We broke up a possible dynasty and replaced the best 2-guard in basketball with a backup shooting guard, an energy guy off the bench, a non-lottery pick and one year of Kevin Martin.”
Not sure if this is the one you mean, but it is killing meeeeeee... I can so hear this exchange in my head. LMAO.
Meh, I'm gonna same Sam Presti is smarter than Bill Simmons. There were a lot of salary cap considerations, and the Thunder were in a tough spot. They tried to make the best of a crappy situation. The NBA won't allow 3 max players on a team anymore. At least not without paying heavy luxury tax.
thats it, i can legit see them doing this on first take, Bill needs to keep to basketball comedy and away from analysing the league
The Harden trade makes non-signing of Dragic forgivable. The thing was, though, they lost to the Heat in the final the previous year, and they thought Harden was not a max player based on that.
He's criticising Bennett, not Presti. The owner was the cheap b*stard, the GM didn't have much choice.
I was laughing out loud at work at the fake Stephen/Skip exchange. At any rate, Thunder fans are indeed in denial if they're seriously justifying that two mildly above average bench players and a late first-rounder is worth the guy who just started the All-Star game.
I mean OKC is still the most talented team in the league and with the best future over the next 3 years, 5 years and beyond.
It certainly helps when you get that many high first round draft picks where you can pickup the likes of Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, and Harden. Makes me wonder what Morey could have achieved with the same resources as opposed to being forced to nickel and dime his way to Harden and Howard.
