Again though, he wasn't even a fan of that team when he was growing up in DC, I don't think he's got the love for them that some seem to think.
How is it not the Warriors?.. Durant and Curry are both outspoken Christians (pretty much them two and Lin, I will say that Harden will throw it out there in rare cases), but this is super uncommon, and I'm sure they would/do get along (not to mention they are both MVPs). Don't be surprised if they find plenty of common ground to play together. Also, Harrison Barnes is a RFA after this year. The sf position will open up for them, and they are currently trying to be the best team in NBA history. There is no better situation in the world. Why wouldn't he go here? Want to talk about market? Curry's wife now has her own cooking channel..
If he wants to go play second fiddle to Curry on the Dubs, he might just go that route. I personally think he'd want to be "the guy" anywhere he went, so I just don't see it being a match.
The results of this year's playoff will go a long way toward determining how viable Golden State is as a destination for Durant. If the Warriors win it all again, he would be accused of piggy backing off a team that won without him. If they win and he joins them, and then they lose the year after that, people will say that they played better as a team without him. (fair or not, the haters will be waiting.) If the Spurs (or anyone else) knock off the Warriors, he would be viewed as the piece to put them back over the top after the Spurs added Aldridge. It's probably in the Rockets best interests Durant-wise for the Warriors to win it all again.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Harden signed an 85 million dollar contract and ESPN did a piece acting like his entire family was murdered <a href="https://t.co/YfECKi4F0f">pic.twitter.com/YfECKi4F0f</a></p>— Ridiculousness Fans (@WeLoveRobDyrdek) <a href="https://twitter.com/WeLoveRobDyrdek/status/716820545480699906">April 4, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Let's take the past 10 NBA championship teams, and lets separate into three categories- Category A is teams that were primarily built through the draft and grooming their young core. Category B is teams that were primarily built through star chasing, trades, & free agency. Category C is a combo of Grooming a single star during the draft, but high turnover of surrounding parts. 2015- GSW - A, C 2014- SAS - A 2013- MIA - B 2012- MIA - B 2011- DAl - C 2010- LAL - B, C 2009- LAL - B, C 2008- BOS- B 2007- SAS- A 2006- MIA - B, C So that's 3 A's, 6 B's, and 5 C's Over the past 10 years the most success has obviously come through a combo of Star chasing, and great single stars like Dirk, Duncan, Kobe, etc. that you can swap out parts from time to time. There are really only TWO cases here to be made for building through the draft and continuity. The 2015 GSW and the SAS. We've all learned for years and years that what the Spurs have done and continue to do is not repeatable, and the Warriors are the Warriors. They could very well have ended up "kicking the can" year over year with their draft picks had Curry not become the most improved star of all time, and fixed his glass ankles, and struck some of the best trades along the way (Iggy & Bogut) that actually question whether they were built through the draft to begin with. Its pretty overwhelming the large amount of teams that won from chasing & signing stars very recently before winning championships. ............. All this being said, I'm not entirely sure the Rockets should chase "Stars" at this point, but if Durant and Horford want to meet with you this July, you take the meeting, and pull out all the stops to get him. It would be dumb not to. But there is no right or wrong way to build a team. As you see above its usually a combination of parts.... but its surely not through primarily drafting and keeping your entire roster.
There's no one way to win a championship. The Heat have had just as much success chasing stars in the past decade (Shaq, Lebron) and the Spurs have with their continuity. And even the Spurs chased Lamarcus Aldridge last offseason, who helped dramatically improve their team this year. The only time you worry about continuity is when you already have the talent to win a championship and we don't. Our team needs an overhaul. Dwight needs to go. Who the hell are we keeping around? Harden and a bunch of scrubs?
Look, I am FINE with chasing stars but you have to develop too, Imagine if we had kept Patterson, or Morris, they are both rounding into pretty good NBA players now - we are too much of a turnstile with our development. DD
Yeah, true, but we have never, not once, kept a player under Morey beyond his rookie contract. And we amnestied Scola - who was one of the truest warriors we have ever had. Morey has to start realizing chemistry matters - it seems he sort of did that this year, but chose unwisely with Brewer. DD
We had Scola for the entirety of his rookie contract and re-signed him. We had Lowry for half of his rookie contract, we're the ones that developed him btw, and matched his offer. The Lowry/Battier/Scola team was kept together for four years. They were maxed out on results, weren't a playoff team nor a horrible team that would get us a high lottery pick. It was time to rebuild. We gave up Lowry for the Toronto pick that became Harden. We amnestied Scola and traded away Morris and Patterson to get Dwight. Every cut was necessary to get enough cap space for Dwight's signing. Not only that, but we had a million PFs on the roster. You keep a frontline of Scola, Morris, and Patterson together and how is DMo supposed to develop? DMo had the highest potential of them all, so why keep the others? Had Dwight and DMo stayed healthy they could've been a monstrous frontline.
Mostly due to those players not being worth keeping though. Patterson is mediocre at best, Scola's game was falling off so he was amnestied after being given a 2nd contract, I would have liked to keep Lowry, but he was being a locker room problem and like you said, chemistry matters. If there were players worthy of keeping, they'd have been kept.
Popovich gets on his knees every day and thanks the Lord that he doesn't have to coach in a division against studs like Morris and Patsquatch.
I think we re-sign DMo. His upcoming contract will not be so prohibitive for us not to keep him, and he definitely has hard to replace post skills. The only way we let him go is if we can find better (Horford).
That's awful, so to this day Harden would have preferred to stay in OKC. Such betrayal and ungratefulness.
Patrick Patterson and Marcus Morris are fine players, but they are the very definition of replaceable, as evidenced by both of them being traded multiple times.
