Harden trade was bad (for Thunder), but how about?

I think Paul George will re-sign with OKC, but it certainly was not a bad deal for Indiana in hindsight, and this season is certainly an indictment on Russell Westbrook.

 

Dipo isn't a bad contract if he was a bad contract why did OKC trade for him for Ibaka? Sabonis isn't low upside either, OKC themselves were the one who picked him why will they pick a "low upside" rookie with a lotto pick?

Harden trade wasn't bad for OKC, they weren't utilizing Harden properly so it didnt make sense to pay a 6th man max dollars. Harden wasn't universally seen as a superstar at that time so the package for him was pretty good and comparable to other superstar packages. Of course when Harden blew up afterwarss the trade is gonna look bad, but for what Harden was at the time his trade package was decent.

Their mistake really was not trading Westbrick and keeping Harden instead. If they traded Westbrick for the same package as Harden they might have a ring by now.

 

Perhaps not, but he did average 18 a game on elite shooting splits and won 6MOTY, at age 22, on a finals team. To say that he wasn't seen as all-star quality in the future would be very short sighted. Kevin Martin for James Harden then would be like Denver trading Jamal Murray for Eric Gordon today.

 

Oladipo having a career year and perhaps a better year than PG speaks volumes of the Russ effect. That "Russ had no help" narrative from last year has officially been dead.

PG isn't ready to ride with OKC for the long term and I'm 75% sure he'll bounce OKC just like they'll get bounced in the 2nd round.

 

Dude, I said he was “seen” as a bad contract, and Sabonis was “seen” as having low upside. Dipo got his contract after the Ibaka trade and just because Sabonis was taking in the lottery doesn’t mean he can’t have low upside so I’m not sure what the point of those statements are. You do know Sabonis was taken 11th in 1 of the worst drafts ever right?

Harden made the Olympic team after his 3rd year in OKC, and there were multiple teams including us that were prepared to offer him a max contract once he hit restricted free agency. I remember an article saying that the Rockets, Mavs, and Suns were willing to.

 

Please. WB is and has always been a hot head stat-padding chucker that makes no one around him better. KD is a ring chasing beatch that couldn't lead his team to the promise land and left for the worriers. OKC had the players to form a dynasty but they shiit the bed. I wouldn't trade Harden for either of those players

 

i just want to know if he can shoot the 3

 

brings a tear to my eye to see someone use "should've" correctly. I was expecting "should of"

 

I was right there with you in my “wtf is going on” face when Indy appeared to just give PG13 away.

As for harden, he was my favorite player prior to joining us, so I was excited. After the first 2 games I just knew he was special and more than just an all star.

I never dreamt he would be this good and I’ve been one of his biggest supporters.

 

Rockets trading away Moses Malone which he won an MVP that year, won a Title in 1983. Elvin Hayes traded and eventually won a Title with the Washington Bullets.

 

Harden was in my top 3 favorite players before he came here so I was extremely excited when I found out about the trade too, especially since I really wasn’t looking forward to that season prior to the trade...I was trying to hype myself up about the likes of Lin, Asik, and Lamb, but that season was looking like it was gonna be rough


I’ve said it before on here, but I thought he was gonna average 20, 5, and 5 and we’d be some 37 win team his 1st year here...the 26, 5, and 6 he averaged that season is what I thought his peak numbers might be in his prime...I never even thought to imagine that he would end up being some all-time great...how good he’s become still absolutely amazes me

 

He tried to get Klay first so maybe you should thank the warriors?

 

I agree with that last part strongly. Even how well those 2 are doing now, it's sort of irrelevant considering what Westbrook limited them to. Even if George leaves, Westbrook resigned and that has to be factored into this.

 

Orlando turned those2 guys into Terrance Ross......thats was a bad deal

 

Nobody here would trade 28 year old Harden for 29 year old Westbrook or 29 year old Durant, but it was clear that the 23 year old, 4 year veteran Durant and the 23 year old, 3 year veteran Westbrook were better than the 22 year old Harden with only two years under his belt, simply from youth and inexperience. Hence why Harden came off the bench. Durant was the sublime scoring superstar, shining through the whole postseason. Westbrook could simply not be guarded by anyone they faced in the west, not old-ass Jason Terry, not washed up Derek Fisher, and not a declining Tony Parker. When the game was close and late however, OKC had a secret weapon to close games in favor of the cowardly Kevin and the reckless Russel. Harden was unstoppable in the clutch that postseason, hitting dagger after dagger, most notably a stepback 3 pointer over Kawhi Leonard in game 4 of the WCF.

Then the finals came around, Durant was still great, but Harden wasn't ready for finals pressure, with his shot attempts plummeting and shooting only 37% from the floor (still better than Kobe for his finals career). Westbrook saw this, and took the opportunity to rise to the occasion and become a shining light for the Thunder. That shining light turned out to come from a dumpster fire, and the Heat won 4 straight to win in 5.


The Thunder are a tale of what happens when you have two natural betas and a natural alpha, and the betas are simply better than the alpha. One was willing to come off the bench, but he wasn't going to budge when he was asked to take less money, and was shipped off for scraps. Harden's leadership has been a recurring issue for a while here, reaching its peak during the ultimate passive-aggressive locker room beef of Harden vs Howard. Now Chris Paul is the alpha of this team, except unlike westbrook he's easy to play with and his game meshes with other high-usage ball handlers. Kevin Durant never took control of the Thunder, conceding the team to Westbrook. Despite the fact that the team was much better when Durant controlled the offense instead of Westbrook (shown in 2013-14 and 2014-15), instead of confronting Westbrook on any of his issues, he ran off the moment he could to a team that didn't need him to lead the offense for easy validation. This year Durant is finding out that a ring is not an end-all be-all to satisfaction, and resents being the league villain.

 

Yeah I was in the same boat. I had kinda given up on the nba. I knew the rockets had he interest and beat package for Dwight but he went to LA.

I was legit over it. We had nothing bright to look forward to that year.

The harden trade gave the rockets and me so much life. I am right there with you thinking he could be a 26/5/5 guy, which is amazing tbh. But no one predicted this.

It’s been an amazingly satisfying journey so far. I love when people doubt harden because he has constantly squashed the haters.

It was once Lin over harden
Then it was butler over harden
Then George over harden
Then klay over harden
Then kawhi over harden
Then Westbrook over harden
They wanna say Lebron over harden?

Look out...

 

Tldr

 

I agree. I'm just saying the package OKC got in exchange for him was worthy of an Isiah Thomas level player which was what he was projected to be.

Harden was still trending to be their 6th man whereas Murray is seen as a cornerstone in Denver so your trade comparison is off. A more fitting scenario is Harden is our KD, Capela is our Ibaka and Cp3 is our Westbrick, now Eric Gordon's deal is about to expire and he is set to make the max (got offers from 3 other teams) and Rox need to match or lose him for nothing. Will you trade Eric Gordon to Charlotte for Kemba Walker, Malik Monk and a guaranteed lotto pick? A lot will say match but to be realistic you can see the GM's rationale for doing the deal, you don't pay the max for a bench dude.

That is basically the scenario OKC was in, they decided to not pay their Gordon since they already got their big 3 (Ibaka, KD, Westbrick). Like I said they just made the wrong judgement call at the time they thought Westbrick was the nuts and Ibaka had a lot of untapped potential.

 

Lin over Harden? When did that happen lol.

Harden was the go to guy from day 1, super excited when I heard the trade I think 99% of the board loved it and was excited for Harden to arrive. After years of Shane Battier/Luis Scola/Aaron Brooks aka The Little 3 it was great to have another star on the team again.

 

LOL WB wouldn't have carried the rockets to 55 wins in the reg season

you can't say hey lets replace harden with wb in one game.. run harden to the ground game 1 to 95 then replace him with someone else LOL

if you truly want WB, do you believe WB could have single handedly carried the rockets farther last year?

or would you rather have Presti trade WB instead of Harden??

pretty sure Presti, KD, & OKC would have loved to keep Harden instead of WB

while there are few rockets fans like yourself who loves WB