The reasons for our success are the reasons for our failure

*there was hope

 

Admittedly it's much harder to acquire star talent and build a true championship-caliber core without drafting these said talents.

But in the last two decades, it's been proved by the Lakers (Shaq and Gasol), the Celtics (Garnett and Allen) and Detroit (Sheed, Hamilton, Billups, Wallace) that it's not impossible. And if any of those teams fell flat, there probably would have been questions of whether they made the right move getting "damaged goods."

That said, the Lakers and Celtics did already have one core guy in place in Bryant and Pierce, respectively. And given that Detroit is really the only exception (unless you want to count Prince as an indispensable core piece), winning a chip without hitting the lottery probably makes it extremely difficult.

 

The original post made me wonder if this thread was about marriage or basketball.

This one leaves no doubt.

 

So if I read this right, OP says it's Les's fault since he was the one who insisted Morey rebuild without tanking.

I'm not sure that's entirely wrong, actually.

 

That is a good assessment Will. I think Howard and Harden has reached their peak last season. Howard seems to have lost his confidence, mostlikely due to being out with injuries so often. Harden has lost his hunger it seems after accomplishing so much last season. He doesn't even try on defense anymore. Since he is the leader, the team is following and our defense is terrible at the moment. The management need to talk to Harden and get him motivated to lead the team in both side of the court if we are to have a chance to turn this around.

 

Do you want the simple answer? I'll give you the simple answer.

Out of shape. Most the players on our team are out of shape. They didn't come into this season prepared. Hopefully that will change next month

 

why? what magically happens next month?

 

decent take.

Only potential issue with the argument:

How much of a more complete player do you want from what Harden did last year?

No question played a top 5 talent, arguably the second best player in the league.

OKC is still kicking themselves for giving him up and I don't buy that they gave him up knowing he would have the eventual drop in performance he has had up until this point in the season so far.

 

Maturity issues. OKC saw his mentality in some games. Such as game 1 of MIA finals, the only game OKC won. He sat in the locker room complaining he only got 5 attempts while all around him the team was celebrating. He then proceeded to not show up in the remaining games which they lost. Shades of how he performs in the playoffs for us.

 

Really? That doesn't seem right.

This year there are 4 players putting up 20+ FGA per game, and only one of them is averaging over 30 points a game. And he's considered to be doing it on a different level from any other player in the game today. (Curry)

Last year 5 players put up 20+ FGA per game and only 1 of them barely broke 28 ppg. (Westbrook)

The year before that 3 players put up 20+ FGA per game. And only 1 broke the 30 point threshold. (Durant)

In 2012, neither player that averaged over 20 FGA per game broke 30 ppg.

In 11-12, Kobe was the only player to average 20+, and he didn't break 30 ppg.

That's 2 people that scored 30+ points per game of the last 15 players that shot 20+ field goals per game.

In 97-98, Jordan couldn't score over 30 points per game while putting up 23.5 shots a game (1.26 p/fga)

It seems like it's not as easy to average 30 points per game as you think it is. The top scorers in the league this year average in the range of 1.32 to 1.58 points per FGA. Harden's averaging 1.42 this season after his slow start, and was averaging 1.52 last year.

You might wanna rethink your opinion of what Harden is doing this year on the offensive end of the court.

 

no I dont need to rethink it. Harden isn't even averaging 30. Don't take that number literally. It was a comment in response to the post. The whole point was its not hard to score that many pts (lets just say 25-30 range) when you get to throw up 20+ shots a game. Anyone throwing up +20 shots this year is at atleast 25 ppg. You're going to be in this range with that many shots put up. Its not that impressive especially when your fg% is extremely low. Now when harden averaged 25-28 pts on 16-18 shots in the previous year, thats where you see what hes best at which is efficiency. There's not much to be impressed about thus far when hes shooting career highs in attempts and lows in %'s.

 

You say that, but he's still averaging almost 1.5 points per shot attempted, which is very good. I don't think you're giving him enough credit. But apparently your mind is already set.

 

DJ Khaled title

 

expected for a young player though. all of the greats had maturity issues.

 

Will is right!

Harden's superstar abilities landed him Khloe....but now his abilities are being consumed by Khloe's f!cking powerful p***y, bro.

And

Morey's success at landing Lawson was because of his DUI trouble, but now his DUI trouble has turned him into a p***y.

 

Except...the problem with your thesis is that neither Houston nor Oklahoma had any idea of Harden's true value in 2012.

Accordingly to say that he was dealt because of a shrewd appreciation of his flaws is a bit of a stretch.

Morey is on record as saying that they thought Harden was good, perennial all star / all NBA quality, but not nearly as good as he ended up being last season which was a surprise even for them.

As for Presti, well, you don't hear him saying much at all for reasons that need not be said. But to pretend like he knew Harden was not "complete", therefore made him available for a rental of Kevin Martin and a backup C with a spaghetti western moustache is the type of thing that lives only on Thunder fan message boards and only seems reasonable after a half handle of Buffalo Trace.

 

I think this team will have a much stronger post-all star break. Sometimes it takes a team a while to gel.

 

Very strong reasoning. And this is exactly my position on the matter.

Morey built the team he could given the constraints he was given. Stars leaving their teams generally are available for a reason.

No matter how Harden was evaluated at OKC, it was generally understood he wasn't a world beater, best player in the league-type. That he has become a MVP candidate is a pleasant surprise. But had he been THE guy that leads teams to championships, he would still be in OKC. Same for Howard. The strategy Morey had to follow meant collection flawed players.

Rarely, very rarely, does a near complete player change teams. LeBron James, Abdul-Jabbar... Those are rarities. The best means of getting a guy like that is the draft. Without picking that player yourself, you are basically trying for guys who just didn't work out with the team that drafted them. And you don't get much choice in the matter, you have to be patient and opportunistic. And take what you can get.

And in that mode, I really think that coaching becomes even more important. And the Rox haven't had the coaching that could make up for the flaws in the best players on the team.

 

we weren't down 0-3. they took the first game, we took the second. they took the next 2 we took the next 3. You can win by luck in a seven game series, we just looked awful at times, they played better games we beat them in better quarters.

 

fixed