"Aggressive" = Kevin Durant, Al Horford, Mike Conley "Medium" = Batum, etc. "Passive-Aggressive" = Jared Dudley, etc.
If this were to happen, Daryl Morey would be cleaning windshields at the corner of 59 and Hillcroft real fast.
FYI OKC beat a healthy 67 win Spurs team without home court and took a 73 win defending champion to the brink of elimination up 3-1 also without home court. OKCs first year coach Billy Donovan in some ways out coached both Popovich and at times Steve Kerr IMO. They have a very young and talented team all coming back. With another piece or two added in Donovans second year they could easily be the favorites next season. Durant could possibly sign a two year contract and see how it plays out with Westbrooks upcoming free agency. Durant has a dramatically higher chance of winning with a proven OKC team over Houston in my "objective" opinion. Russell Westbrook 27 years old Serge Ibaka is 26 years old Steven Adams is 22 years old Andre Roberson is 24 years old Enes Kanter is 24 years old Dion Waiters is 24 years old
Russell Westbrook 27 years old = James Harden 26 years old Serge Ibaka is 26 years old = Michael Beasley 27 years old Steven Adams is 22 years old = Clint Capela 22 years old Andre Roberson is 24 years old = Patrick Beverley? 27 years old Enes Kanter is 24 years old = Al Horford? Dion Waiters is 24 years old = Dekker? KJ?
QUESTION. Are Harden and D'Antoni confirmed for Team USA / Rio Olympics? Cause KD just said he's in. Would be kind of neat if Harden & KD are on the team and D'Antoni is on the coaching staff.
......and he's also leaving OKC after one more year to head to a large market team. OKC will have to either throw a ton of money at him, or lose him after one more year. Probably smarter to lose him because despite the fact that he's an awesome shot blocker, he doesn't bring all that much else to the team and his overall defense is shaky due to going for the block all the time. Should they really want to throw tons of money at a guy who only averages 12 and 7 on a team that is often short of scoring outside of Durant and Westbrook? Just your typical garbage man big that plays physical defense. Something good to have, but it kind of sucks when you need to score. Nothing really special. 27% 3 point shooting SG that got 8 points a game per 36. Is he supposed to impress people? All offense, no defense. Is he even a net positive on the court or does he give up more points than he scores? Hard question given that defensively by some measures he's literally the worst center in the NBA that played enough minutes to count. Young volume scorer, you'll know how many points he'll have based on how many shots he takes. Have him take 12 shots, that's 12 points, have him take 8 shots, that's 8 points. I guess that's awesome to some.
Harden possibly I think D'Antoni is not with the national team anymore, according to this http://www.usab.com/mens/national-team/roster.aspx
But both Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski have said some nice words about D'Antoni, let's hope KD can get some positive feedback from them...
It's not just about next season. OKC has some serious cap issues on the horizon and that team will likely look much different after next season. The Thunder were about $15M over the luxury tax threshold this season. That's a large amount for a small market team like OKC. Now Durant and Waiters are free agents. Next offseason Westbrook, Ibaka, Roberson and Adams are all free agents. There's no way that OKC is going to start paying a $100M luxury tax bill every season so they are going to have to make some hard choices. Presti'will try to do the best he can but with all of these raises looming I doubt that he'll be adding any significant pieces this season unless it's in a trade for one or more of those soon-to-be free agents or for Kanter (though it would be hard to move his max deal). Durant can certainly sign a two year deal with an opt-out after one year and that would allow him to see what they do with the roster. He would be taking a risk of getting injured next season though. Basically, what none of us know is how Durant feels about the Thunder's chances of winning a title next season,their plan for trying to keep as much of the team together as possible, Westbrook's plans for 2017 FA and Durant's feelings on how good a team built around himself, Harden and $20M-$25M of FAs would be. If Durant feels that Presti won't be able to keep the team together or that Westbrook might leave next off season then he could decide to leave now if he believes that teaming up with Harden is his best option. He can wait a year but he won't know what options are availble to him next offseason. Way too many variable for fans to know one way or the other on what Durant is thinking.
The way Curry and Klay shoot kevin and westbrook cant keep up. However Harden and Kevin have a better advantage. This is intriguing to Durant.
One major thing that a Harden/Durant pairing would do is to prevent Durant from being doubled every time he catches the ball as he was in the GS series. GS's approach was to keep Bogut and Green in the paint to limit Westbrook's drives and to double Durant every touch and allow Westbrook to take all of the perimeter shots that he wanted.
It's not like Harden will actually cut to the basket if Durant gets double teamed he doesn't even move without the ball right now so it wouldn't be any different
