Stephen A. Smith: CP3 is the biggest loser of the offseason. Thunder is better than Houston.

How do you know this? Houston only reached the 2nd round but Harden still signed a 6 year deal, I don't think there's a compelling reason for Westbrick to suddenly up and leave, if winning was so important to him he wouldn't have gone for the triple double and MVP record at the expense of wins. As long as the team isn't absolute garbage I see no reason why WB wouldn't stay it's not like they had a ton of bad contracts Kanter was the only albatross contract they had and he isn't even that bad, meaning OKC still had leeway to sign other guys next year to complement WB.

They didn't give up a pick but given how OKC is always in the playoffs and likely in the top 2-6 seed this year their pick is garbage. What they gave is worse, 2 young talented guys in Oladipo and Sabonis. And for what? They aren't shooting for the moon, they are projected to get 4rth seed and on track to get destroyed by GSW in the 2nd round. So they give up most of their good young players just to go from 1st round to 2nd, unless you agree with Skip. IMHO GSW is still massively favored against OKC anyway even with the trade unless you think 4 stars+deep bench can be beaten by 3 stars with no bench with the 4 stars being better than the 3 stars individually.

That's why I say this is a big risk for OKC because they emptied their cupboard for two lame duck stars. At least Houston recouped the loss of Bev and co. by getting PJ Tucker, Tarik Black and Luc MBah so even if CP3 leaves they can use the capspace to sign another star and not lose out on any talent. If PG leaves for Lakers next year and Melo signs with Cleveland you think WB will stay in OKC? You think he is gonna sign long term just to play with Adams? LOL!

 

Ever been to Oklahoma?

 

Even after all of this Westbrook still has until Oct 15th to sign his SuperMax extension with OKC. If he doesn't do so, then you can bet that both he and George will split after this season which means that all of this would have been for naught.

 

No Me-low.....he will break down ya know ? SAS is so in me-lows pocket. Time will tell....west is tuff but I really like our crew.....play ball !

 

CP3/Harden
Harden/Gordon SMOY
Ariza/PJ Tucker
Ryan Anderson/Ariza
Capela/Nene

Westbrook/super duper scrub RAYMOND FELTON
Roberson/scrub Abrines
George/#64 Ranked, puts his knee on backwards Melo
#64 Ranked puts his knee on backwards Melo/Patterson
Adams/scrub Johnson

COY vs middle of the pack, average coach who is being asked to make chemistry between 3 notorious chuckers and zero depth.


We'll see.

 

Don't forget an unhappy camper in PPat. He's not sacrificing large pay-cut to play backup there.

 

to be fair he just had knee surgery. he was going to come off the bench regardless. basically taking taj gibson spot

 

Westbrook hasn't signed the offered extension even with the George trade. I don't think the trade discouraged him from re-signing, even if George is a free agent next year. Yes, that's speculation on my part, but I don't think he would've signed the extension even if they kept Oladipo, Sabonis, and Kanter. I'm sure they would've run that by him first if they thought trading them would have upset him.

I'm just not high on Oladipo, Sabonis, and Kanter as young rebuilding pieces in the event Westbrook leaves. No one is in a good position to challenge GS this year, but at least these trades have put OKC in a position to challenge both us and San Antonio. They were clearly not an upper tier team last year and this year they are. The team as constructed before had both no future or present. I don't think it was prudent to think about adding complimentary players to Westbrook next year when he's going to be a free agent at that time. There was no time left for OKC, they had to do something.

 

Stephen A. is such a little lapdog.

 

Wow so now a narrative in this show today was "who can challenge the warriors the most, cavs or thunder?"

Rockets are out of the discussion in these bozos heads lol

 

Let me guess, you are a skip fan?

 

I'm a Molly Qerim fan

 

Lol why did they have to do something? Its not like WB is an old superstar who had a closing window. What does challenging Hou and Sas but still being inferior to GSW do for them? Will PG and Melo stay if they beat Hou and Sas but lose to GSW? I don't think so, and the chance of WB staying if both Melo and PG walk is slim to none since only Adams is left.

Sure Sabonis and Oladipo aren't amazing building pieces....but they're better than nothing which is what OKC has now. I guess we'll see what happens but these trades look pointless to me. OKC just lost the last two young players they had for 1 season of semi-glory.

 

Okc is a good team let's not get it twisted.

With that said I still think Houston is the better team.

We have two top 10 players one being and MVP candidate in his prime guy in JH.

From top to bottom the rockets are still the biggest threat to GS. We have the best defensive versatility out of okc and Cleveland while having the superior offense.

Okc is going to win some games no doubt about it but the fact is they still don't have a true floor general. Westbrook gets assists but he doesn't run sets to get guys easy looks that's not going to change with melo and pg13 on board.

It's still going to be your turn my turn situation as it was with KD.

I wanted melo I thought he would fit in very well in OUR system playing off two great passers. I thought it would extend his career and make it much easier on him.

In okc he's still going to struggle with spacing he's going To get stuck playing ISO ball and he's not going to be efficient. Paul George should be interesting I don't know what to think of him. He's a good player allstar level guy but he's also not been able to elevate his team as the guy. He's a number two and he might thrive in the situation.

But my biggest reason for not thinking okc while talented will fail.

WESTBROOK, he's to hard to play with he's not a guy others can thrive next to. It's like allen iverson all over again. By himself with role players he can get wins and put up gaudy numbers but when he plays with another allstar he doesn't compliment them. Iverson fell off hard after he went to Denver with melo. He put up some good numbers but he didn't have a real impact.

Westbrook is just hard to build around in today's NBA it might be impossible.

 

WB isn't an aging superstar with a closing window, but he's not under contract after this year either. You think OKC should work under the assumption that he'll likely stay. I think they should work under the assumption that he'll likely leave. If he had signed that huge extension they could take all the time they wanted, but you can't tell WB you're going to get him help next year when he might not even be there. And they wouldn't have even been able to afford another max free agent because Adams, Dipo, and Kanter combined take up $64 million of the cap.

And we'll just need to agree to disagree on Dipo and Sabonis. I don't think they're good rebuilding pieces. I don't see much potential in Sabonis. Dipo is expensive. Do you see anyone congratulating Indiana for getting something for Paul George? No, because these guys are not great rebuilding pieces. Between Dipo's $21M/yr for the next four years or nothing, I'd honestly rather have the nothing.

We're not even disagreeing, really. Dipo, Sabonis, and Kanter aren't horrible players. I just don't like them either as a supporting cast or as rebuilding pieces. I'd rather just have one year of WB, George, and Melo together and that's just an opinion.

 

*My two cent*

This buffoon really thinks Melo makes OKC a better team then the Rockets!? First, the net impact of Melo coming here really didn't move us that higher to be honest. I think our three major moves(additions) this offseason is what set us apart. We added a legitimate superstar and 2 very good defensive vets, we still have the 6th MOY, the MVP(players) and really we are 10-12 deep rotation to keep the stars fresh. I think we are the 2nd best team in the league.

I feel kanter use to torch us and give us huge problems. That will hurt them. Patterson isn't no Kanter. Vegas even sees our odds better then the Thunder. Granted they also see four teams better then us. Now #1 being the Warriors, no question. Cleveland by default and Boston be cause well it's either those two out of the east and they are very close in comparison. San Antonio is there for the simple fact they are San Antonio. If we were in the east we would come out.

 

All the new players are good defensive players, defense was the first thing he said he wanted to improve in an earlier interview. I doubt he plans on dropping defense

 

I'm not saying WB is likely to stay, I'm sayinfg if they think WB is likely to leave then its not a good idea to gut your roster for him. OKC's biggest problem right now isn't to make some noise in the playoffs, its to convince WB to stay so they don't have to rebuild from scratch.

If they didn't trade all their pieces two things can happen: either WB stays and all is well, or WB leaves but they still have Sabonis, Dipo, Kanter etc.

But now since they traded for PG and Melo, either those guys stay with WB or they all leave. Which do you think is more likely? I mean the Lakers have lots of capspace you think PG will turn that down to stay in OKC? You think Melo will commit long term to Okc? You think WB will stay if there is nobody on the team besides Adams?

You're right, Sabonis and Dipo aren't the best rebuilding pieces. But having them is better than not having them for a rebuilding team, thats why the Pacers got them in the first place. My stance is always about the going concern of the franchise thats why I dont like this move. But anyway lets see what happens if OKC isn't ****ed next year then I'll admit you're right. I don't really approve of tanking without additional assets-meaning you just tank to get 1 high pick a year. Thats takes too long to build back up you need to have multiple picks first like Celts to start tanking.