I pretty much think this is spot on. I love the Harden trade for Houston but there is no doubt that OKC recieved outstanding value for him. I'm curious if Scott Brooks will bring KMart off the bench or if they will start him. As for Houston, they just acquired a #3 pick who is still as young as some rookies that has already lived up to the hype of a #3 pick. What would Houston have had to move up for the #3 pick in the last draft? I'm guessing all three 1st rounders from this year plus the Toronto pick at least. Harden just turned 23 and is probably still a couple of years from his prime. I think it was a great deal for both teams.
Presti was not going to make the same mistake as Orlando. When Harden decided to not sign the extension, teams knew that they could wait to compete for Harden in the offseason. Presti had to take the first offer he deemed acceptable. The longer he waited, the less he was going to get.
He also wanted to avoid the Dwightmare & Melo drama. Honestly he did Harden a favour on that score. Things could have turned really ugly for him.
If Memphis would have taken Harden or Evans, you can bet your bottom dollar that Thabeet would have been drafted by OKC. Presti has had a lot of things go his way.
Agree with this, but I guess a lot of people don't see it that way. Personally if I was GM I would have moved WB and maybe even Ibaka for someone else (Love+1st? LMA+6th?), but all indications are WB wouldn't have fetched a better price than Harden. For one thing, WB is a pg who is making a ton of money, but is seemingly behind several other pgs in terms of talent (CP3, Rose, and Rondo/Parker/D-Will come to mind). Also his "choking act" during the finals and his horrible play in preseason might have influenced the FO to choose WB over him.
Fear the Beard I'm selling Fear the Beard shirts for $10. http://inkwellprinting.storenvy.com/products/703055-fear-the-beard
I still think they should have traded Perkins for Dalembart at the deadline. It was unfair and naive to expect Harden to take a paycut when nobody else had to.
If you are gonna trace back to landry might as well trace back to Alston Alston+dalembert+Landry+ariza=harden
Apparently Suns offered as well, but Thunder wanted too much. Seems like the Rockets were just the highest bidder.
Probably been posted some where already, but this is a good high light film for Harden: <object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2NzpnjVmuCA?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/THp3jERNZF8?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
Smaller media markets tend to have an us-against-the-world mentality to where the columnists and writers are basically PR agents for the home team. That's what Berry is in OKC. Spin, spin, spin.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Guessing you'll be hearing an awful lot about these two in the days, weeks and months to come. <a href="http://t.co/PWVrvegN" title="http://twitter.com/RocketsJCF/status/263027557614641152/photo/1">twitter.com/RocketsJCF/sta…</a></p>— Jason Friedman (@RocketsJCF) <a href="https://twitter.com/RocketsJCF/status/263027557614641152" data-datetime="2012-10-29T21:20:31+00:00">October 29, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
