Perkins has been worthless in OKC. He's the true definition of a fake tough guy. A few hard albeit cheap fouls, a strong nose and an ugly mug simply doesn't make one tough. He's slow, lethargic and simply doesn't fit in OKC. Gortat is everything OKC wished they were getting when they moved him for Green. A frontline of Durant, Ibaka and Gortat would wreck shop. I still think Lamb will turn out to be a good player in this league but OKC is clearly in a win now mode and this is a move they have to make because of how worthless Perk is. I had the Clippers coming out of the west before this trade but if this trade is made I may change my mind. Kudos to Presti and Brooks for realzing Ibaka alone can't hang with Odom/Griffin/Jordan.
Good trade for OKC, and they would still have some valuable chips left collected from the Harden trade.
Fair enough, but Gortat-Perkins swap would hurt them defensively and that was the biggest reason why they lost the finals, because they've been able to score on them at high rate even though some players underperformed. Also OKC doesn't have any PnR good player, that trade would make sense if they still had Harden. I've seen enough Lamb to not trade him at this point. He was dropping 20 in D-League when he didn't even care and when he started caring he had 31/8.3/4.3 on 66% shooting three game stretch before he got injured in 4th game. It's just D-League, but D-League is at higher level than college and he is 20yo skinny dude playing against grown men. Usually players who relies on finishing at the rim gets overrated, if you think about it only Lillard and Lamb really killed it in summer league. He was efficient scorer on high usage at every level he played and won a title as 2nd option.
I think Gortat is probably a better defender than Perkins. Perkins has been living off his rep in defence for a couple of years... Suns have denied the whole thing, so it's probably not happening, but I'm not sure what Phx were getting out of this trade - a 29th pick in the draft and a SG who looks most likely not to pan out [too skinny and dreadful defensively] Massive upgrade for OKC if it had been true...
I don't think he is, he has worse RAPM and ranks much lower on synergy, he might be more useful in certain matchups, but Perkins did good job on Bynum and Tim Duncan in last playoffs.
I agree. Gortat is an upgrade from Perkins on both sides of the floor. The addition of Gortat would also allow OKC two shotblockers in their frontcourt. Finishing at the basket on them would become extremely difficult. Gortat also has a pretty decent post game and rebounds pretty well.
That makes zero sense. You're saying OKC lost in the finals because they were hurting defensively yet you're saying Gortat would hurt them even more? Did you not notice how worthless Kendrick was? We already know he has zero offensive game but he was getting burnt defensively by the quicker Miami bigs and he was way too slow against the penetration. Gortat is better than Kendrick at everything.
That's ff they even advance to see the Heat. Their biggest concern is the Clippers. As I mentioned before Griffin and Jordan have and will continue to run circles around Perk.
