I have a difficult time that the Thunder...a team competing for the championship a year after winning the Western Conference...was going to move Harden without getting an all star caliber type player in return for their rotation this season. I don't think a draft pick the following year was gonna be enough.
Did everyone forget how amazing Pau Gasol was before the start of this season in the Olympics? I'm sure that if we had to throw in a player in the deal, OKC would be more than willing to do a Harden and Gasol swap.
doubtful they'd have wanted to pay Gasol's huge contract... they shipped Harden cause they didn't want to pay him.... As for original post, yeh.... I was thankful the second Stern killed the deal (contrary to many who were b****in up a storm here...). I always said Gasol's contract was pure poison - esp for a player in the decline....
yeah, i doubt it. that trade was about money...they weren't going to take on that kind of a contract.
They were already offering Harden a big contract, and if Pau Gasol was available that makes Perkins expendable. Since we would still have our amnesty option available, I don't see why we can't take on Perkin's contract and amnesty him if necessary.
And we use NY pick on Royce White. Nene and Okafor anchor Wizzard's defense into top layer as today. No reason to believe he will not get the similar result with Gasol. Even assume Gasol is out as now, but that team Lowry + Nene + Gasol + Parson + Lee + ... will be much clsoe to playoff middle tier than fighting for playoff. You will still get Tornoto's pick, Lamb, so get Harden probably is depend on if OKC see Lee as good scoring 6 man or not. So this year will be Harden + Nene + Gasol and devloped PF since Gasol is out this year) + Parson + whoever you get as pg. You probably will not get Asik and Lin and going to pay tax starting from next year. But that is not a bad combination.
While a lot of us noticed, and Clutch wrote a cool piece about it...I think we can all collectively say.... WHEW !!!! DD
They weren't willing to give harden a max contract. Gasol makes 20 mil a year. I don't see how they would take it on. As we see now, I think Kmart was a big part of the deal, and we wouldn't have had him to trade. Nene is just a bad contract.
They weren't willing to give Harden the max contract because they didn't think he was a max contract player. If OKC knew Harden was this good today do you honestly think they wouldn't throw a max at him? This wasn't some blatant cost cutting move, amnestying Perkins would allow them to comfortably keep their core. This is what they valued Harden at and didn't think he was worth a bigger contract, or at least thought Perkins was less expendable than Harden. Also, whether K-Mart was a big part of the deal depends on the offer they will give him this summer.
Gasol would likely net us Harden+Perkins, and we can save our picks for other trades(Like using the toronto pick to unload Perkins' contract off the book). Also Lin wouldn't be waived, and he would be resigned on cheap had the Gasol deal went through. I'm glad where we are now, but I believe Morey would be able to figure it out anyway.
