Saying that he played 3rd most minutes is misleading. He played just over 30 minutes a game. That's hardly any star player's minutes. It was clear that they did not see Harden as a third star. They saw him as a complementary guy to Durant and Westbrook. That's their mistake. You want to play your core together on the court most of the time, not stagger their minutes. When you stagger their PT, you are assuming that their skills are redundant. Again, it was clear that they saw Harden as somewhat redundant to Durant and Westbrook. That's their mistake. People thought Wade and LeBron were redundant. But did Miami stagger their minutes? No they played them together on the court. You play your best players on the court as much as possible and let them find a way to complement each other.
I haven't moved anything. Harden would still be a top 10 player. A top 10 player is a star player. I didn't say Harden was HOF player. I mentioned HOF players who did not have top options on their teams. They were 3rd options, similar to Harden in OKC. That doesn't mean they were recognized as star players. Harden was a Dream Teamer before leaving OKC. You are trying to define talent by role. Just because I have a smaller role doesn't mean I'm not "as good of a player". It just means my team relies on me to do less (only one basketball).
Actually, I'm defining a player's status by his production. Elite players have elite production. Since OKC relied on Harden to do less, that precluded him from being a top-10 player since he didn't have the necessary production. Was Nash a top-10 player in Dallas?
Sam Presti is not overrated. The Thunder were a dumb Patrick Beverley play away from making the Finals two years in a row. The only reason that OKC got bounced in the 2nd round was because Westbrook went down. Does Mr Capri Pants make dumb plays? Absolutely! Does he jack up shots like crazy? Sure. But Westbrook also attacks the paint relentlessly and that opens up the game for a KMart spot-up, an Ibaka pick&pop and of course Durant who is less severely guarded. Presti, overrated? The roster he put up after the Harden trade was good enough to get the 1st seed in a cut throat western conference. Contrarily to CF conventional wisdom, Westbrook was not the brainless guy that should have been traded instead of Harden and Presti did not get pwned by Morey: Westbrook is a catalyst to much of OKC's offensive dynamics and his injury has exposed this fact. Presti was right to trade Harden when money became a major constraint; he could not afford to pay Harden max money when his role as a starting primary ballhandler would have been made redundant with Westbrook on board. Where Presti really failed was in not amnestying Perkins horrible ass to get a better center on his roster, one which can be an actual post threat. A credible post threat is the only thing that is preventing OKC from becoming a dynasty.
or to put it another way, the mediocre roster he assembled after the Harden draft wasn't so terrible that it significantly dragged down his two top 10 players.
And instead they started Kendrick Perkins, the guy who just got the worst playoff PER out of anyone, ever?
I agree with your post but I'm also really curious to know what they could have got for Westbrook who had higher value than Harden. Could they have got Curry/Barnes, Conley/Randolph, Irving, Rubio/Pek, etc. I think I would have moved Westbrook and kept Harden if they could have got a lot for Westbrook.
They got Perkins for defensive reasons, and PER doesn't factor in defense. According to PER, Asik is an average NBA player. Would anyone in their right might consider Asik to be merely "average"?
Why do you think Westbrook had a higher value than Harden? There aren't many great shooting guards in the league, and whichever team acquired Harden would've had him for 1 year on his rookie contract before paying him the max.
Because Westbrook was a 2x all-star and a 2x all-nba second team player going into this year. He was a much more proven player than Harden was. Even now most experts consider Westbrook to be the better player. Saving one year of salary on Harden wasn't big enough to make up for that.
Ok, so he had the exact same defensive win shares in these playoffs as Nick Collison, the guy you're comparing him to. So if he's in for "defensive reasons", shouldn't his defensive be significantly (not just a little, let alone the exact same) better to warrant putting in a guy whos putting up the worst historical playoff PER?
Why give credit to moves like drafting KD or Westbrook? Especially KD because WHOEVER was #2 was going to take KD. It's like giving credit to the Bobcats for when they draft Wiggins. "Hey guys! Great move! You drafted the guy every single team was going to draft if they were lucky enough to have the #1 pick!" It was pretty much known that if KD didn't go first (Because Friggin Oden was going to be the next BILL RUSSELL...) that he'd go second. Ibaka, that was a great pick. Harden was too because it was slightly over Tyreke at the time. Westbrook made sense with their roster at the time. It really wasn't this big ingenious pick. They would have been better off actually drafting Love over Westbrook if you ask me, but they did have Green so it made sense at the time... They were outside of Ibaka common-sense picks. Oh and while I would give credit for the Harden pick...if only he hadn't traded that player away for scraps... How many gems have Presti really found in the draft thus far? Besides acquiring Thabo Sefolosha what are some great trades he made? Right now IMO he looks like a guy lucky to have drafted the second best player in the league. Just like all those years Cleveland put a crappy team around Lebron and that team was still a semi-contender. I don't see this long list of brilliant moves except being fortunate enough to draft in the top 5.
Perkins suck. He's a bad contract. Terrible contract. It's just that simple. It can't be spun any other way. He was destroyed by the bigs he guarded all throughout the playoffs...even fumbling bumbling Asik looked like a top 5 center on offense against him. If they got Perkins for defensive reasons then they made a big mistake. Even if he's there to stop Howard because he annoys Howard more than anything...you don't pay a guy 9mil per year to defend ONE player. Hey Chuck Hayes defended Dirk pretty well too, the Rockets never paid him close to that.
My view is as follows: (1) Whenever Harden actually played in OKC, he was by default the primary ballhandler. On the rare occasion him and westbrook shared the floor, westbrook actually moved into the SG spot by default. (2) Signing Harden to a max contract means that you are going to actually give him major minutes and thus that he will be the primary ballhandler. (3) Westbrook in off the ball role.....LOL (4) Option A: Trade Westbrook for a DFish-type of PG. In theory, this could have worked just fine. But reality is a b****. After a scintillating first half-season with the Roxs, Harden deficiencies quickly became apparent: limited offensive skillset, can't beat the elite defenders off the dribble, can jack up stupid shots just as much as Westbrook and more importantly ridiculously turn-over prone. Oh, and defense, LOL. (5) Option B: Trade Harden for best possible package. The brute fact states that the Thunder are losing a top offensive talent with a quite meager return in terms of talent (though the Toronto pick is now very handy. Colangelo FTW). However, when we factor in financial considerations, it becomes quite clear that this is not as severe a loss as imagined. Westbrook is much more athletic and explosive than Harden and can blow by any opponent in the league. This simple fact is key as Westbrook's penetration can then open up the entire OKC play-book with Ibaka's automatic mid-range and Kmart uber-efficient spot-up shooting. Westbrook, in other words, can involve the other offensive players of OKC in a way that Durant alone can't and that I doubt Harden could either. More importantly, Westbrook keeps turn-overs at a minimum and can actually defend most PGs in the league quite well. (6) Option B > Option A The spanner in the OKC machinery is not Westbrook or Ibaka but really Perkins who is eating a lot of cap space for a return of next to **** all. Amnestying Perkins and adding a legit center on the roster will quite probably make the Thunder the Heat's equal, not keeping Harden in a redundant role just for the sake of keeping the Fab Four core intact.
I can agree with the Durant part but Westbrook was a good pick and not an obvious one. Drafting Westbrook made sense but so did drafting a guy like Rubio or Evans. Kahn had a ton of top five picks too but he screwed them up. Presti deserves lots of credit for Westbrook, Ibaka, Jackson, and Thabo. We will see in the future how things turn out with Lamb, PJ3, Raptors pick and Dallas pick.
In the minutes that he played his production was elite. He was giving you 17 ppg on only 10 shots. His efficiency was off the charts. Why do you think he made the Dream Team? Nash got better once he left Dallas. Harden is practically the exact same guy he was last year, with more minutes and the ball in his hand more.
I like Westbrook more than most people on this board but I'm not sure I can say that the Thunder wouldn't be better off with Curry/Barnes/Harden or Rubio/Pek/Harden than they are with just Westbrook. Your plan b is only better to me if they couldn't have received a great package for Westbrook.
Perkins was brought in for his post defense. Omer Asik is not a post threat. So to include the Rockets series in your defensive win share argument is disingenuous. Also, when Perkins was on the court in the MEM series, he was always guarding either Randolph or Gasol. That wasn't the case for Collison. And as shocking as it was, I do think Perkins' defense in the Memphis series was significantly better than Collison's. Collison consistently committed a lot of stupid fouls.
That's my point. He didn't play enough minutes to be considered a top-10 player. You know I'm right....you're just trying to twist your words around so you don't seem so wrong.
