People only want to talk about the Harden trade...

Bwahahahahahaha.

Thanks for the laugh

 

Jeff Green sucked, they would never get to WCF with him.

 

But, but he set good screens

 

You can't evaluate defensive role players by PER. Bruce Bowen had terrible PER and he was good role player.

Perkins was great in Boston, similar to what Asik is right now, great defender and rebounder, even led the league in FG% once.

Injuries changed him , he slimmed down and it's probably not coincidence he had the best rebounding year in OKC when he was the biggest. Nevertheless he is still good defender by pretty much all data(RAPM, ASPM, synergy) and is important for OKC being top 5 defensive team, by holding players accountable etc.

 

Um it's not that hard, when you can stockpile pick after pick. I do give Presti and the OKC ownership the kudos for building the right way.Whenteams get a transcendental star like Durant, they tend to try to become contenders right away and surround him with role players and vets, like what happened with LBJ and DH. The problem with that is the franchise guy doesn't get attached to his team because everyone's old, and he can get sweet talked by another franchise because he's the only star on his team. They decided to build a brotherhood in OKC, IMHO they just made a mistake in trading Harden instead of WB.

 

This may belong on the NBA Dish forum but whatever.

In hindsight, yeah it looks like a really bad move but Perk played a major role as a defensive beast in the Finals for Boston. Presti felt like he needed a true center to get through the West. I didn't really like the move at the time and I really dislike it now, but you can see what Presti was thinking... It really didn't work against Miami which is probably what makes it more glaring.

I think the other thing to ask yourself is does Jeff Green really make them champions over Miami? Jeff Green was out with that heart issue that entire year anyways. Is he the difference maker this past year when RW went down? Does the Ibaka/Green combo guard Gasol/Randolph better? Idk man...

 

Presti was thinking the same thing he was when he traded Harden: the ownership won't let me pay Jeff Green. It's hard to tell how much is incompetence and how much is him being handcuffed by OKC's **** ownership.

 

You cant come down on Presti to hard , through all his convictions the man most certainly knows how to pick in the draft. I think people are confused on how the cap works ,also how the sheer blame shouldn't be on presti, but rather the ownership. If presti would have gotten the ok James Harden is still in okc. The fact that the owner ship would rather be under the cap than pay speaks volumes. I believe that they want a championship but will not go over the cap to do so . See the fact is though they love basketball, this is a business to them at the end. Sure okc will never have the funds and tv deals that LA has to go over the cap and still produce a large profit. Okc could have kept all these players sure the owners profit line would have taken a hit .Instead they elected to save money and have larger profits . So no I don't blame presti he played his cards how they were dealt, I do however have no sympathy for the owners that put presti in that situation imho.

 

That's what I was thinking...

 

Short term memory? Presti absolutely made the right move at that that time in getting Perk. At the the time, many regarded Presti as robbin' Ainge.

Kendrick torn acl in game 6 vs the fakers was the key factor why Boston lost game 7 in 2010. Perkins was an invaluable cog to the Celtics Championship aspirations, and when he was traded, it devastated the Celtics players, especially KG because he no longer had his enforcer to have his back. The Celtics had a high probability to return to the finals until Ainge blew the team up for an underachieving Jeff Green. Everyone who knew basketball knew the Thunder were the clear winners of the trade immediately as it made them instant contenders.

As Jeff Green has emerged and finally realizing his potential, and Perkins is declining a bit, people inaccurately think Presti is doing a horrible job. Untrue. Trading for Perkins, at that time, was a no brainer. Great move for both teams.

 

Kendrick Perkins is one of the worst players in the NBA and anyone who says otherwise hasn't seen him play the last 2 years. He is beyond worthless.

 

Take a look at these two statlines of injured centers who were traded.

Code:

MP 	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
22.8	2.1	3.7	.574	0.0	0.0		2.3	3.1	.732	2.2	4.0	6.3	0.3	0.3	1.1	1.8	2.7	6.5
27.6	4.0	6.7	.602	0.0	0.0	.000	2.1	3.6	.582	2.0	5.6	7.6	1.0	0.3	1.7	2.1	2.8	10.1

One of these players started on a finals team the previous season, and his injury is widely viewed as the reason why his team lost. The other had been so injury plagued over the previous two seasons that he failed a physical during a trade. One of them was seen as an emotional leader on a team that already boasted 3 hall-of-famers and had won a championship. The other didn't even start any playoff games in a one-sided sweep. Player #2 is one year younger, and has increased his scoring average in 4 straight years while only missing 14 games in the previous 3 years. Player #1 has seen his points, rebounds and minutes played fall for 3 straight years, and has missed 68 games over the previous 2 years.

If you're Sam Presti, it seems obvious to go with player #2, right? That's Kendrick Perkins. Player #1 is Tyson Chandler, who was traded to Dallas and helped them win their first championship in franchise history.

As hard as it is to believe now, Perkins was a really good center for Boston. The Lakers had just won two championships with a twin tower lineup, and Miami was still starting Joel Anthony. Memphis eliminated the Spurs in a 1-8 matchup because they had 2 unstoppable big men and the Spurs were starting DeJuan Blair. Dwight Howard was at the peak of his powers. Jeff Green has been a disaster as a PF throughout his career, and Ibaka wasn't I-BLOCKA yet. Getting a true center and team leader seemed like sound logic at the time, and using their cap space to give him a below market extension (basically the same rate as Asik) seemed very smart to keep their future salary in check.

Presti got unlucky in his gamble. But in the same way that people shouldn't be critical of Morey for missing in the draft more often that he hits, I don't think that Presti warrants too much criticism for the Perkins deal. If you're going to criticize him, he should have dumped him at the same time as Harden, which would have enabled him some room to spend this offseason.

 

Excellent post. Also, don't quote me on this, but I think if he had dumped him last summer, they could even have kept Harden. So there's the answer to the OP's question. That's why people keep talking about the Harden trade.

 

^Really good is a huge huge stretch. He was below average even in Boston....
Below average rebounder, fairly good defender but grossly overrated. Putrid in every aspect offensively. Meh.

 

At the time of that trade, I can remember Presti getting a lot of praise for that trade and Ainge getting backlash from others. Perkins was arguably one of the top 5 defensive centers in the league and I think Presti knew that in order for the Thunder to compete, they were going to need a big body to go against Howard, Bynum, Randolph, and Duncan of that time. The Thunder needed size. Green was a nice player for the Thunder, but he was too much of a luxury to have with Durant, Westbrook, and soon to be Harden, scoring and dominating the ball offensively. In hindsight, we now know that Perkins had maybe a season of good basketball before he got to where he is considered now, a lazy punk that should have been amnestied awhile ago, but I think Presti would have made that trade again, if given the chance. The Harden trade is still the most questionable due to the fact that they could have held onto him at least one more season to get a title and try to convince James to stay or let go of someone else for money.. Their lost, our gain hahaha

 

People were calling Jeff Green a disappointment at the time.

With that said Kendrick Perkins has always been overrated to me.

 

I think Presti is keeping Perkins so he can see if he can re-sign him for 2-3m, at that price tag he becomes a reasonable backup center, that seems to be the method of Spursology.

 

I get why Presti made the move at the time to get Perkins from Boston, and while Jeff Green looks like a stud at times, he's still a very unpredictable player that will probably never play on an all-star team.

The mind boggling thing though is that Ibaka is really their long-term center of the future. I get why they needed Perkins at the time, but Ibaka is now capable of manning the center position IF Presti is able to bring in another legit PF. Perkins should have never been considered for anything more than a one-year stop gap center.

Presti has had the assets for years to go out and get a player like Millsap, Scola, or David West fairly easily. Why he hasn't gone out and done this I have no idea. They could have made a deal for a legit starting PF, and still not had to amnesty Perkins... and just kept him in a reserve role where he can match up against the larger centers in the league at times.

The Harden trade was one thing.... but the fact that they keep on with the notion that Perkins is their starting center, and dont pursue a higher quality PF to start alongside Ibaka is the truly mind-boggling aspect of Presti's tenure as GM.

 

Living in Beaumont must be clouding your thinking.