I don't buy that James ran off Russ. Although I do buy that James ran off CP3 and at least advocated to get Russ here (which was a net negative).
Yes, it's Tilman. But stop making excuses for Harden. Harden was at least partially responsible for the Westbrook trade. I know it's hard for you to both hate Westbrook and love Harden. But that's the reality.
We dont know that. Look at how good Cp3 played this year. The man was second team all NBA. Good luck trapping Harden with Cp3 in the lineup. Cp3 didnt ask to be traded. He just wants to win. Yea, not that Russ is leaving, who knows whats going on. I dont know what changed in 4 days. Im not. The man literally came out and debunked specifically that he didnt want to play with Harden, not that he asked out. It can be for different reasons. Maybe he hates Tillman, actually Sjax and Barnes said on their podcast that it had a lot to do with them not being included in the decision making process for the new coach and GM.
All the reports i've read is that Russ didn't enjoy being so clearly 2nd fiddle. The organization bends to what Harden wants. Which is somewhat acceptable. I'm not saying it was a Harden-CP3 relationship.... but it is "effectively" Harden that ran off Russ... or they both decided to move on in talks together... in any case, doesn't really change much in the final analysis.
I blame Harden ALL THE TIME FOR THAT TRADE. But if Nook is saying that Morey could have smoothed it over with Harden that this trade wasnt going through. I believe him. And he's said it MULTIPLE times. And Tillman is on record saying he forced that trade. And there is stuff going around that Patrick was REALLY involved.
yeah... @HP3 this isn't really meant to be a big back and forth. Certainly, no rationale person would have traded Harden when this thread was started. But in a "its only fair to look back retrospectively sometimes" approach, they didn't win a championship with Harden and it LOOKS LIKE he is on his way out, leaving the organization in a VERY TOUGH spot... In other words.... we'll certainly see... but looks like increasingly a worst case scenario...
Not the first time someone decided it wasn't cool to put up with CP3's constant churping & injury woes. That Clippers team was miserable at the end.
Hmmm....so you think we could have gotten a better package three years ago? I mean yea, probably. But the draft in the coming years look very good. The only regret I have for not tanking then is not getting a shot at Luka.
I can see that being that case too. Chris is annoying and demanding on and off the court. But so is basically every top level champion in sports.
Yeah, so in now way should i be a nba scout or anything... but i was in love with Doncic like a year before he was drafted, lol. And so when this thread was started, you could have talked me into trading Harden for a Celtics package that involved most of their picks plus some players back. One of my good friends is a huge Boston fan and was like "no way". That aside... if there was some way to really be sure you can get top3 picks next year and in 22, yeah, im all over that. Give me Emoni Bates please.
i have no idea if i posted in this thread and i'm not reading 1700 posts, but one year after this thread was made, we had 65 wins and were up 3-2 on one of the greatest teams ever. we followed that up with being a top 2 or 3 team (again behind the durant warriors). if we're going with hindsight, then wanting to trade james harden right before the 2 best non-1994/1995 years in team history is insane if the only measurement is that it wasn't good enough to beat maybe the greatest team ever while suffering an injury whose timing could only have been dreamt of in a greek tragedy. passing up 2 amazing years just to get a head start on a rebuild that will likely never produce 2 years that good kind of defeats the whole purpose of building a team. even if the specific point was that we could never beat the warriors so we might as well give up (knowing Asian Sensation's posting history vis-a-vis harden, that was not the point), it still doesn't work since we very well could have beaten them. and yet we immediately had 2 championship contenders in a row led by james harden. it's not like it was harden teaming with lebron and giannis. it was harden, an older cp3, and some good role players. only brought down by a team with 4 hall of famers. i agree that it is difficult to build a team around harden that can beat 4 hall of famers. for years listening to people (not talking about you now) complain that we never surrounded harden with enough talent to beat other teams, i usually pointed out those teams were built by stars deciding to team up and that harden playing with that much talent would probably mean he forced his way somewhere else. i guess those people can now be happy when harden gets to play with that level of talent.
exactly, as much as i blame harden for wanting westbrook (a terrible player) and speeding up this downfall, i blame cp3 every bit as much for not making it work. people try to make him a victim. not only does he have a history of not getting along with others, but this year makes it look even worse. he was out of shape and played poorly his last year with us, which no doubt contributed to harden wanting to upgrade to a newer model. then after being butthurt about the trade, this year he decides to change his diet, get in shape, and go on his revenge tour (which still resulted in a poetic devastating first round loss). you could've just been in shape last year chris and you might have a ring. and even the not getting along with harden thing. what, because the organization catered to its mvp player and not the all-star sidekick? like he hasn't been around long enough to know that's how it works. or at least that's how it usually works. like he hasn't been the one catered to on other teams? you spend your whole career not getting along with teammates and your whole career trying to win. you finally land in the last spot where you can win a non-ring chaser championship and you can't make it work with the main guy on the team? you're scoring 16 ppg and harden's scoring 35 ppg against the warriors and you think you're going to go up and tell him how things are going to be? does it work like that on any other team? it would be like clyde going up to dream during the san antonio series and being like "i know you're dropping 40 on the mvp, but how about some more touches for glyde?" ridiculous. i hope smug satisfaction was a good enough trade-off for another early playoff exit. while it might be that harden is tough to get along with, it's not like dwight/cp3/westbrook have illustrious histories of getting along with teammates. dwight didn't get along with anyone before or after. cp3 certainly had issues before. westbrook seemingly chased away durant. i suppose we didn't focus enough on not getting such fragile egos who apparently didn't understand they weren't the alpha dog, but unless you're the lakers, you usually don't just get to pick and choose which stars want to play on your team. they're all going to have issues.
meh... im in it for rings, not 65 win teams that fail... not a fan of the, often DM pushed, "we were so so good for so so long" stuff. neither is media-NBA, twitter, whatever. it grew old and tired. you're really good... great! no go win a ring! maybe make a finals what's the point of this "could have" stuff. We didn't. We had LOTS of opportunities. they DID NOT WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP. Lol. The fact that other teams had more, better players, is part of the point. i was never on the Harden can "never" win a ring boat, or even as the #1 guy. Just that if you looked at everything all together, Harden, his teammate history, their salaries, the GSWers, etc. it was unlikely to happen. It didn't happen... so guess was right there...
bold statement. i didn't realize we were trying to win a ring. what's your plan to win a ring in the future? i'm thinking we try to assemble a really good team that is capable of winning lots of games and then hope things go right for that team in a certain year. is there another way to win i'm not aware of? this argument is basically saying we should've skipped out on the 65 win team that could win it all and instead gone for a rebuild so that maybe 6 or 7 years down the line, we might one day build a 65 win team that could potentially win it all. should we have had bad teams instead? the warriors were in our conference, who cares if we make the finals if the conference finals are the real finals. were the 2018 cavs better than us because they won the pathetic east? we had 2. we lost both times to an amazing team. them's the breaks. should teams always trade away their best players if an all-time dynasty exists simply because it's unlikely they will ultimately build a team good enough to win? you really didn't wanna experience the 2018 season in the hopes that we could one day build a team that very likely will not even be as good as the 2018 team? that was an amazing year. i don't see how you can possibly be disappointed to have chosen to have that year over rebuilding. you win by having amazing years and seeing if they are amazing enough. sometimes the other team hits a shot, sometimes the refs screw you over, sometimes you get injured. these things are decided by razor-thin margins most of the time. all you can do is give yourself the chance. very few teams have ever been built that were just guaranteed to win it. one team had better players. and arguably even they didn't without us getting injured. you take your chances. should we just assume future injuries and rebuild at all times? and yet we were up 3-2 in the conference finals with a team that (healthy) would've cakewalked through the finals. like why would you ever pass that up? almost no team is guaranteed to win. you build a great team, face other great teams, and hope you come out on top. we were as close to winning a championship as you can get. i see literally no argument other than a perfect ability to predict injuries that would say you don't take the shot we took in 2018. we went for it, we were getting it, luck wasn't on our side. it happens. but you can't win without going for it. 12 franchises in the last 41 seasons have won a title. predicting a team won't win is fairly easy.
NBA exec: Jrue Holiday trade helps Rockets' leverage with James Harden In the Holiday trade, the Bucks sent Eric Bledsoe, George Hill, three future first-round picks, and two pick swaps to the Pelicans. If that’s the level of return for a very good (but not elite) guard in Holiday who is in the final year of his contract, just imagine what the Rockets might command for an All-Star and perennial MVP finalist like Harden — who also happens to be under contract for at least two more seasons. https://rocketswire.usatoday.com/20...ade-helps-rockets-leverage-with-james-harden/
Im positive "accumulate talent at all costs" doesn't always work. That was basically DMs plan. No consideration given to fit, etc. He had a hard on for Melo for like 2 years, lol. Now, i'd be happy to put together a plan, if the Rockets want to hire me as their GM. not responding to the rest. i'm tired of the "but we were so close, and if only blah blah" stuff. The Texans were also up 24-0 on the Chiefs last year in the playoffs. I can only go off what DID happen, not what ALMOST happened.
I dont post just read, its 2:30 am tho. Respond so I can make the payment tomorrow at work. Sad boi hours
Westbrook is still here. Several reasons why he asked to be traded. One of them was he wanted to go back to the OKC offense without Harden when he was the focus. Off the court they are still friends, they are figuring out their own careers now. It is just a career choice nothing personal, both are combo point guards. Both didn't like the way Morey and MDA left.