Warriors Feared Tax In Declining Trade For James Harden

Consider that the Thunder would have been getting an up and coming young talent in the early stages of his rookie deal instead of an aging Kevin Martin with a $12m (?) salary the pick isnt the prize of the trade like it was in the actual trade with the Rockets. Thompson is the prize .... that pick GS would be sending doesnt have to be substantial. Its just to sweeten the pot.

Disregard everything else - which do you value more , Thompson or a random lotto pick between 4 - 14 ?? Hard for me to answer.

Other than the Warriors wanting the Thunder to take back significant salary in Jefferson the two offers seem pretty equal to me.

Kevin Martin + a guaranted lotto pick with limited protection.
Klay Thompson + a likely lotto protected pick.

 

Lets face it, as good as Thompson is going to be for so long, for a team looking to compete now, they aren't going to get a much better short term replacement out there than Kevin Martin on an expiring deal. I honestly think he does more for a contending team this second than Thompson does in the short.

Also- Even if OKC got Thompson instead, they still would have been facing the same situation in a few years with Thompson hitting a number in free agency that they could not come close to matching, and in the meantime they probably wouldn't be as good.

Sounds like OKC still got the better deal... Golden State... yeah they missed out on not trying to make it work somehow.... even if they had to eat some lux tax for a year.

 

Kept saying that at the time of the trade.

IMO they gave up an almost guaranteed trip to the finals and thus a legit shot at a championship.

 

GSW might have been their first call but I doubt it was going to be their only one.

OKC really should have done what they could to dump Perkins and given it another year to figure out a way to keep all 3. I think they jumped the gun. But they would have risk getting a much lower return (or nothing at all).

 

thompson is better than martin so i agree simmons may be correct, but thompson has to be paid max dollars one day and they end up in the same situation

 

Lol, so Morey only lucked into Harden after BOTH the Warriors and Wizards turned down OKC's offers.

 

This.. I just dont understand Presti's logic with placing that high of value on Kendrick Perkins. We all know that Serge Ibaka is ultimately going to be the starting center for the OKC Thunder sometime soon. Its inevitable.

If Presti couldn't find a trade for Perkins, you keep him, and Harden throughout the season, you Amnesty Perkins, and match Hardens offer in free agency this Summer.

If there were zero trades available, and the owner group had that big of a problem with eating the last year of Perkin's contract, Presti should have just put a power point presentation together to sell them over the course of a year, sign a petition, or threaten to resign if they dont just suck it up and eat that contract.

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as well. It's hard to believe that OKC would have effectively just traded Harden for Thompson and some fillers. Besides the pick and Thompson, I can't Imagine Barnes not being in play somewhere in there. It's plausible that that's the pick that they meant. GS would have also wanted to throw Beidrins into the pot as it would have made more sense moving forward with Harden.

There was also a glut of 3s (tweeners included) in the GSW going into the season like we did at the 4 spot which made asking for Barnes plausible.

GSW would have received a similar package as we did trading for Harden. There's no way it's as simple as harden + filler for Klay + pick and fillers. I do believe that the sticking point in the end was either OKC eating Beidrins' salary ($18m) when they were trying to shed $$$ or GSW's hesitation to package Klay + Barnes. Ultimately, our package of expiring Martin + Lamb and multiple picks was more aligned to what Presti wanted moving forward. As for the Wiz speculation, that's anybody's guess.

 

the other thing is if golden state goes into cap hell and harden doesn't push them to the playoffs (hindsight is 20-20) then that's a small market team that might have to talk about selling

 

Beal is playing well, so the no tradeis working out for them.

 

Now that I think about it, why didn't Presti force Perkins on us? Also, a Thunder team with Ibaka at C and a stretch 4 makes too much sense.

 

Curry/Harden/Lee as the long term core. impressive but that would be hilarious on the defensive end

 

Well, he did say their first call. So this was before they went to Houston.

 

Harden is elite offensively. But he's not in elite company until he starts to play good defense. Rockets won't be an elite team either until that happens even if they get a 2nd star.

 

Didnt the wizards also reject a trade for him? I think it was surrounded around Beal

 

Holy cow, just nashty. Thank goodness we got him.

 

Houston is the best team for Harden. No star before him. He can always be the first option. He wouldn't have been an all star this year if he was with GSW...

 

That team would be a top team in the west easy. James Harden, Stephen Curry, David Lee. God that would be nasty.

 

Harden and Curry would be terrifying on offense. Curry is a great off-ball player.

Defense would be pretty sad to watch though.

 

With that being said, 85% of that luck drops down to close to 0% if you do not prepare.