Perkins brought championship experience and solid post defense. Do you really trust a 7 foot stiff against a front court of Dwight/Pau Gasol or Randolph/Marc Gasol? Or even Duncan/Splitter?
The thing is, one year of Harden isn't "nothing". People like to argue that he would have left for "nothing" if they didn't trade him. Even if you assume Harden left after this season, they wouldn't have gotten "nothing". They would've gotten one year of James Harden. Modern basketball contracts last only a few years - if you're lucky you lock up a superstar for 4-6 years, and if you're smart you don't do contracts for longer than that anyway because you have no idea how a given player will hold up over those years (see: Gilbert Arenas). One year of a superstar is anywhere from 15%-25% of the life of that contract. If you're constantly cycling players every 2-3 years and dumping them before they finish out their contracts so that you won't get "nothing" in return for them, then you are tremendously shortening the window in which you can realistically compete for a title to only a couple of years, because you're cutting off the amount of time where your superstar players will be playing at the same time (and have the experience playing with each other to succeed). So instead of 3-4 years to compete, you now only have 2-3 years to compete. And then the whole rebuilding cycle begins again. The only way to avoid this is to have a guy like Tim Duncan or Kobe Bryant on your team for a decade. And those guys are fluke Hall-of-Fame caliber players who have not only lasted far longer than the vast majority of their peers but have managed to maintain a fantastic level of play during that time.
If Lamb develops into a stud of a player, or even a player of Rip Hamilton's calibur + 2 first round picks(Presti found Ibaka /w 24th pick...), while still finishing first in the Western Conference that same year, is not as big a fleece as some people make it out to be. People are too quick to judge this trade, and those saying that he should have waited until the end of the season, the longer the trade is put off, the less leverage OKC has, as many times we've seen teams get desperate and pay dollars for dimes.
I remember analysts and all sorts of sports media people calling this a great trade for OKC, even months into the season, after Harden had some monster games. It's literally taken an entire season and an injury to Westbrook for people to realize Harden's worth.
The real question is how many GMs will stop trading with Morey...knowing that the end result is "getting fleeced.."
Sort of, they had 3 days to sign him to a rookie extension, else it would have gone to a qualifying offer/rfa situation the following year.
I think the Perkins trade was dumb too. I would hate to go against the Thunder if they had Ibaka at the 5, Green at the 4 and Durant at the 3. This series would have been a sweep with or without Westbrook.
OKC couldnt beat Miami with Durant, Westbrook AND Harden last year. So how would their chances be this year WITH Harden and without Westbrook? Seems to me even in hindsight, their championship aspirations went down the tube with Westbrooks injury. Negating the Harden trade would have only made their tour through the west a bit easier, nothing else.
Not saying the trade turned out good for the Thunder, or even that it was the right move at the time. But I think one thing they avoided was drama. As a fan, I hate the uncertainty of not knowing who's going to be on my team next season (especially when it involves major players)... can't imagine what it would be like for the players themselves.
