Not in the offseason...the trade deadline they could have fleeced someone. Heck I bet they could have gotten Ellis and Tobias from the Bucks. Teams get DESPERATE around the deadline. If Harden still had no deal then they could have traded him then. But this was about Ego. This was about pride. Remember how Harden was surprised he was traded? He thought this was all just negotiation and bluffs. But Presti, wanting to prove he was the big man and almost like some mobster decided to go "Nope. Presti doesn't Bluff." and gave Morey Harden. You get three players. One top 5 PG. One Top 5 SG. One top 3 player...you do what it takes to keep them around. They could have got another really good vet C on the cheap. They could have filled out their team on the cheap.
February? I don't think any GM with a contending team would want to massively shake-up his roster 2 months before the playoffs started...
They made it to the finals. They weren't that far away from beating the Heat. If Harden just plays average they probably do. Just like WB, Harden gave that team something it now misses. Durant is really not a playmaker. Harden and WB are and not only that Durant is not always aggressive. WB certainly is and Harden can be at times and was moreso with the less minutes he got.
They would be forced to because they didn't get a deal done. They aren't even a contender right now because of this trade any ways? Because of this trade they basically waived the white flag against the Heat. They could have got much more than they did around the deadline. It's basically Morey 101 that teams get desperate around the deadline.
Maybe Durant wasn't a playmaker last year, but he's definitely one this year. He's improved his overall game (especially his ball-handling skills) tremendously. At this point, there's nothing that Harden provides that Westbrook or Durant don't.
They aren't a contender right now b/c Westbrook got hurt. If Westbrook were healthy, it's hard to believe anyone in the western conference could beat them. Even if they didn't trade Harden, Miami would've beaten them. Lebron has gotten better, and Miami has added a lot of veteran experience (Andersen, Allen, Lewis). The absolute worst time to make a trade is when you HAVE to unload a player (i.e. at the trade deadline). You lose flexibility, and every other team knows that.
Picks? Picks for what is considered by many a terrible draft? Not even that great a pick too. We are not talking a top 5 pick here. Ellis would be a MUCH better 6 man than Martin...MUCH better. Ellis is actually pretty clutch and aggressive. I don't see how he's a terrible fit...it's not like they have this bevy of scorers. Tobias is one of the best young players in the game right now and is likely better than any one they are going to draft with this great pick they have coming up. Their pick is around 12th...12th...what great player has Morey drafted at 12? In a weak draft too? He's still not a good playmaker. His playmaking consists of being doubled or having so much attention that the defense rather leave anyone open than have him be guarded by one man. Westbrook and Harden are actually guys that can use a pick, throw a bounce pass into the lane, a oop, drive and kick...Durant really doesn't do all that. Durant and Harden/Westbrook are different players entirely. Harden/Westbrook can be redundant. Any ways the redundancy does not matter too much because they are not all playing at the same time and Harden had accepted the role of playing the 6th man and 3rd fiddle like Manu. What they had worked all the way to the finals.
Miami did not dominate the finals series against them. Again, some of their guys had HORRIBLE games in the final series which is likely just part of that growing up. Playoffs....Finals is a different level from the series leading up to that and if guys like Harden had his usual games then that is a coin flip series. Except that more than one team would be after Harden and thus the price would raise.
Presti is overrated in the same way that Morey is overrated. IMHO there's really on 3 levels of gms: good, average and horrible. Its hard to say more than that because everything else is out of your control, it depends on d team you got, capspace, and which player were available in d draft. I think presti deserves credit for getting wb, harden and ibaka, and the harden was fair since they cant afford a max 6th man.
They wont be able to field that team if they kept harden. Look at miami, they have lbj bosh dwade and a bunch of rooks and vet minimum. Okc already has kd, wb, perks makes 9m, ibaka makes 12m thabo is about to become a fa and they still need a bench. Okc is young, Presti doesnt want to go for broke and have d team implode in a couple of years...he wants a dynasty. Realistically you cant have3 perimeter guys eating up your cap, there arent enough touches and you will get beat by the other teamd big man
Monta Ellis is a locker room cancer. In other words, Durant creates open looks for his teammates. Sounds like a good playmaker to me.... Redundancy matters a lot when the salaries in question are $18.8mm, 14.7mm, and around 13.5mm.
I don't know why yall keep saying this when it took them all the way to the Finals and a few points from beating the heat? Yeah look at Miami...they also have a bunch of guys wanting to play there and sacrifice some salary to do so. They don't need much of a bench when you have a guy who can carry your entire bench unit. That's what some of you are not understanding I think. 3 superstars pretty much mean you also have a bench unit. Because one of those stars can carry that unit. The Heat actually have a pretty bad bench on paper...but it really doesn't matter. They have Bosh, a guy who carried his team to the playoffs and a guy that can surely help a bunch of ring chasing vets and unproven young players for about 8 or so minutes a game. The Celtics...now they had a bench before the injuries. Heck the Clippers, now THEY have a bench. Much good that did them.
Which teams? What would they offer? Keep in mind that OKC wanted salary cap relief and draft picks while maintaining a contending team.
News to me. Ron Artest was also supposedly a locker room cancer. You act as if Martin is much better? The guy whose laughing on the sidelines as the team is getting blown out and making subtle comments towards the FO and coaches whenever he can. Martin has not been the model lockerroom guy, not in Sacto and not here. But you know when you go to a championship team you are forced to be because you realize want's on the line. Monta would have been fine lol. Much better...infinitely better than Martin. Err...but that is a different way. You said all three were redundant and Harden's game is nothing like Durant. It's similar to Westbrooks, but mentally they are different where Harden doesn't mind passing the ball and submitting to Westbrook. Again...it worked. We keep talking about how these three didn't work when it actually did work. I don't get it. Redundancy matters a little when you are going to get multiple final trips out of such a trio and likely a championship. But yeah. Kendrick Perkins...
This is a horribly defensive article, to break down the whole thing isn't worth the time, but the whole point of having 3 super-duper stars is that you have more folks to carry the load. Of course they miss both. Then the guy just repeats "Presti is sensible, I trust in sensible sam! Everything will be ok!" a bunch of times to make himself feel better.
Most of the mistakes Presti and Morey both have made are inevitable and ultimately not very damaging. They give themselves the flexibility to undo mistakes, like signing Ariza to be a major part of your team only to soon after realize he wasn't fit for the purpose and trading him away. I think those things are forgivable. Morey made a strategic gamble when he tried to contend using two injury-prone stars. It was costly, but I wouldn't say it was a mistake -- it was a gamble with known risks and potentially great rewards, and he lost. But, I don't think you can categorize Presti's trade of Harden as a strategic gamble gone awry. I think it was a simple, not-inevitable, and irreversible mistake. It's not as if Harden shocked the world with his play as a Rocket; they knew he was a great player in OKC. It's not as if Martin and Lamb seriously underperformed in OKC either; as a rookie, Lamb would have trouble getting time on a contender, and Kevin Martin performed better than he did his last year in Houston. Maybe Lamb grows up to be a great player, but giving up the sure thing for a potential thing and surrendering a year at least of Durant's window in the process is a flat-out mistake. And a big one. And one you can't fix.
