While Presti is great at collecting assets but I'd seriously question his team building ability. We'll see what he does with all these draft picks in the long run.
LOL no matter what some on here want to say/believe, Presti is 100% to blame for the Harden trade. 1. Clay Bennett forced Presti into trading Harden because the owner was afraid of the luxury tax. Bennett being cheap didn't all of a sudden become reality the moment Harden was eligible for an extension. Presti KNEW what kind of owner he had to work around/with and with this knowledge, Sam should have been better equipped/prepared in making deals happen to shed salary in order to keep Harden. 2. Well Harden was only 6th man. Why should Presti do everything he could to keep him? Newsflash: Harden was drafted with the THIRD Pick. You don't get drafted that high in most drafts unless you had star potential. Harden was showing that when he was playing in OKC and he was instrumental in eliminating the Spurs the year they went to the Finals. Even if Harden didn't become one of the greatest players of all time his floor was a perennial All-Star. Why wouldn't you want to keep him next to Russ and Durant for the next decade? Isn't the whole point of being a GM is to find and acquire as much talent as possible? 3. Whatever. Presti still had to trade Harden because he didn't accept OKC's extension offer. This goes back to the first point I made; Presti knew how cheap Bennett was. He could have made some trades in order to not only keep Harden at a max contract but also avoid the luxury tax bill. For the 2012-2013 season, the luxury tax line was $70.3 million. The payroll for the entire OKC team at the end of the season was $68.9 million. Whatever extension Harden signed--whether it was a max contract, lesser deal, whatever--didn't kick in until the 2013-2014 season. So for the 2012-2013 season--the season Presti decided to trade away an All-Timer--Harden was making $5.8 million. Why does this even matter? For one, if Presti had held onto Harden even as extension talks died down, he would have had one more year of KD/Westbrook/Ibaka/Harden to roll out onto the court. Who knows what would have happened? Westbrook got hurt that year and maybe Harden would have taken that #2 role and helped OKC get past the Grizzlies in the 2nd round, solidifying/justifying his max-contract worth in Bennett's eyes. Maybe Bennett would have said "F it. Do whatever you need to do for us to stay below the luxury tax but keep Harden at all costs". Then Presti would have made whatever moves necessary to keep harden. Secondly, if Presti had held onto Harden and let him play out the season who knows what kind of offers Sam would have gotten had James balled out. Washington might have called back to offer Beal? The Warriors might have coughed up Thompson and picks? Essentially, Presti/Bennett would have gotten one extra year of Harden at the rookie scale. Like, why the hell wouldn't you execute that option even if it meant possibly losing Harden via free agency? At worst, you could have traded him at the deadline to get a better return. At best, you make sure KD and Russ convince their buddy to stay with a max contract extension, thereby guaranteeing a dynasty for the next 5-6 years. Going back to the extension OKC offered for a moment though--James wanted 4 years $60 million and OKC offered 4 years $55.5. In the grand scheme of things, that's about a million dollar difference per year. You're telling me that Presti couldn't have found a way to fit James' $15 million cap hit on the roster because of $1 million? Think of it this way: In 2013 when Harden's $15 million would have hit the books, the OKC chose to pay: Kendrick Perkins: $9.4 Jeremy Lamb: $2.3 Steven Adams: $2.3 Hasheem Thabeet: $1.3 Instead of keeping James. Two out of those 4 players were acquired via the Harden trade through the draft. 4. Yea but Perkins was already on the roster. Why are you including him in this? Because that's where the stupidity lies and it originated from within Presti's brain! After Miami beat OKC in the Finals Presti had every chance to amnesty Perkins right off of OKC's books and right out of existence. Sure Bennett would have still had to pay Perkins' salary but it wouldn't have counted against the cap (and the luxury tax line). THAT was the golden chance for OKC/Presti/Bennett to keep their future MVPs. You amnesty Perkins before the 2012-2013 season, you give Harden his max extension (which doesn't kick in for another year), and you massage the books so that your owner won't have a heart attack for paying Perkins' salary when he's not on the roster. It's not like OKC even needed the guy in the first place, especially after his performance in the Finals. 5. Yea but Bennett still had to pay Perkins even after Presti amnesty's him. Bennett wouldn't have wanted to pay someone's salary who wasn't going to suit up for his team. That's where Presti should have made a very easy and compelling case to Bennett that keeping James (and that elite core) together outweighed the cost of paying Perkins. Even I can make that case and I'm not a GM: "Mr. Bennett, I know you don't want to pay Perkin's salary but here me out. We use the amnesty clause on Kendrick to take him off of the books so we can give James his max money. Perkins is owed about $16.5 million left after we amnesty him. If another team picks him up for, say, $2 million a year we would only be on the hook for $12.5 million. Worst case we owe the full balance. But here me out: if we factor in the revenue we get from 1) our share of luxury tax payment and 2) advancing deeper into the postseason we'll have enough to cover Perkins' salary" Like that was all there was to it. As for the ones that think OKC needed Perkins around, he averaged around 20 mpg putting up like 4 points a game and 5 rebounds a game. That's what Bennett and Presti got for that $16.5. TL;DR: I do blame Presti for the Harden trade. It's not as if he inherited that roster--he built the damn thing! He drafted Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka. He should know better than 98% of the people in OKC how special those players were. He should have given Harden the max contract and retooled the roster surrounding his best 4 players so that the owner didn't have to pay the luxury tax. That extension he reportedly offer Harden was just Presti overplaying his hand. That $4.5 million difference could have easily been recouped through shrewder free agent signings. So for all of the picks Presti has acquired he's still the GM that couldn't keep a roster of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden together. I'm willing to bet that he won't draft a single franchise player with all of those picks in the next 4-5 years that would be as good as Durant/Russ/Hraden, let alone THREE of them.
I believe reports are Presti made the final call to trade Harden. Owner said he was willing to pony up at the last second but Presti decided keeping Perkins would be a better fit or w/e. Regardless doesnt matter everybody makes mistakes. Presti redeemed himself many times over and tbh his track record is def better than Morey who basically did 1 S+ trade and then had some decent trades and a couple of horrible ones. As for this trade I think this is a major mistake by Celts. Yeah Horford is a good player but he is old AF, Tatum is only 24 and Brown is only 26 why lose 16th pick in a stacked draft for the same contract, length? This just shows coaches dont necessarily make good GMs they just wanna win now.
Just a trade to increase our flexibility next season. Win win for both sides imo. Celtics now can find a way to get to a max space next summer with some real cap gymnastics. That was never gonna happen with kemba on the books and although it would take some moves it is possible. Celtics are gonna go hard after beal in free agency next year if he’s available. Very very close, like family with Tatum. Okc should be able to fool another team into taking kemba at worst next offseason and get another asset
his contract next season is also only partially guaranteed at 14m. Apologies if this was answered further in thread
^ this is the reason. Less to do with Horford's value, more to do with salary dump. Celtics had to attach a pick for this privilege.
One thing I didnt realize is the Celts are getting back Moses Brown, basically a rookie Clint Capela. It def flips the value of the trade significantly imo, as I think Brown is easily worth a 16th pick. Tbh I think OKC lost out on that deal, they couldve done a Horford to Lakers or Horford to Nets and prob gotten 3 picks down the road instead of Kemba.
The Celtics seem to have a glut of big men now. Al Horford --> 2 years: 27M, 26.5M Tristan Thompson --> 1 year: 9.7M Robert Williams --> 1 year: 3.6M Luke Kornet --> FA: 2.9M Cap Hold Moses Brown --> 3 years: 1.7M, 1.8M, 1.9M Tacko Fall: FA: 1.4M Cap Hold I hope this means Robert "Timelord" Williams is on the trade block as there isn't enough PT for all these players with growing concerns about Williams' health. https://www.celticsblog.com/platfor...liams-and-the-tale-of-time-boston-celtics-nba
Fall and Kornet are probably gone. Thompson is being replaced by Horford - they don't like Thompson's locker room attitude. 3 bigs: Horford Brown Williams
This could work if Horford is regulated to 3rd string specialist that mentors the big men. But I think Horford would take too many minutes away from Brown and Williams to justify his contract.
It's actually worse than that. OKC has so many draft picks that they cant conceivably use them all - there's not enough roster spots or minutes to really get value. They basically have to be sellers now which will be known by everyone
They can always roll them back for some other team. I mean lets be honest they already have a young star so they can do whatever they want.
