Sam Presti made this team

Doesn't matter, they broke up a championship team that looked like it locked up multiple trips to the finals.

This is not going to happen. Saying this is going to happen is like saying Chris Paul/Howard would not work. Harden has never been a selfish player so what makes you think he's going to be that now?

Absolutely lucky for Durant. Without Durant they are a middling team in the West.

Morey took some luck, but it also took A LOT of wheeling and dealing and a few great picks in the draft.

We don't know. Harden declined and Presti decided it was a good time to make a example of him. If Presti understood it was negotiations and Harden LOVED playing there it could have been just as likely that he resigns in the end.

Also they could have traded him at the deadline and people saying they wouldn't have got much are insane.

Are Lamb and Adams going to be as good as Harden?

 

Bump, it was alot of maury doe

 

yezzirrr!!!! thank u Presti

OP repped

 

Most Thunder fans think that Harden chose to sign with Houston and not play with OKC last year.

 

Not sure why anyone would blame Presti and not the ownership. It's clearly a case of ownership not wanting to pay luxury taxes. It's not like Presti didn't know that Harden was a good player.

 

I still think it's silly to evaluate in this manner

1) Lamb is consistently evaluated as a negative. The guy hasn't played yet. He didn't play because he was on a veteran team with a 1 year rental (Martin) playing in his spot. If he doesn't do something this year and especially next year, then make some calls. Until then, why rush judgment? ... (ahem, Marc Gasol comes to mind)

2) The pick was a calculated gamble. Toronto vastly overachieved relative to everyone's expectations. They probably figured they had a 50% shot at a top 5 pick. Hell, if Toronto lucked into the top 3 this year, OKC would have had a great shot at a lottery pick in the loaded Wiggins draft!

It's stupid to look at it and say "it was Steven Adams in the trade"--because that wasn't it. It was a good shot at a much better player. It didn't pan out. But you can't re-evaluate that part of the trade based on winning/losing a calculated gamble that was already assumed..

(end result--I still think they could/should have amnestied Perkins and kept Harden of course. But I'm just saying we shouldn't evaluate the trade in the manner many are doing it)

 

Typical hikanoo. Harden came off the bench without complaint when he was one of the best guards in the league. He was willing to continue being a sixth man. If that's not sacrificing, I don't know what is.

Durant and WB didn't leave $$ on the table.

 

Presti signed an injured Perkins to a huge ass deal, without which they would've been able to pay Harden and stay below the tax line. Presti also traded Harden at his lowest possible value, right after a bad finals campaign, when he could've S&Ted Harden next offseason. He would've been restricted so no chance to leave for nothing.

 

Yep. Lebron was willing to sacrifice some money so he and Bosh would make the same amount. This despite him being ridiculously better than Bosh.

Durant got Super-Max.
Westbrook got Max.
Harden was offered below-max and to rub it in, Presti won't give him a trade kicker. Yep. Presti said, "we want you to sacrifice money to play here, but I still might trade you at any time when I feel like it."

 

Good point op

 

Brooks is also responsible. He underutilized Harden to the point that Presti didn't see the superstar that he had. They thought they were smart by eliminating rumors and doubts about Harden resigning during their championship run. Luxury tax hell skirted, but consigned to perennial 2nd round exits or worse. They could be the Rockets of the last few years but without a Morey to get them out and GMs dumb enough to give up on one their future stars.

 

Yep, agreed.

To add; there actually was another chance for OKC to re-sign harden prior to the extension of Ibaka. Obviously, Ibaka got the extension. Harden was not expecting the max from the articles that I had read but I couldn't tell you what other particulars were included as clauses to his requested contract. I was curious then as to why a player would want to leave after a championship run so soon. I wish I had saved some of those articles.

I'll be the 1st to admit that I didn't know exactly what we were getting at the time. I knew he was going to be good player and that he was a perfect fit (and he was) as a complementary piece to franchise players. Needless to say, most of us at CF needed adult diapers after our 1st week of watching him play. I'm fairly sure that even the FO was caught off guard as to how good Harden really was. I knew we had something more and that our FO had struck gold once again when it wasn't readily apparent to anyone else.

In Fairness to Presti, I think they thought they had a luxury in Harden and that ultimately, his skill set was a redundancy next to Durant and Westbrook. Which, to a some degree, is true. So, they decided to prioritize their bigs.

On a side note, now, I'm concerned that we may do the same thing with Asik. I don't know what Asik's ceiling is and he might be the next Deke for this generation of players and we may just let him go thinking he's now a redundancy next to Howard. Truth is, Asik could have tilted the balance for either championship teams this past season. Yeah, he's that valuable.

 

The Harden Trade will certainly go down as one of the most seismic shifts in NBA history. If OKC fails to win a championship while Houston succeeds in that task, then it may go down as one of the most infamous moves of all time (a la Bowie over Jordan).