Why is he greedy? His market value is the max, if OKC didn't give it to him you were gonna have a lot of teams willing to give him that money. I don't see why he has to take a discount while WB and Ibaka got their market value. Hell, I personally think Harden's better than WB, yet WB made the max and somehow Harden was supposed to accept a non-starter role and less money than his market value? That's greedy?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orlbo9WkZ2E&feature=relmfu sooo can they play this when they announce his name at TC?
Get it from who? No other team could offer him more than what OKC gave him thanks to the CBA rules. You could argue that WB could have raised a fuss and demanded it anyway, but you could also argue he's not as good as Drose so why should OKC give him unnecessary money when they were already paying him more than other teams could.
Which si different from the other OKC players how? I guess if OKC had given WB or KD less than max money they would have signed no problem, right?
Yes pretty much. Sorry for overreacting but it just bothers me that guys talk about players being greedy. Harden had already sacrificed so much for that team. Also he is a starter on any other NBA team but people had him pigeonholed as a 6th man & a 3rd scoring option. Now he can prove that he is better than that. He is 23 years old, olympic gold medalist why should he sacrifice less with no guarantees that OKC wouldn't trade him down the road? Trust goes both ways. In my opinion Harden is your second scoring option. Lin is your third & you just need that one guy to be your first.
It's called common sense. You don't care about wins and losses because its not your money going down the drain due to empty seats and whatnot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THp3jERNZF8 Hard not to watch this and get amped up about this trade.
The only sad part abt it is Lamb might be a potential Tayshaun Prince (in his prime) in a couple years. I think it's a great trade for both teams. OKC had no choice but to give max contracts to Westbrook Ibaka and obviously durant. They couldn't give Harden another max contract because he was a bench player and Lamb and Martin off the bench will be instant offense for them with a cheaper price.
Last 30 NBA champions were won with superstars with 90% getting their first one via the draft. Only 1 team gets to win the ring each year. Out of 30. So that's 1 in 30 every year. So yeah, I think you are better off getting a number 1 pick 5 times in 30 years than you are taking the road the Rockets are taking. Statistics points against drafting Harden. How can you think Francis is not a superstar but Harden is? Francis was putting up Oscar Robinson-ish numbers and definitely was considered a super-star his first few years with the Rockets. Anyway. How many mediocre teams without a super star became great through trade? Let's see. Miami already had Wade - a known champion and established best player who haven't to be great friends with Lebron and Bosh. Dallas had this guy called Dirk. L..A. had a guy called Kobe. S.A. - a guy named Duncan. Chicago started with a guy named Rose before that a guy named Jordan. OKC? Started with Durant. Boston? Started with Paul Pierce Houston - Olajuwon. No way Harden is any of the above players. Dude was not even a factor in the finals. When's the last time any of the above players was not a factor in a playoff series? Can you remember? Even their first time. They dominated. Harden is no Kobe, Wade, or Rose. He's a guy with a very fast step and a streaky jump shot. He'll get you 15-20 ppg as a starter on a good team - more on a bad team. OKC got a better deal for sure. '
I think getting Harden is great. His ability at his age make it acceptable to trade Martin. Also, Harden, in my opinion, can play better defense compared to Martin. I can understand why some fans didn't like to see Lamb go but the fact is we now have a young, talented star player who is only going to get better. I like how this off-season turned out.
would that make us contenders though? No. But as long as we would still be able to afford another max player (don't see how though), then sure, why not. But, i can definitely see the hawks looking to trade horford and / or JSmith later this year. They KNOW they can not and will not win with their current roster. They have been a 2nd round exit at best for way too long, and without Joe Johnson, they'd be lucky to even get out of the first round. I think they know its time to blow up their roster.
http://www.nba.com/rockets/video/jeremy-lin-10282012 Interesting, Lin said he had some advanced warning on this deal? Hmm... Also: LOL at Lin trying hard not to say anything bad about the departed teammates.
The thunder as a whole sucked. Lets not act like Durant was setting the world on fire in that series. Harden was 22 years old in the finals, I think it's acceptable that he had a bad finals appearance when you look back at it. Kobe still has bad games in the finals, it happens.
