I can guarantee you, that every single star player in the league gets preferential treatment from there team.
Exactly, the Rockets traded James for almost nothing. I was very surprised to hear that many believed we had "a good haul given the circumstances" with the trade. When James asked to be traded to BKN, most people reacted by "but they don't have the assets to pull if off". That's right. In the league there may be ~10 promising future all stars on Rookie contracts right now, and there are 20 top-10 picks this year and the next year. Teams having these high-valued assets are not just a handful, and when a generational talent in his prime like Harden is on the trading block, every team has to be think hard about it, even for a rental. Historically, trading away a disgruntled prime superstar (or even 2nd tier stars) involves targeting these teams/assets, often seeing multiple budding stars or top 3-5 picks changing hands. The more typical ones are the Kevin Garnett or Ray Allen trades to Celtics, the Chris Paul or Paul George trades to the Clippers. On the egregious side you even have the Kevin Love trade to the Cavs (No.1 pick!). What Nets gave up is basically a "I have next to nothing but I've given you all in good faith" offer from a no-asset team. That's essentially what we offered to Minnesota for Jimmy Butler (and got declined) and not much more than what we offered to OKC for the Paul-Westbrook swap. It's a lot of pick assets, but it's common knowledge that the value of picks depends dramatically on the year and position. Just look at what teams have to pay to move up on draft nights, a top 5 pick is easily worth several late lottery picks, and a late lottery pick is easily worth several late first rounders. Adding on top of that, picks many years down the road are not valued highly in trades because no one wants to suck for many years. I'm skeptical any team would be willing to trade us a single top 5 pick or a single top-10 young player in exchange of the whole Nets package. That's how little we got from the trade. Yes, we may end up with "the most valuable asset" a top-4 pick by ourselves anyway, but that takes no GM skill at all. (You can trade James for literally nothing and still have that.) Any team can tank at any season, but it takes some poor mismanagement to happen to be tanking at a season when you have 48% chance to lose your top-4 pick. It speaks volume that the return from trading a generational star is less than a conditional top pick anyone can get from a tanking season.
Boston is a joke for never even making a serious offer...look at them now 7th in the East and below .500 looking mediocre as hell...they should fire whoever did that “research”
HP3 made the same argument and I don't get it... Green and Temple were the key to a championship all along? I'd like to see a link that reports on Tilman nixing the deal. I don't see these guys as starters, not sure why Tilman would want to throw bank at them..... Morey did trade Capela thou to go ultra small ball. Was that Tilman's bidding as well? When Paul went down the window closed, Westbrook was the last and final hope. It was a hail marry and we all knew it. Its not like the team Tilman took over was filled with stars. Just Harden, Paul and a bunch of 3 and D veteran role players. That's what The Rockets did throughout the whole time Harden was here. Not just under Tilman, in fact Westbrook was the highest profile player the paired with Harden ever. And even then he was already starting to go downhill. It was over a long time ago, right along the lines of Paul walking off the court limping. That's when this happened.
They would have easily been easts fav with Tatum and Brown.... How do you even begin to make a claim against bringing Harden in.
I don't only bag him for letting Ariza walk. I bag him for letting Ariza walk and trying to replace him with a minimum salary guy, or having someone like House stepping up only to park him because you don't want his contract to guarantee. You didn't need "Ariza". You needed a capable starting SF. What you don't need when you have a team that almost went to the Finals is an owner trying to win by trimming at the margins.
What is danny ainge even doing? They managed to completely botch the worst trade in NBA history and are somehow about to watch the team they ripped off win a championship. Inexcusable
Sure but not to the level that Harden did, let’s not forget Westbrook wanted out because of it. The org let it go too far. Stop making excuses! DD
This is Tim McMahon-written nonsense to make things look better. Westbrook wanted out because Harden told him that HE wanted out. Russ knew that MDA was gone, Harden was leaving, and Morey was likely going to split as well. He had no desire to stick around for the sh!tshow we have on display this year. This had nothing to do with a toxic Harden culture enabled by anyone. Those of you who always hated the diva side of Harden suddenly had backup for your suspicions that there was some way he was a bad teammate.
And yet every single player at the game, literally waited for Harden to come by and shake their hand and talk to him after his game in Houston lol They were all puppies begging to be pet. but but but he was toxic
I mean, I don't totally overlook Harden's part in where the team stands now, but an awful lot of people around here seem to have taken this year as validation for every anti-Harden sentiment they ever had. Harden did something selfish to force a trade? I knew he was selfish all along because he never passed the ball to anyone, it was just dribble-dribble-dribble ISO-ISO-ISO! Turns out I was right.
all that stuff is nothing but gimmicks to get the bitter ex's to feel a littler better, when in reality it's just pure stupidity and nonsense him wanting to leave this sorry group who had no intension of winning from top to bottom, was one of the best decisions hes ever made. Hes clearly smarter than everyone on this board that thought this team was actually good
after Tilman decided to reset can't really blame Harden he was on his way out or develop young guys might as well go somewhere he can win
Ainge is still living off of getting gifted KG by Kevin McHale and fleecing BK all the way back in 2013...Boston once had the brightest future, and now they have a pathetic present and a meh future a bunch of GMs fcked up not making a serious offer for Harden, and the media tried so hard to paint Harden as toxic...I remember Sam Amick saying the Milwaukee Bucks weren’t interested in Harden because “he’s not a culture fit” and all these dumbass fans from other teams really got exposed...Blazers fans not wanting to give up CJ...Sixers fans not wanting to give up Simmons...Celtics fans acting like Brown was laughable for Harden...hell, a lot of Nets fans didn’t even like the deal initially because they were losing Jarrett freaking Allen
we're too freakin accommodating... harden wanted to go to the nets, sure let's do him the big favor. Dipo wanted to move to South Beach, sure why not.
Harden carrying the Nets with all the injuries, playing great basketball, and a serious MVP candidate...oops.
We effed up royally Levert, Allen, picks and swaps is what we should have taken if werent going to deal w Morey Allen could have been flipped for 2 firsts
Rockets trying to fix their image with players post DMorey ... treating them like pawns cost a lot of guys to not want to sign here
