Warriors Feared Tax In Declining Trade For James Harden

We are so lucky to have gotten Harden. We would still be a team with no direction without him

 

Klay Thompson and a pick for Harden?! Golden State you don goofed.

 

While imagining that, imagine a Thompson / Durant / Westbrook trio.

Scary just as much.

 

WHatevs!!!! We got em, history has been made.

 

Thompson is not a Big 3 type guy.

 

To be honest you can understand the Warriors not wanting to pay the lux tax. For one thing, the main reason Harden was being shopped was because OKC didn't want to pay the lux tax either.

The real LULz came from the Wizards who didn't do a Harden-Beal trade straight up.

 

wtf??

 

But OKC were also only using him as a 6th man so it didn't make sense for them to pay that type of tax for a 6th man.

GSW could have been elite.

 

Why are you having this reaction? Beal for Harden is what OKC wanted; Wiz said no.

 

The consensus on the GSW forum seems to be that it's a bull**** rumor, for reasons similar to what Clutch said. I doubt it too honestly.

 

You forgot one thing that really got OKC to make the deal for Houston. Jeremy Lamb. OKC have a player in Kevin Martin, an expiring, a veteran, and a lethal instant offense that they need to replace Harden's scoring off the bench. So they have plenty of options to do with Kevin Martin after this season, which I think Kevin will resign with OKC for a reasonable price.

Plus the Rockets gave them a SG for the future, Jeremy Lamb, a lengthy guard who's very athletic and have a good shooting touch and is bagging a lot of potential. So instead of Klay Thompson alone, OKC got a player who can come in and score right away along with bringing veteran experience, a rookie wing player who has the potential to fill that role later and also a guarantee lottery pick along with another first round pick and a 2nd round pick.

I don't know but that's a pretty darn good deal that Houston had on the table for OKC. Klay Thompson is nice with a 1st round pick, but Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, guarantee lottery pick, 1st round pick and a 2nd round pick is just too enticing to pass up.

Also teams really like having a guarantee lottery pick. That way, they can actually use it as an asset, or draft the player of their choice. Having a few draft picks is very valuable nowadays, especially when OKC often make smart drafts.

 

I heard reports that OKC also wanted Parsons in the trade as well, Morey said no way.

 

its not ridiculous. i've told this story several times, my friend is a hs ref he reffed harden at fonde during the lockout, and harden is the only player he talked about.

a lot of people knew harden's skill, westbrook probably should have been the sixth man in retrospect although it doesn't matter they made it to the Finals

presti and the rest of the league knew harden was a max player, he simply kept the wrong player

 

i doubt it. it's not like Harden came out of nowhere and broke out in the way Jermaine O'Neal broke out after swapping teams. all star level SG / "Manu clone" was a common opinion of Harden, other than some bandwagoners bashing him for bad Finals games. So I don't see much room for Presti to misjudge in this case.

More likely, he considered chemistry impact and he decided that Harden is a safer trade. Also, it's not clear who's going to be the better player of the two yet.

I was much more stunned that either of them of traded. I would've bet a lot of money that no trade would happen and that they'd amnesty Perkins or take a tax hit instead, especially considering how profitable they are.

But I guess a cheap owner is the worst form of cancer.

 

Seriously? Presti was willing to trade Harden straight up for Klay Thompson or Bradley Beal?

Rockets gave up too much compared to what trades the Thunder had on the table. Morey should have called Presti's bluff. Did not need to throw in the Toronto draft pick.

 

It's not straight up, they wanted picks in return.

 

Bradley Beal was a current top 3 pick.

Klay was coming off a very solid rookie year and he was getting a ton of hype (Reggie Miller comparisons? Klay doesn't have Reggie's swagger and nastiness so i was skeptical but those comparisons were there and they had some legit points).

Take away the Raptors pick (the main asset in the Rockets' offer), and it doesn't compare.

 

Basketball reasons...

 

With both dominating the ball, one of the two will drop by 10 points per game. Not much different than what you are getting from Lin and harden. Curry's ankles are made of glass, he's a walking liability anytime he steps on the court.