iamshadowlark
Banned
They paid Ibaka and Perkins instead.
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2013-14 NBA Oct-Nov Season |OT| They can't hide the championship banners Forever
- Thread starter reilo
- Start date
I will tell you how: When he would have started after Westbrook went down last season.
Hint: No team can stay injury free forever. A player as talented as Harden would have his proper value recognized eventually.
The funny thing is that if they end up losing Durant after all of this, which seems increasingly likely, the value of that franchise is going to go down the toilet for the foreseeable future. They'll just be another small market middling team that never goes anywhere and never spends enough to really contend.
Rodeo Clown
All aboard! The Love train!
All NBA owners have more than enough to pay the luxury tax, so I don't like that excuse. Except for the Buss family, owning a basketball team isn't anybody's primary business and they can write off losing money on their little basketball team anyway.
Plus, with playoff revenue, it's a wash anyway.
Even Glen Taylor paid the luxury tax for a couple years to try and get the Wolves over.
The luxury tax is far more severe now, no one wants to pay it except Prokhorov, and we'll see how long that lasts.
The real mistake was tying up so much money in Ibaka and Perkins.
Avoiding the repeater is scaring every team except the Nets from getting into the luxury tax until absolutely necessary.
And I can fully admit that paying Perk that kind of money was risky (and turned out to be a big mistake), but I again encourage everyone here to read this article:
http://dailythunder.com/2013/05/should-the-thunder-amnesty-kendrick-perkins/
What will it take for you to finally turn on your ownership? It's okay to hate your owner. Ask the Clippers. I'd mention the Knicks but I think they secretly like it.
When they decide to move the team to Wichita because of tax breaks.
Does MJ make much money off his other businesses? If not then we can put him in that category as well.
The worst part of the Harden trade isn't necessarily that it happened (though that was pretty bad) it's that people(not really talking about this thread) are still trying to justify it a year later and still use the same tired flawed arguments. No, I don't want to hear about how the team improved without Harden, if anything that makes the trade look worse in hindsight.
Bill Simmons says some incredibly silly or stupid things some(many)times but he nailed this one from the getgo. The trade was stupid, cheap, reckless, and possibly cost the team a years-long dynasty.
Bill Simmons says some incredibly silly or stupid things some(many)times but he nailed this one from the getgo. The trade was stupid, cheap, reckless, and possibly cost the team a years-long dynasty.
Rodeo Clown
All aboard! The Love train!
Doesn't he still make a ton of money every year from Nike? But yeah, that's true, I guess owning the Hornets is his primary thing. That and golf.
I think Bennett is a massive tool and is probably greedy and horrible... Hell, I thought he was before the Harden trade. The way he got the team was conniving and underhanded in and of itself.
But I'm not going to completely condemn them until we're preparing for KD's contract year in 2 years. If we're not doing everything in our power to put together a contender (including going into the tax) to convince him to stay, then I'll be in front of their offices burning Clay Bennett in effigy.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
You can not like the excuse all you want but that's why it was done. OKC didn't want to give Harden a max deal and go into the luxury tax so they traded him for "long term flexibility".
Was it a good decision? I don't know yet. The Harden we see now isn't the OKC Harden, he obviously had to share the ball with Westbrook and Durant. But the Thunder traded away a superstar to keep Ibaka and Perkins...I'm not sure if that was worth it. They haven't replaced his scoring or play-making ability off the bench which will continue to be an issue.
He was a bench player in name only, just like Jason Terry.
Dominican Power
Member
The new CBA is absolutely trash. NBA players need to get with baseball players' representation.
I honestly don't think Scott Brooks is a very good coach.
Squall ASF
Member
Our tank's engine has finally started. On the other hand, we nearly beat OKC in OK without Dragic playing much of the game. We aren't as good at tanking as originally thought, but if Dragic misses time I expect we'll lose. I will say it's a lot more fun watching hungry young players play and especially Bledsoe and Plumblee. All the moreso when Dragic is on the court at the same time.
The Knicks would be completely screwed up regardless of the CBA.
Well I mean, you could say that the role he had coming off the bench is a perfectly capable one that helps the team and I wouldn't argue against that, but I don't think that's the only direction that roster could have gone in (especially if he improved the way he did in Houston). I just think categorizing Harden as a "bench scorer" when talking about what OKC lost is highly disingenuous and obfuscates the actual value of what they gave up. They didn't give up a "bench scorer", they gave up a franchise SG.
Billy hunter was a POS.
YES!
I didn't watch the game but in the one video on Daily Thunder it looks like he is physically 100%. Such a beast.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
Bu..bu..but they're rushing him back!
You really think they would've started him and brought Thabo off the bench? The second unit wouldn't have been able to score and it doesn't matter who starts the game. Most of the time Harden was on the floor in crunch time.
Yankees fan, ladies and gentleman.
Harden was fantastic in his role coming off the bench and dominating the opponents' second unit. It's the same formula SA used with Ginobili for years, except Harden got too good (and was too ambitious as an individual player) for it to work money-wise while keeping Ibaka too.
While nobody thought of him as a typical bench scorer, his trade value was undeniably hurt because of his very specific role on a near-championship squad.
He was unproven as a first option, and that likely would have remained the case even if he had become a starter. He was still playing starters' minutes, but he still would've taken on a tertiary role to KD and YNB even if he had eventually become our starter at the 2.
Yeah, he looks good.TylerD said:
It'll be very interesting to see how this team evolves toward the middle of the season. Brooks is experimenting a lot with different lineups--Adams, PJ3 and (to a lesser extent) Lamb have gotten quite a bit more run than I anticipated.
Also, Perk is salty that a 20 year-old rookie is outplaying him.
curlyfriski
Banned
So the Clippers are first in offensive efficiency...and last in defensive efficiency. Good thing they're paying DeAndre Jordan all that money.
jordan0386
Member
Dominican Power
Member
The Rangers still suck. Free Beltre.
jordan brand?
MorisUkunRasik
Member
Harden was unproven as a 1st option and no one knew how well he would play when the majority of his minutes were against starters. That much is true.
There was much talk about it here.
The foolish part was getting 1 year of KMart, Lamb and Adams for A 23 year old Manu Ginobli.
They could have showcased him the following season in prep for a trade. It was incredibly dumb and shortsighted to sell while his stock was at its all time low.
Indefensible.
There was much talk about it here.
The foolish part was getting 1 year of KMart, Lamb and Adams for A 23 year old Manu Ginobli.
They could have showcased him the following season in prep for a trade. It was incredibly dumb and shortsighted to sell while his stock was at its all time low.
Indefensible.
Let's wait for things to settle a bit before we call what OKC got in the trade garbage.
Lamb and Adams have both been promising. If we get a less expensive yet still effective sixth man in Lamb and our center for the future of the franchise (plus Abrines, one of the top young scorers in Europe and whoever we get for the still-unused Dallas pick), that's not a bad return.
Trust me, I wish we would've held Houston's feet to the fire and made them take Perk (or at least traded him to the East), but we still don't know how this trade has worked out on OKC's end. I'd pay $1000 to get a definitive recounting of how the Harden negotiations/trade talks went. So much of what we're arguing about assumes things that we just don't know.
Memphis looked incredibly foolish when they traded Pau away to the Lakers, and it ended up working out for them. Same with the Magic and Dwight.
Lamb and Adams have both been promising. If we get a less expensive yet still effective sixth man in Lamb and our center for the future of the franchise (plus Abrines, one of the top young scorers in Europe and whoever we get for the still-unused Dallas pick), that's not a bad return.
Trust me, I wish we would've held Houston's feet to the fire and made them take Perk (or at least traded him to the East), but we still don't know how this trade has worked out on OKC's end. I'd pay $1000 to get a definitive recounting of how the Harden negotiations/trade talks went. So much of what we're arguing about assumes things that we just don't know.
Memphis looked incredibly foolish when they traded Pau away to the Lakers, and it ended up working out for them. Same with the Magic and Dwight.
BULLSHIT. That's why he was the highest scoring sixth man of the year in how long? He even closed your games for you. I'm sure this is what presti and the gang were trying to do when they kept harden on the bench to keep his value down.
Future PhaZe
Member
It's really just a matter of how quickly Lamb and Adams can develop before Durants contract is up.
They've got two years to become dependable playoff contributers otherwise Durats a lock to leave.
They've got two years to become dependable playoff contributers otherwise Durats a lock to leave.
curlyfriski
Banned
Defense is more than one-on-one, and they gave up 116 to the Lakers too.
Xplatformer
Member
Warriors vs. 76ers
Cant wait.
Warriors have beaten two average teams. I want to see what the dub squad can do against the #1 ranked team in the league ( Team has beaten Chicago and Miami)
Warriors!!!
Cant wait.
Warriors have beaten two average teams. I want to see what the dub squad can do against the #1 ranked team in the league ( Team has beaten Chicago and Miami)
Warriors!!!
Red Blaster
Member
lakers people are beating up on gondo as a way to divert from the unrepentant catastrophe that was the dwight howard trade for them
if kd leaves then ynb might well be traded/"injured" and okc can at least bottom out, the lakers are on the fast track to becoming hawks west for the next 5 years
if kd leaves then ynb might well be traded/"injured" and okc can at least bottom out, the lakers are on the fast track to becoming hawks west for the next 5 years
Harden and Ibaka were fighting too. Harden tried to put the moves on Serge's lady. Jason Kidd vs Jim Jackson 2.0.
MorisUkunRasik
Member
You'd have to get back what you gave just for it to be a wash. If Adams becomes a premiere big man (lol), I think that'd be a win. But if Adams busts, then Lamb would need to be a top 5 SG.
And pls, Pau leaving Memphis and Dwight leaving ORL wasn't nearly as bad.
Mem was ass without Pau and middling with him, Dwight was forcing his way out. All 3 were lopsided trades, but as of right now OKC got the worst package out of those 3. Kwame Brown would at least be useful in OKC.
OKC was just in the finals and for some reason Harden was down to stay in OKC and be a 6th man cause of Brooks dumbass. They screwed up a dream scenario.
And pls, Pau leaving Memphis and Dwight leaving ORL wasn't nearly as bad.
Mem was ass without Pau and middling with him, Dwight was forcing his way out. All 3 were lopsided trades, but as of right now OKC got the worst package out of those 3. Kwame Brown would at least be useful in OKC.
OKC was just in the finals and for some reason Harden was down to stay in OKC and be a 6th man cause of Brooks dumbass. They screwed up a dream scenario.
lol I'm sure if you keep telling yourself this it'll eventually be true. Stern has one last lottery to rig.
The lottery is in May, and Stern retires in February, Dimwitus.
Red Blaster
Member
moreover that implies that the lakers actually have patience with developing a rookie when kupchak and jimmy boy are far more interested in fasttracking it to being competitive soon with kobe being old as fuck
hint: it took 3 seasons for kevin durant to be a star in the nba and he was by far the most polished college player coming out the last 5 years
hint: it took 3 seasons for kevin durant to be a star in the nba and he was by far the most polished college player coming out the last 5 years
Never said he'd be commissioner in may. No one leaves an organization that his served for 30 years without any "connections". Blazers in the meantime will keep on drafting "odens"
MorisUkunRasik
Member
MorisUkunRasik
Member
That's the most likely outcome. We'll be 9 seeds til Kobe's done.
Then we have to get lucky in the draft to avoid being Charlotte West.
Well, Kobe is always striving to be like MJ, so him running a franchise into the ground is the only logical next step.
Should be a great game. I'm pretty hyped for it.
Zeus Molecules
illegal immigrants are stealing our air
got to agree with this as well. We all knew here at least that is was a horrible trade and the fact they didn't even keep Kmart makes it worse.