Yeah you’re right, I don’t want to have that conversation either. To me Harden is an unbelievably effective offensive force. He can shoot, drive, pass etc. but without help from the refs, he wouldn’t be half the player he is. We see it every year in the playoffs, he goes missing or gives up. But he isn’t Durant who did the weakest mental move in the history of sports in my opinion. I think that’s also partially the reason why I’d prefer to see OKC beat GSW, Westbrook is his own beast and we won’t be having stupid conversations regarding ranking ATG’s if he was to win. Plus him getting revenge on Durant would be sweet.
Sorry, still not anywhere near Kobe’s lunch table. He probably does win MVP, funny enough another guy getting it pumped up by playing for ‘Antoni, but intelligent basketball fans will always know Haren isn’t and never will be on Kobe’s level. No titles yet for one, and in his only Finals he was garbage.
I don’t want OKC beating GSW, no way. That opens the door for a C Bags title if they get by the Cavs. I’d take Durant getting 6 rings over the C Bags getting even 1 more
I don't believe in or fear Boston at all. I think they are fool's gold and will get bounced in the playoffs again, Ainge will make more moves and they'll rinse and repeat. If they meet any of the top 4 western teams - GSW, HOU, SAS, OKC - in the final, they'll get slapped down. I'm sure Lebron will slap them down anyway.
This is actually the one season I think Cleveland is vulnerable. Their defense is horrible, Thomas is not himself, Love is out 8 weeks, LeBron might be checked out. It’s still possible the C Bags get Hayward back too. As far as Houston, don’t agree, THEY are fools gold to me, CP2 will find a way to get injured and/or still not make it far yet again, Leonard still isn’t right with no timetable for when he will be, and I don’t trust Melo on defense vs the C’s. Regardless, I don’t want them even having a chance, not even a little one, so I’ll take the Warriors in the finals again as insurance, because they’d beat the C Bags down if they got there, and if not, then they beat the Cavs down and LeBron adds another Finals L.
@svtzr Yeah, my bad in making it personal...and thanks for the clarification. I actually enjoyed our discussion and I wouldn't mind going to "battle" again as long as Barns doesn't send each of us to the corner haha. Seriously, you clearly are knowledgeable about those previous OKC teams and I will admit I didn't follow them as closely. But there is a perception that Clay is cheap and it comes from Harden himself when he said that the trade was definitely about the money. Considering that the main principle in that deal was Kmart, who ended up walking away in free agency the following summer, the deal ended up becoming Harden for Adams and Lamb. I like Adams, but yikes. That seems like bad management to me. Good folks of Seattle will tell you Clay penny pinches...or you can just ask Roberson himself while he recovers... The fact of the matter is Clay didn't want to pay for a maxed out Durant, Russ, Harden and Ibaka at the same time. The luxury tax penalties are more stringent now, than back then....so my argument is that if he wasn't willing to pay for a Finals roster of those 4 guys (coming off rookie deals), what makes him want to pay 3 true max players possibly coming off a 2nd round defeat in the playoffs? I also brought up Perkins for a reason, so let me clarify. They wanted to trade Perk rather than amnesty him. Why? Cause that means that once you amnesty him, his cap number still counts but it wouldn't affect luxury taxes if it breached past the tax apron. However the amnesty player still gets paid and that comes out of Clay's pocket. But in order to field a competitive unit, you still need to sign another player for an amnestied Perk and that means their contract is eligible to accumulate tax penalties. So Clay didn't want to amnesty Perk and then have the pressure to sign another player to replace him....cause luxury taxes. Instead, trading him would allow that cap number to come completely off the books and the new player, Kanter to ease them further below the tax line. It was reported that they would have traded for Brook Lopez, had he opted out of his player option, essentially making him an expiring deal. In that deal they also dumped Reggie Jackson before they had to pay him big money. You may think that's good management, but I think if you keep dumping talent to avoid paying them, then guess what, Durant gets unhappy and leaves. I'm sure people will bring up Randle and how we're trying to move off him to avoid paying him big money, but that's not accurate. We want to throw big money at the right players. Randle just becomes a cap casualty. Lastly, it true that you need luck and good health to keep making deep dives into the postseason. But one can also argue that if you were willing to spend to have a deep team full of talented players, then you can not only limit minutes to your key players, but you can also absorb an unforseen injury and take it in stride since the next man up is pretty damn good still. Clay's cheapness prevented a very talented OKC roster from being truly realized and as a Laker fan, I'm stoked about it. Cause it only further encourages me that he'll do the same damn thing this summer and PG will finally get to come home.
All good man, I enjoy the discussion! At the time when OKC had their young 4 players, they were willing to pay them. I think the reason it all played out the way it did is two-fold; - Harden disappeared in the final and if he hadn't, I fully believe he gets a max extension and resigns, probably changing the recent history of the NBA. - Presti seeing Harden disappear gets too cute and tries to pay Harden just underneath max, this, mixed with Harden wanting a bigger role is why he wants out. At the time of the trade, OKC management probably felt they could replace Harden with a 7m Kevin Martin who gave them everything Harden did for half the price, a good prospect in Lamb, two first round picks and a second. All for a 6th man (imagine trading Eric Gordon or Lou Will for that haul). I remember reading articles at the time saying how it wasn't so bad to let Harden go because of his poor finals performance and how efficient Kevin Martin was alongside 3 draft picks and a young prospect. To rehash, I don't think there was a specific call from Clay to cut costs per say or trade Harden, I think Presti just thought he was making a great trade for a 6th man. From memory (no idea how accurate it is), they would have saved roughly 4 million in their tax hit, which isn't some great saving - I just don't think Presti believed Harden was on the level of Durant and Westbrook. Which in hindsight he should rightly be blamed for as it was a career-defining mistake - but in real time it was hard to predict. I also believe Harden never becomes the player he is now on the bench with Durant and Westbrook in front of him - so there is that too. Your point on Perkins makes good sense and being a small market team surely impacts how they spend. But trading Perkins for Kanter and DJ Augustin was a heck of a move in my opinion. Perkins was so bad for them at the end there, they needed a backup PG with Reggie moving on and Kanter at the time was quite a good prospect averaging 14/8 off the bench. If Kanter ever developed a defensive game he would have been an All-Star, so I understand taking the risk - especially for Perkins who was a shell. Also they didn't dump Reggie Jackson, in your article, it even states that: "Jackson, 24, has expressed desire for a starting role, but with the inability to get it in Oklahoma City, his agent requested a trade. After the Thunder beat the Mavericks on Thursday night, OKC star Kevin Durant said of the trade: "He got what he wanted. You can't really (pausing) ... He got what he wanted." There was a lot of bad blood between Durant, Westbrook, and Reggie after that. I think your point about giving the right money to the right players is a great one. Perkins, Kanter, Waiters, Ibaka, Reggie Jackson, McDermott, so on and so forth, aren't the players to throw money at. It's the same mistake we made with Moz and Deng. And I applaud any organization who makes the right moves in who they give money too. Granted, it's very hard to predict how players will perform over a contract unless they are a top defender, microwave scorer or a superstar in general. I feel OKC has tried to do that, they offered Harden an extension, they offered the max to Durant, maxed out Adams and Oladipo, maxed out Westbrook, gave Roberson a multi-year mid-level type deal. These players all add wins. If Durant wasn't so weak minded and stayed in OKC, chances are they have a core of Durant, Westbrook and PG staring down the barrel of an epic WCF with Curry, Klay and Green. If we look at both those teams and the Spurs and try to learn how to construct teams that can compete in this environment. One thing holds true, their core is developed from the draft. We've made some great draft selections these last years. Just have to hope the players we have can develop into our own versions of top 20 players. I'm not sure how wise it is to trade them right now. I'm also not sure how wise it is to bank on our management signing multiple players in free agency when historically that has been the outlier and not the norm in the NBA.
Actually, I double checked Harden's max, which was 60m at the time for 4 years, he got an extension offer of 55.5m. I think the money thing is blown out of proportion a little bit personally. If Harden was happy as the 6th man, giving up 4.5m over 4 years isn't a tough pill to swallow. Look at KD giving up whatever he can. So it points to me that he probably just wanted to expand his role - and fair enough, he'll win MVP probably because he backed himself.
See Presti is a pretty good GM, but what makes it bad management is that with all their rookie talent, they frankly haven't done s*** with it. 1 Finals appearance. If Harden feels disrespected and wants to leave...If Reggie feels disrespected and wants to leave...If KD feels he can't win with that team and wants to leave...Then that kinda tells me its a poorly run ship. Presti just swings deals to keep that team afloat...Will give big money to players to field a competitive team convincing their MVPs, Durant and Russ, to reup. Once they do, they deal those large contracts away for players with team friendly deals that they can further exploit. Rinse, Recycle, Repeat. Durant fell for it once with his rookie extension, but then bailed. Harden wanted 4years/60. Clay offered 4years/52.5M. Harden was like really? They countered with 4years/55M and Harden was like still not 60M...then I'm out. He gets dealt to Houston where Morey gives him 5years/80M. Money talks. The crazy thing is if Clay was willing to pony up roughly 1.25M more per season, Harden woulda remained in OKC. Imho, that is the very definition of pinching pennies and Clay got burned for it. Last summer coming off a MVP campaign, Russ had a max extension on the table waiting, but he didn't sign it. He then got a lucrative Jordan brand deal, pretty much telling OKC, I got my bag, but now bring me a team that can compete. What makes Presti so good is that he dealt for essentially an expiring PG, by dumping the Dipo 4 year guaranteed deal (which was used to help convince Russ to sign his previous 3 year extension in 2016). So he brought in a namer, all while dumping possibly a bad and expensive contract. Clay keeps getting away with being cheap because Presti is so good at enabling him by making deals that keep buying his cheap a** some more outs. Still, Russ didn't sign. So they swing a deal for Melo, ignoring fit and chemistry, just so that they can bring in another name to convince Russ to re-up. And like a sucker...he does. I'm just hoping George sees Harden left disgruntled, Reggie leaft disgruntled and KD left disgruntled and thinks, yep this probably ain't the spot for me. Meanwhile all them dudes are flourishing at their new address... And so could he.
Okc really missing glue guy robertson, we have 1 in brewer...ill throw him in with clarkson for pg lol
Didn't PG talk to KD about OKC when he first got dealt and according to him nothing but praise about OKC from KD? So it sounds like OKC isn't the worst run management in the NBA. However I do agree Clay and Presti are all about saving money. That's why I don't see how they are willing to keep the trio of Russ, PG and Melo in the foreseeable future without being deep in the luxury tax hole. It's championship or bust for PG when it comes to staying in OKC
OK3 actually has an expiration date, that's summer of 2018. It really is just OK2 + 1. If Melo doesn't opt out for a cheaper price, they're royally screwed. Sent from my E6533 using Tapatalk
Well Durant's over here saying one thing and @KDTrey5 is over there saying another...someone's lying. Durantulame said all the right things about OKC and then deuced out on them in free agency. George ain't any different when he was saying how he wants to bring a championship to Indy. Which is why all the stuff he says while he's in OKC, doesn't really bug me, cause I believe most of it is just lip service. As we've seen with Zo, these athletes are one way in front of the media and completely different with each other. I'm sure KD gave PG the real low down, but no way is George going to say that to the media, while he's in an OKC uni.
Ideally, we're hoping for two things in tonight's game. 1. For PG to have a great game while everybody in his team to suck. 2. For the Lakers to win in a complete team effort. Sent from my E6533 using Tapatalk
Make sure you're not looking for the game "tonight". 11AM baby. BI at the point and Hulk in again instead of Ennis.
