James Harden rejects OKC Offer / *Traded* to Rockets

GCCSteel said:

Kyrie/Waiters/Gee/TT/Varejao will get us a top 5-10 draft pick and we can move Varejao for more.

Kyrie/Harden/Gee/TT/Zeller would be late lottery or MAYBE playoffs with no AV to trade and lose the pick next year.

No thanks. I think Waiters has the potential to be as good as Harden long term and we will be bad enough to accumulate some more talent until he matures. Slow and easy at first.

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besides the obvious glaring deficiencies in that article, there's also the little matter of whether or not harden would have even entertained signing a max deal with cleveland so as to facilitate the trade anyway.

kidduck said:

The Cavs could have offered more than Rockets for James Harden
Published: Sunday, November 04, 2012

By Jim Ingraham
JIngraham@News-Herald.com
@jitribeinsider

How did James Harden end up in Houston and not Cleveland?

Blah blah blah...omitting the rest of the article to save space.

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Look, I would have loved for the Cavs to get Harden. However, it just wasn't realistic. Say we had given up what the article stated: Waiters, Varejao, and two of our own first-rounders. What would that have left us with? Kyrie, Harden, Gee, Thompson, Zeller, Miles, Casspi, and a bunch of bench players barely fit to wear an NBA uniform. It would have left us with a team that probably wouldn't have been able to make the playoffs, only we'd have two years coming up (presumably 2012 and 2014) where we were unable to add talent to the team via the draft because we lacked our own first-rounder.

Sure, we'd still have the LAL/Miami pick, but I highly doubt we're going to add a blue-chipper near the end of the first round.

And sure, we'd have Kyrie and Harden, but we'd have almost no remaining assets and limited draft picks with which to get better. All this would leave us with is free agency, and we know how easy it is to get star-caliber free agents to come to Cleveland.

This just wasn't realistic for the Cavs.

What a stupid article. Waiters may be just as good as Harden in a few years. Has Harden ever had 7 3's in a game?

Why not keep our assets, keep the cap space, and grow as a team? If we use all of that to get Harden we have nothing left and have put all our assets and cap space into one player.


Plus I still dont think he is worth the max. Houston is off to a hot start, lets wait and see where they are by February or maybe in year 3 of their team when Harden has the max, Asik is getting $15 mil and Lin is getting $15 mil.

I think he was worth the max probably, but now it is hard to say let's throw in Waiters. 2 picks is too much when you need to rebuild.

Mdog1 said:

We just have to pray to whatever gods each individual on this board may believe in that he can be healthy atleat until the all star break, and then the trade may happen. Hell Andy could make the all star team this year (coach's vote...), and then his value will go up even more. The thing with Andy is it is no guarantee that he'll even play 30 games.

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While we are asking gods for things, we might as well throw in a request for a Perkins season ending injury.

BDaddy said:

What a stupid article. Waiters may be just as good as Harden in a few years. Has Harden ever had 7 3's in a game?

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No, but Bill Walker has.

B3team said:

While we are asking gods for things, we might as well throw in a request for a Perkins season ending injury.

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We don't want to get greedy man. Perkins value is already low enough.

BDaddy said:

What a stupid article. Waiters may be just as good as Harden in a few years. Has Harden ever had 7 3's in a game?

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sigh...wish this weren't actually a serious comment.

Henry Tuttle said:

No, but Bill Walker has.

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lolol a+

Harden's shooting percentages have tanked and his turnovers have increased.

He's still a really good player, but not a max player. Houston still needs at least one superstar- a guy better than Harden- to make everything work.

InBoobieWeTrust said:

Harden's shooting percentages have tanked and his turnovers have increased.

He's still a really good player, but not a max player. Houston still needs at least one superstar- a guy better than Harden- to make everything work.

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Well, he's gone from passing the ball to Kevin Durant to passing the ball to Jeremy Lin. That's a major downgrade.

I disagree that he isn't a max player, though. He's one of the best two-guards in the league and easily a top 25 or 30 talent (you could certainly make a case for top 20). If that's not a max player, what is?

There's only a handful of players that are max players and Harden is not one....I question whether Westbrook was worth that as well on that team ?? Transcending players that can carry a team deep into a playoff run and lead a franchise are max players.... Giving players like Harden, Love, Deron etc... max contracts is just stupid... Giving Harden max cash and considering him a max guy is similar to the Hawks giving Joe Johnson one 6 or 7 years ago... As a franchise you're going nowhere and more than likely will find yourself in that horrible middle of the pack spot that can kill a franchise for a decade plus...

Nice player, complimentary type of player who can be a major contributor to a championship caliber team, but cannot lead a team to a title...

The way the NBA is setup now, guys like Tim Hardaway, Glen Rice, Larry Johnson, Derrick Coleman, Latrell Sprewell, Jimmy Jackson etc... would all be max players...

InBoobieWeTrust said:

Harden's shooting percentages have tanked and his turnovers have increased.

He's still a really good player, but not a max player. Houston still needs at least one superstar- a guy better than Harden- to make everything work.

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Harden is still incredibly efficient at .574 TS% and 28.4 USG while being assisted on only 30% of his shots. These are exceptional numbers but obviously not on the level of Lebron and Durant.

So, he is certainly not worth the "max contract" if that is your criteria, but I think it is a pretty interesting and complicated argument of just where that cutoff is. Harden is a top 10-15 player entering his prime. To me, it is overly stringent to disqualify him.

And certainly Houston needs another superstar, but all teams need multiple superstars. I don't think that has anything to do with how much Harden should be payed.

JawJuttinAsasin said:

Harden is still incredibly efficient at .574 TS% and 28.4 USG while being assisted on only 30% of his shots. These are exceptional numbers but obviously not on the level of Lebron and Durant.

So, he is certainly not worth the "max contract" if that is your criteria, but I think it is a pretty interesting and complicated argument of just where that cutoff is. Harden is a top 10-15 player entering his prime. To me, it is overly stringent to disqualify him.

And certainly Houston needs another superstar, but all teams need multiple superstars. I don't think that has anything to do with how much Harden should be payed.

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When your team needs another player who is better than you to be a title contender, I wouldn't consider you worth a max contract. IF your team needs another player on the same level, or a little worse, you're worth the max deal.

Now, situations lend themselves to people getting overpaid sometimes. I don't think Bosh is worth a max deal, but it wasn't a bad idea for Miami to sign him, but it would have been terrible if another team signed him as their top player. I actually don't think it would have been too bad of an idea for OKC to extend him(though I think their deal was too good to pass up), but Houston giving up the farm to pay him a max deal was, IMO, a really bad and desperate move by a normally analytic and objective guy in Morey.

I wouldnt blame harden. the rockets just need to grow a bit for right now.