James Harden rejects OKC Offer / *Traded* to Rockets

[RaptorFan]

i love watching harden play, especially when he's talking shit but i hope i'm wrong when i getting a tmac 2.0 feel from this dude. good talent, but not enough to take the rockets far into the playoffs.

 

[JMcCurry08]

37 points
12 assists
6 rebounds
4 steals

also had 4 turnovers

 

[sammyvine]

i love watching harden play, especially when he's talking shit but i hope i'm wrong when i getting a tmac 2.0 feel from this dude. good talent, but not enough to take the rockets far into the playoffs.

Eh that's a terrible comparison.

Tmac is one of the greatest talents in basketball history imo on raw, god given gifts. Harden will never match up to him on talent and maybe even peak (despite tmac not getting out of the 1st round) If he had the Kobe Bryant dedication Tmac would have been of the greatest players ever. Add Vince Carter to this equation as well.

Tmac didnt take the Houston far due to injury and lack of dedication imo. It is not because he wasnt good enough. He is no Joe Johnson.

 

[Jack Brickman]

FIRE PRESTI!

 

[JSS2306]

FIRE PRESTI!

Honestly, it's not his fault. How could he match that offer? People will lob blame his way but you have 3 guys you know are superstars and there's no getting around that extra 25 mil than the predicted 60 mil resign offer from last year and this before Hardens piss poor performance in the finals.

25 mil buys a lot in this league and the Houston Rockets just so happen to be the team that set themselves up for such an offer. It was more a poor decision to extend to Westbrook than it was to not match Houston.

It was a gamble and the gamble won't pay off IMO. You have a guy in Westbrook who will put this on his shoulders and shoot himself and this club out of any chance of a championship. OKC is now in such a position that they will have to make some sort of trade to improve their bench or starting line up. It's not looking good for OKC.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Honestly, it's not his fault. How could he match that offer? People will lob blame his way but you have 3 guys you know are superstars and there's no getting around that extra 25 mil than the predicted 60 mil resign offer from last year and this before Hardens piss poor performance in the finals.

25 mil buys a lot in this league and the Houston Rockets just so happen to be the team that set themselves up for such an offer. It was more a poor decision to extend to Westbrook than it was to not match Houston.

It was a gamble and the gamble won't pay off IMO. You have a guy in Westbrook who will put this on his shoulders and shoot himself and this club out of any chance of a championship. OKC is now in such a position that they will have to make some sort of trade to improve their bench or starting line up. It's not looking good for OKC.

Okay, here are the problems with what you're saying:

1. I was joking. You all need to learn to chill out.

2. There was no way that OKC could have offered Harden 80 million like Houston. It was physically impossible because Oklahoma City already gave their five-year "superstar" contract to Westbrook. However, and this is a big however, Harden wasn't asking OKC for 80 million. He wanted to stay there and knew the most they could give him was a four-year max deal.

3. The money Harden's side was demanding was reportedly about six or seven million more than Presti was offering. Not six or seven per year. Six or seven over the life of the contract.

4. The team very easily could have waited until next summer, amnestied Perkins (who sucks, by the way) and his dead weight eight million dollar contract, and then inked Harden to a four-year max deal.

They traded Harden because they were utterly unwilling to give him that extra 1.5 million a year despite the fact that he was 23 years old and already one of the best thirty players in the NBA. That's absurd. You don't trade a you star player when you don't even know what his ceiling is. You don't trade the glue guy on a team that was three wins shy of winning the Finals less than six months earlier. You just don't. While I don't think Presti should be fired (seriously, guy, take a joke), he made a huge mistake in picking the corpse of Kendrick Perkins (who had a single digit PER last year, mind you) over a 23-year-old star with a ludicrously bright future who everyone on the team loved.

And those are, by the way, the types of moves that get GMs fired. Not immediately, but in the future.

 

[KB]

34-11-5 with limited practice in his system and with his teammates. Still sure he wasn't worth all of that money?

One game does not prove he is worth an 80 million dollar contract

Come back after 40 games

 

[Jack Brickman]

One game does not prove he is worth an 80 million dollar contract

Come back after 40 games

OKC could have had him for a lot cheaper than that, though.

 

[KB]

OKC could have had him for a lot cheaper than that, though.

From whats been reported, will never really be able to say how accurate the reports on $ with OKC were imo

 

[JawJuttinAsasin]

Okay, here are the problems with what you're saying:

1. I was joking. You all need to learn to chill out.

2. There was no way that OKC could have offered Harden 80 million like Houston. It was physically impossible because Oklahoma City already gave their five-year "superstar" contract to Westbrook. However, and this is a big however, Harden wasn't asking OKC for 80 million. He wanted to stay there and knew the most they could give him was a four-year max deal.

3. The money Harden's side was demanding was reportedly about six or seven million more than Presti was offering. Not six or seven per year. Six or seven over the life of the contract.

4. The team very easily could have waited until next summer, amnestied Perkins (who sucks, by the way) and his dead weight eight million dollar contract, and then inked Harden to a four-year max deal.

They traded Harden because they were utterly unwilling to give him that extra 1.5 million a year despite the fact that he was 23 years old and already one of the best thirty players in the NBA. That's absurd. You don't trade a you star player when you don't even know what his ceiling is. You don't trade the glue guy on a team that was three wins shy of winning the Finals less than six months earlier. You just don't. While I don't think Presti should be fired (seriously, guy, take a joke), he made a huge mistake in picking the corpse of Kendrick Perkins (who had a single digit PER last year, mind you) over a 23-year-old star with a ludicrously bright future who everyone on the team loved.

And those are, by the way, the types of moves that get GMs fired. Not immediately, but in the future.

Pretty much my point of view as well. Only thing I disagree with is that OKC could not give him the max deal. I think they absolutely could have and then traded him a few years in if the payroll was becoming unpalatable to management. The very potent penalties do not add up until a team spends a few years in the luxury tax penalty.

Regardless, I think there is some question on if Presti was actually to blame. It seems to me that his hand was forced by management.

 

[Chris]

*remembers when people didn't want to go after Harden or give up Varejao in hypothetical, unrealistic trade scenarios*

 

[Zog]

I honestly would have looked into trading Westbrook and getting a point guard back that is more of a distributor and less of a scorer. If you have Durant and Harden on the wings and a true PG to set them up instead of trying to score all of the time like Westbrook, I think you would have a much more flowing offense with much better ball movement.

I like the suggestion above the best of keeping all three of them and getting rid of Perkins at the end of the year so that you can afford all three.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Pretty much my point of view as well. Only thing I disagree with is that OKC could not give him the max deal. I think they absolutely could have and then traded him a few years in if the payroll was becoming unpalatable to management. The very potent penalties do not add up until a team spends a few years in the luxury tax penalty.

Regardless, I think there is some question on if Presti was actually to blame. It seems to me that his hand was forced by management.

I was saying they couldn't give him a five-year deal. And they couldn't. Teams are limited in how many five-year "superstar" deals they can give out now. The Thunder gave theirs to Westbrook. Harden was only eligible for a four-year max deal, which is sixty million.

 

[JawJuttinAsasin]

I was saying they couldn't give him a five-year deal. And they couldn't. Teams are limited in how many five-year "superstar" deals they can give out now. The Thunder gave theirs to Westbrook. Harden was only eligible for a four-year max deal, which is sixty million.

Ahh, I was not aware of that. Ty.

 

[JSS2306]

Okay, here are the problems with what you're saying:

1. I was joking. You all need to learn to chill out.

2. There was no way that OKC could have offered Harden 80 million like Houston. It was physically impossible because Oklahoma City already gave their five-year "superstar" contract to Westbrook. However, and this is a big however, Harden wasn't asking OKC for 80 million. He wanted to stay there and knew the most they could give him was a four-year max deal.

3. The money Harden's side was demanding was reportedly about six or seven million more than Presti was offering. Not six or seven per year. Six or seven over the life of the contract.

4. The team very easily could have waited until next summer, amnestied Perkins (who sucks, by the way) and his dead weight eight million dollar contract, and then inked Harden to a four-year max deal.

They traded Harden because they were utterly unwilling to give him that extra 1.5 million a year despite the fact that he was 23 years old and already one of the best thirty players in the NBA. That's absurd. You don't trade a you star player when you don't even know what his ceiling is. You don't trade the glue guy on a team that was three wins shy of winning the Finals less than six months earlier. You just don't. While I don't think Presti should be fired (seriously, guy, take a joke), he made a huge mistake in picking the corpse of Kendrick Perkins (who had a single digit PER last year, mind you) over a 23-year-old star with a ludicrously bright future who everyone on the team loved.

And those are, by the way, the types of moves that get GMs fired. Not immediately, but in the future.

I have no idea why you're telling me to chill out or why you posted this.

Let me know when you figure it out though. I'm still crunching numbers.