Or they could have just moved him into the starting lineup. But, regardless, they're now officially stuck with players that, according to you, they were sure weren't going to help them win a title. Which is why they elected to stick with them rather than turning them into a player that actually could help them win a title.
Wow. As pathetic as ever with your debate tactics I see.
Before you waste half a day writing a post about how me saying "wouldn't put them over the top" somehow means they couldn't help them win a title, let me save you some time. You're an idiot.
Lets forget you keep acting like they aren't saving money from Martin.
Lets forget you said there's no way Martin fills in as 6th man, and he did so quite well.
Lets forget Martin was never going to play 82 games, and yet he did, which is more than Harden.
Lets forget that when talking about the trade, you leave Lamb off to try to make it look worse.
Lets forget..... ****, lets just quit posting with you. Hows about that?
Not sure where you're finding that. I said he was a huge downgrade, and he was. And he sucked in the playoffs to boot. (Not that anyone was surprised by that.)
Well, technically it's true that he did manage to play more games than Harden, but only because the Thunder's season was 93 games long. During the regular season Harden played more games and 800+ more minutes (or, about an extra 20 games worth of time). However I did underestimate Kevin Martin's contract year heroics, as he managed to top 70 games for the third time in a nine year career.
You may need to learn to read. I actually did talk about Lamb, which you yourself admitted in an earlier post. But I shouldn't be shocked by your inability to make up your mind at this point.
You being an admin, while at the same time being such a shit poster comparable to the likes of doctordrizzy is why I seldom post these days, and why many have left this place for good.
Continue with your "Oh yea? I did say that actually! Put these 2 posts together, and cross reference with a post 1 year back and......" just shut the **** up already.
Honestly. Shut the **** up. Your what, 65 years old? And this is how you spend our days. Arguing, twisting words, never once admitting you're wrong. Just pathetic.
Spend lots of time on your reply. I won't be reading it. Be sure to fill it with lots of "King of the interwebz!" Which is funny, since no one argues how right they are harder than yourself.
1)harden turned down their offer so they were going to trade him by the deadline one way or another - if they'd waited until february things could have gotten really ugly internally and they would have gotten held up on the market value
2) the real question was serge v harden and they had 2 superlative wings so they picked serge - if you are going to gripe then gripe about serge plateauing/his lack of development - at least get it right
3) they got a stop gap in one year of Martin + cap alleviation, 2 lottery picks and Lamb - which is still a haul for a guy they werent going to keep one way or another (arguably more than the magic got for dwight) - if they'd waited until feb they would have gotten less; if they'd waited until this summer even less still
They got Toronto's lottery pick. There are no guarantees on the Houston pick, and given how well the Rockets played last year, and their current cap situation, there's nigh on a 0% chance that that future first falls anywhere outside the crapshoot section of the draft.
Second, go back to the start of the thread, my only criticism of the deal was that if OKC didn't convert the accumulated assets into a guy that could help put them over the top then it didn't look to be a good deal for them. So my criticism, now, after the fact, is that what they have to show for the trade is the right to overpay Martin and a mid first in a gawdawful draft. Everything else is pretty much filler (like former NBAer Jiri Welch in the old Antoine Walker for Raef LaFrentz deal).
As the protections on that pick are insane, that one actually works out even worse. About the only way to get that pick Dallas gave up in th Odom trade involve Howard signing there this summer and them getting back to 50 wins. On the bright side, if it worked out the guy they'd get at 25 next year will likely be better than the one they'll get at 12 this year.
Worst trade in history. Not only do you give up a 23 year old top 10 player but you killed your chances to compete now when you are on the verge of winning it all. They broke up a championship level team to save money. This is criminal.
Saying Harden wouldn't be Harden in Okc makes it worse. They saw James Harden every day. They should have known what level of player he was in reality.
Now they have another hole to fill because you can't go into next offseason plugging in Jeremy Lamb for KMart and not changing up Perkins/Ibaka. If Perkins can't help against Memphis, he is virtually useless.
Plus Jeremy Lamb turning into a championship level 3rd option in the next 2-3 seasons is iffy at best. Do people really see that happening after watching him in college? It would be damn near miraculous player development.
Their bigs are Ibaka, a now useless Perkins, an aging Collison and Thabeet.
They are literally going to need a miracle to recover from this Harden trade.
Saying Harden wouldn't be Harden in Okc makes it worse. They saw James Harden every day. They should have known what level of player he was in reality.
To me what makes it worse is that if they let the market set the rate he wouldn't be getting anything like what Houston's paying him, because as an RFA his max deal would be similar to the one Marc Gasol's sporting.
The part of the trade that I feel is going to kill the Thunder the most is they instead felt the need to keep Perkins or Ibaka over Harden. Its not what they got in return, but its who they chose to keep over him. Perkins is due almost 19 million for 2 more years! Even if they amnesty his ass, they have to pay his salary but they wouldn't have had the cap hit. Instead they chose to keep him over Harden.
Lamb right now is an unknown. He hasn't really had the chance to flourish so who knows what he will become in 2-3 years.
Martin in general, is a fools gold replacement. The dude gives some of the most empty statistics a player can put up while being as one dimensional as it gets.
With that said though, lets not act like the Thunder are in purgatory here. The team won the west's best record and had a horribly timed injury. It just happens that the best front court in the league exposed OKC's worst weakness. If they were going to trade Harden, they should have traded for front court help instead.
With that said though, lets not act like the Thunder are in purgatory here. The team won the west's best record and had a horribly timed injury. It just happens that the best front court in the league exposed OKC's worst weakness. If they were going to trade Harden, they should have traded for front court help instead.
I always assumed they made the best deal they could at the time in hopes of converting all their assets into a frontcourt player that would put them over the top. But for whatever reason Presti froze and gambled on Martin not being Martin and the Raptors doing nothing (and finishing with a bottom five record). That part just can't be justified by anyone whose IQ has three digits.
(Although in retrospect I guess I have to downgrade the trade because I always thought that the other #1 was coming from Houston rather than the conditional Dallas one which I'm pretty sure converts to a second and cash unless the Mavs finish outside the top 20.)
There is no cap space. And won't be unless they decide to let Durant Walk in a few years. As I said more than 500 responses go, I had no problems with the trade unless they did nothing after. Which they didn't.
Here's my two cents on it. Although what the Thunder got back didn't nearly make up for what they lost, you guys have to remember that there wasn't much they could do. It was either that or let Harden walk for nothing. The Thunder did get a great scorer out of it and some other players as well. It ain't much but it's something.
And Harden being traded is not the reason the Thunder lost this year. Come on now. Westbrooks injury blew any chance the Thunder had of winning, this should be a well known fact by now.
Here's my two cents on it. Although what the Thunder got back didn't nearly make up for what they lost, you guys have to remember that there wasn't much they could do. It was either that or let Harden walk for nothing. The Thunder did get a great scorer out of it and some other players as well. It ain't much but it's something.
And Harden being traded is not the reason the Thunder lost this year. Come on now. Westbrooks injury blew any chance the Thunder had of winning, this should be a well known fact by now.
Harden's turnovers are pretty much identical to Kobe's and Jrue Holiday, he's only slightly higher than Durant and Westbrook. In the top ten there are a lot of terrible players, like Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry and Lebron James. There are very few players who can play the role that Harden played this year without turning the ball over. When you're asking a guy to be your alpha and omega it can't turn out perfectly all the time. Harden seems to either have it or not from what I've seen, he's erratic and some games he's really terrible which distorts his stats as much as the games where his numbers are straight out of 2K13
It appears that Harden is 103rd in the NBA in Turnover Percentage, which gives you an idea of how much he's handling the ball.
Harden's turnovers are pretty much identical to Kobe's and Jrue Holiday, he's only slightly higher than Durant and Westbrook. In the top ten there are a lot of terrible players, like Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry and Lebron James. There are very few players who can play the role that Harden played this year without turning the ball over. When you're asking a guy to be your alpha and omega it can't turn out perfectly all the time.
It appears that Harden is 103rd in the NBA in Turnover Percentage, which gives you an idea of how much he's handling the ball.
Jrue Holiday also smoked Harden in the assist category, so go ahead and never compare them again. And Kobe? With all the nice things you've said about Kobe over the years, you're now comparing Harden to him in that light? That's hilarious.
I'm glad Chandler Parsons is only a good player when it suits peoples argument.
James Harden plays as a turnover prone ballhog who is one of the best scorers in the league when hes the #1 option. Debate all you want, but its not debatable.
You do understand 8 of the 10 guys you mentioned in your posts are point guards right? With much higher assist per game and assist to turnover ratio's right? And Lebron? He had 70 less turnovers, why are we even talking about him?
No.... What's really funny here is you guys walking face first into proving my point time and time again.
Who's #1, #4 and #5 on that list you just posted? Hey I know, lets put them all on the court at the same time. Lets also take their best post player offensively and defensively out of the equation. Brilliant. Why wouldn't the Thunder want that?
I think that you were caught making shit up that you could denounce as stupid. Even though you were the originator of the statement. Not that there should be any surprise in that. That's just SOP for the King of the Interwebz.
There's a hilarious exchange in the thread where you accused me of putting words in Sliccat's mouth because, and I quote "He said Martin was good coming off of screens, not shooting off them" (the post where you called me a "****ing Korean").
I still think it's fair to criticize OKC for this trade (and other moves/decisions that led to this trade), but too many people are using the Westbrook injury to justify your opinion and that's BS.
Well, at the start of the discussion I said that the Thunder probably made the best trade they could, but that I expected them to cash in the accumulated assets to find the third player that would take them past Miami.
I expect that what happened was that the Howard trade panicked Presti and he decided to stand pat instead, and it all blew up in his face when Westbrook got injured and the Thunder were forced to turn to a second year late draft pick as their second scoring option because Martin was busy playing like Martin. I'm not sure where they go from here.
Yea I mean they lost a top 5 (or at the very least top 10) player in the league, it should surprise nobody that they got outplayed and beat by a very good team. Not to mention Westbrook is one of if not the most durable players in the league whose injury was as freak of an injury as you'll see (borderline cheap shot). Criticizing the Thunder on those grounds is ridiculous.
I understand why they chose to get rid of Harden and keep their big man, but to me it was a mistake because the talent difference between Ibaka and Harden is so great. It's not ideal to have your three best players have similar and overlapping skill sets, but if you have three top ten players I think you lock them up and worry about moving one of them later if it fails. It's not like if they gave Harden the deal he was looking for they couldn't move him (or Westbrook) later on if they couldn't get over the hump.
It's much harder to acquire a talent like Harden than it is to replace Ibaka. That's where I criticize the Thunder. They were extremely quick to show Ibaka the big bucks and I think that's where they failed. If Ibaka was on the same level as Harden or even close, of course you keep the big man and the guy who does things Durant and Westbrook don't do rather than a guy so similar to them. But Ibaka isn't that caliber of a player.
They definitely should have allowed the market to set the rates on both guys. People like to point to the supermax deal that Harden got, but he was only eligible for it because he was in Houston, the Thunder could have had him for around 4/60.
You have to turn Harden into an impact player or at least several good rotation players. I doubt that the market for Martin is all that great, so you can keep him or replace. However Lamb is probably a bench player at most and I'd guess that the best that they could hope for out of the 12th pick this year would be Shane Larkin, but any way you slice it that isn't enough.
they got Dallas's 1st too - the real issue with the trade is not a Martin vs Harden comparison - it's a Harden vs Ibaka comparison that was ultimately the decision they made
They got a Dallas first that's top 20 protected until 2017. Unless Dallas suddenly dives into the lottery in 2018 while never climbing into the top ten from now until then, odds are that the first is filler. More useful as trade fodder than anything else.
One of the other criticisms was that losing Harden's playmaking was going to hurt Westbrook's game, by throwing all that responsibility on his shoulders. Let's see how it worked out in practise, first the overall numbers (and I'm using /min stats for scoring because we're going to compare overall to crunchtime performance)
Well, without Harden he was a less efficient shooter and scorer. Now let's look at crunchtime (last five minutes of regulation and overtime in close games)
So in crunchtime, once OKC's Big Three turned into a Big Two Westbrook's performance went to pot. He was a horrific shooter whose free throws couldn't get him back to average. Conclusion? They needed someone that could make plays for others, like Harden, and replacing him with a black hole made their other all star worse. Not sure what they do here. Ricky Ledo allegedly has a lottery promise, I'm assuming it's from OKC. But he's another long term project.
The bottom line is that Harden is worth one hell of a lot more than what they got in exchange. This is like 20 cents on the dollar no matter what. Even if they miraculously get some decent players out of those picks it isn't going to change the value of the picks themselves.
Harden is having an awesome season. Hopefully for his sake he has diversified his offensive game enough and can get out of the first round this year. He has yet to shoot better than 40% from the field for a series since he left OKC. Wesley Matthews made him look pretty bad last year.
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