LOL at Jordo's avatar. Fits him perfectly.

jordo212000;1306878 wrote:
P.s. I thought OKC controlled him this year and next?

Restricted free agent after the season, and Presti made it clear that they won't offer the max.

If they waited until after the season to trade him before losing him there's no freaking way they get a package similar to the one the Rockets gave them.

From what I read earlier, to give Harden the max, OKC was going to have to let Maynor go after the season and amnesty Perk OR face the luxury tax and the team did not want to do either so they traded Harden.

lhslep134;1306913 wrote:Restricted free agent after the season, and Presti made it clear that they won't offer the max.

If they waited until after the season to trade him before losing him there's no freaking way they get a package similar to the one the Rockets gave them.

This, plus coupled with his finals performance, made it easier to pull the trigger.

SportsAndLady;1306238 wrote:^^Can't really fault Harden though, if you're confident someone will give you a max deal, why wouldn't you leave and add an extra 8 MILLION (I know it sounds small when you compare 52 mill to 60 mill, but it's still a shit ton of money and a huge difference in the contract) to your net worth?

I think it's a good deal for both teams as getting a young Jeremy Lamb can turn out to be a huge asset if he turns out to be pretty good. I just don't know if a scorer (K Mart) is what OKC needs though, which is my only concern w/ this trade.

No income tax in Texas either.

Don't think OKC is as good now as they were 3 days ago, but Lamb and the picks could make this the steal of the century.

j_crazy;1306957 wrote:
Don't think OKC is as good now as they were 3 days ago

I disagree. Clearly Harden is the best player in this deal and IMO a top 25 for sure and arguably a top 20 player.

But it's the ancillary moves that are the reason I like the trade. With Maynor coming back from injury, getting rid of Cook frees up the Thunder to feature more Maynor/Westbrook backcourts that, when paired with Martin/Lamb if he turns out to be a good player, is not much of a downgrade. I guess it's not that I disagree that OKC isn't as good as they were 3 days ago, it's that IF they are worse, I think its a negligible difference.

Assumption on my part...

PG-Westbrook/Maynor/Jackson
SG-Sefolosha/Martin/Lamb/Liggins
SF-Durant/Lamb
PF-Ibaka/Jones
C-Perkins/Collison/Thabeet

Houston
PG-Lin/Douglas/Machado/Livingston
SG-Harden/Delfino/Cook
SF-Parsons/Jones/Hayward
PF-Patterson/Morris/White
C-Asik/Moitejunas/Aldrich

^^^
Yuck. Houston isn't very good.

jordo212000;1306998 wrote:^^^
Yuck. Houston isn't very good.

exactly houston has made a lot of lateral moves this offseason. they may even be worse than last year. I think it will weigh heavily on how well Lin performs.

jordo212000;1306998 wrote:^^^
Yuck. Houston isn't very good.

But they have some nice young pieces to build around. I'm not as down on them for the future as most. /Jordo

Commander of Awesome;1307287 wrote:But they have some nice young pieces to build around. I'm not as down on them for the future as most. /Jordo

LOL, little guy must have forgotten his troll handbook today. Either that, or the handbook says not to spew his typical bullshit if the team isn't from cleveland.