All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook has signed a five-year, $80 million contract extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder, league sources told Yahoo! Sports
Just a whole different world: Dwyane Wade's gorgeous girlfriend, actress Gabrielle Union, threw the Miami Heat All-Star a birthday party the other day, and a local car dealership decided to one-up the actress/model by gifting the guard a McLaren valued at nearly a quarter of a million dollars. In other news, I found a five dollar bill in one of my sportcoat pockets on Monday night. Some week! The ancient adage that the richer you become, the more free stuff you get is rolling hard and heavy in Miami these days. Counting birthday gifts as "free stuff" is a bit of a stretch, but counting a McLaren MP4-12C as a "birthday gift" is nearly as big a stretch. It was a stretch to even deliver the car into the party, as the dealership awarding the exotic, 592-brake horsepower machine had to deliver the automobile in by crane as it couldn't be driven through the hotel hosting Wade's party.
This is good news and bad news. The good news is the Thunder will not be able to keep all 4 of their great young talent. Harden and Ibaka will get paid, and the salary paid to Westbrook is too high to leave them room to pay Harden (who I think is a better overall player than Westbrook), Ibaka, and a starting caliber Center in the NBA ($10mil is the going rate for a non-star, starting center). The bad news, is that Westbrook getting so much - when he isn't the team's best player, nor the franchise player, is that makes it harder for other teams to hold the line with their non-franchise, but good players.
I dont think its bad news at all. If the thunder didnt max him i doubt he signs and waits for someone to offer him the max somewhere else. I bet the blazers wouldnt think twice by offering him the max Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk
puts okc at about 62 million next year, then they will have a year to decide what to do with harden/ibaka durant/westbrook/perk is about 43 million in 2013, so they realistically arent going to be able to afford a max to both harden and ibaka. not a bad problem to have though, they could just swap westbrook for a few elite prospects in a couple years
On the one hand it's nice that a small market team can get a player to sign an extension. (We don't seem to be managing it...) On the other, this either implies that other players (like Durant) were actually worth way MORE than the max, or Westbrook got way overpaid. It will be interesting to see what happens with Harden. (Ibaka is NOT worth the max. He has hands of stone. They do a lot better with Collison on the floor.
Man Kenny really doesn't know what he is talking about on "Inside the NBA". He just said that Blake commands more double teams then any other player in the post, the guy hardly gets doubled in the post. Griffin is amazing off the ball but when he is down low with it if he can't spin he gets pushed out and shoots long range shots. I doubt Blake gets near as many doubles as Stoudamire/Jefferson or LMA.
He does have this dreamy look in his eyes when interacting with him. And he also seems to idolize him.
