It's not just an extra 4.5 million over 4 years, it's the opportunity to be the best player on his own team. If he stayed on OKC he was always going to be in the shadows of Durant and most likely Russell Westbrook.
Houston does not have a bad outlook either. Without looking at the numbers, some have said Houston will have max dollars to offer to guys next year, and they should be bad enough to get a high draft pick. Add in Asik, Lin, White, Jones, Motiejunas and Parsons who all could prove to be good players, they could surprise some people and rebuild fast.
Quick run of the $$ shows that if OKC was to give Harden 55-60M over 4 years, they'd pay ~40M in luxury taxes in 2013-14 and 2014-15 combined, and that's without adding anymore players except rookie and vet min deals to fill out the roster. With this, they downgrade from Harden to Lamb, get Martin's contract as a big expiring if they'd like, a probable lotto pick from TOR (only if 4-14), CHA's 2nd (#31 or 32, probably) and a protected DAL pick---all while going from taking 40M from ClayClay and McClendon's pockets to giving them other teams' taxes back. **(assumptions, 70.3M lux line this year, going up 2M a year, Harden 4/55M and 4/60M with max raises)
Harden will make much more money with Houston. He'll get more endorsements in a bigger market. He'll be a focal point for the Rockets and his next contract will be bigger.
Financially this made sense for OKC. Talent wise, this is a big downgrade. Harden >>>> Martin Harden >>>> Lamb Harden >>>> Heavily protected picks Neither come close to his talent. Lamb could have a solid future but that's down the road. PS. Take that, Clay Bennett!
True, but I don't think there's any chance they would've kept both a near-max Harden and Perkins. So now, would you rather have a lineup of RW, Thabo/Lamb, Durant, Ibaka, Perkins or RW, Harden, Durant, Ibaka, Aldrich/Collison? Oh yeah, and 40M cash?
My guess is that they package some of those assets and trade for a nice player at their position of need. Presti is just a really smart guy.
Smart move on OKC's part. The handwriting was on the wall when they gave Ibaka the big deal. The new luxury tax provisions are an absolute killer. They pick up a guy in Martin who is more than capable of playing the 6th man this season, plus his contract is expiring so they'll be able to manage their salary going forward. Lamb's a nice prospect and they may get a lottery pick to pad their future talent. Harden's a real good player, but I don't see a team being able to carry a guy like that as a 4th guy on their squad with a near-max contract.
totally disagree. playing Harden, Westbrook and Durant at the same time was proven last year to show that you cannot cover LeBron AND Wade. This way, either Thabo or Lamb will be on the court at all times. Supposedly Lamb can play some D, if interested.
You think Harden can guard Wade or Lebron? At ALL? Yes, I think that more Thabo and Lamb and less Harden gives them at least a shot. Hell, even Nash/K*be were going to give RW/Harden more than they could handle.
so they would have done better last year if they just cut harden? i mean they had thabo last year... and where are you getting this lamb stuff from?
The knock on him is that, while he has a defensive stopper's body and instincts, he didn't use them all the time at UConn. Some of the scouting said: Granted, Wade and Lebron are not some poor kid from South Florida or Georgetown, but I don't think Harden is better as the 2 guard/6th-man for them. I think he'll be pretty awesome in HOU, but not for the Thunder, not for winning championships.
The other side of that coin is that some might think it's ridiculous that harden wouldn't give up 7.5% of 60 million so that he could keep the team together and stay with his buddies. I'm thinking OKC wasn't feeling that good about even the 55.5 million and they saw maybe this guy wasn't such a great team player since he wouldn't give a little.
Morey basically gave up 3 first round picks for Harden, who has never been more than a #3 option in OKC. I think this cripples Houston.
