When has Harden EVER been a #1 option? He is unproven. When has Harden EVER has the half-court offense run through him in the post? Yeah, good luck with that. As for Ibaka - get real. He doesn't have plays run for him offensively. You are ignoring the value of roles. And right now, Harden and Ibaka are role players and LaMarcus is a franchise player.
Did you read the posts in this thead? I don't think you did as it was aleady explained: THE THUNDER HAVE NO FUCKING CHOICE BUT TO "FUCK WITH THEIR CHEMISTRY". They don't have to do it now. They don't have to do it this summer, but the longer they wait the more the choices won't be theirs, it will be choices forced on them by agents and other teams. If they get ahead of the curve on this they can manage it.
I am not going to bother with the math, but I know that this is not true. Well, maybe if they had Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka on deals and dumped every other player who refused to work for minimum salary deals. Then, yeah they could stay under the lux tax. But, then again, that team would get booted in the playoffs every year.
Franchise player on a good team, or a bad team? Big difference. I think you're selling Harden short. He's got star written all over him, he's just stuck behind Durant and Westbrook for the limelight. He reminds me of a young Manu with a better jumper and he's only 22.
For the sake of not knowing next years cap we will give Hardin the same max westbrook got because he signed the deal before his second all-star appearance so its not eligible for the 30% increase. 2013 KD: 17,832627 Westbrook: 15599325 Harden: 14511000 Total 47942952 2014 KD: 18995624 Westbrook: 16687650 Harden: 15599325 Total: 51282599 2015 KD: 20158622 westbrook: 17775975 Harden: 16687650 Total: 54622247 That is huge money in just them. You would have 15mill to fill 9 more spots without paying lux tax in 2015. The new lux tax is brutal, for every 5 miill in lux tax you go into a new bracket 0-5: 1.00 5.1-10: 1.50 10.1-15: 1.75 15.1-20: 2.50 If you have paid lux tax 4 out of the last 5 years those each go up by 1.00. No team can ignore the new tax rules, they are just to steep. Look at the lakers salary this year 86,043,603, 16 mill over the tax so that puts them at 2.50 for ever dollar over or 40 million owed, if we take into account the fact they paid 4 out of 5 years it adds a dollar to the 2.5 so its 56 million owed. everyone has a clean slate tell next year.
There are only so many franchise players in the league. They're the true #1's/superstars Probably less than 10 of them
Aldridge really isn't much of a franchise player, I don't think. He's the team's best player but he's not exactly an MVP candidate. But I don't think that roles really matter when you're making trades. All that matter is whether a player can play and his potential to be able to do so in the future. Harden and Ibaka are each four years younger than Aldridge is, and at least one of them should turn out to be as good as LaMarcus is right now. Ed O.
lakers make 200 million a year just from tv rights, prolly another 100 million from tickets, and then sponsors/licensing... they can afford it, and then some
Yeah, LMA is a franchise player and a number one option. He's not a championship franchise player, though. Neither is Kevin Love, who is also a franchise player, just not a title-winning franchise payer. James Harden has never been more than a 3rd option on his team, or averaged more than 17ppg. Talk about overvaluing a player.
James Harden is Joe Johnson. He will leave the Thunder, go be "the man" somewhere else, earn multiple all-star-game nods, and never win anything.
