@BillSimmons: I know Durant and Westbrook can only handle being coddled these days, so congrats fellas on a great win! Good job!

that guy has such a gigantic hard on towards OKC. started when they moved here, he was the biggest ***** about that, and then after the Harden trade. there is absolutely nothing in this universe that could happen that would ever make that guy say a positive word about this franchise. screw him and his smugness. i liked him much better when he was a voiceless writer.

Durant has been acting like a ***** of late which is uncharacteristic.

oh he hasn't been playing nice little NASCAR "i'd like to thank..." guy for a week? big deal. he's not saying he's above criticism, he's just very loyal to his coach and i think just tires of the constant questioning about it.

Trading Harden...had to (he wasn't staying, and deserved max money that he wasn't going to get here)
Not getting anything except Adams in return...not the best result

and screw Seattle...if they gave half as much as they say they do about basketball they'd still have a team (and just look at most Seahawk fans, unbearable)

He loves both Durant and Westbrook

Aubrey McClendon is a owner of OKC. That guy is a scumbag. For that reason I hope that franchise dies.

Yeah sorry, he got me last night. Just tired of his schtick.

Soon you may be able to buy his share for pennies on the dollar lol

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Trading Harden...had to (he wasn't staying, and deserved max money that he wasn't going to get here)
Not getting anything except Adams in return...not the best result

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Amnesty Perkins and they could have.

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with another Houston fan over it. Harden is a superstar and I loved when he was here, but money aside, that's a hell of lineup to manage with three guys that need the ball. It barely works with KD and Russ.

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I'm not going to get into a pissing match with another Houston fan over it. Harden is a superstar and I loved when he was here, but money aside, that's a hell of lineup to manage with three guys that need the ball. It barely works with KD and Russ.

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That may be true, but how could you get basically nothing of real value for Harden? If tomorrow the Rockets wanted to trade Harden they'd get 10x what OKC got.

If I had that answer I'd tell you. Of course Yiu would get way more for him now, as he's been showcased as a starter and not a sixth man like he was in OKC.

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I'm not going to get into a pissing match with another Houston fan over it. Harden is a superstar and I loved when he was here, but money aside, that's a hell of lineup to manage with three guys that need the ball. It barely works with KD and Russ.

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I thought Harden was the glue that held those guys together. Of the three, he was the only one who really sacrificed his game for the others. He created wide-open looks for Durant and helped space the floor for Westbrook. He also has a Ginobiliesque style that is well suited to coming off the bench.

Yep, he was perfect for that role

But he wasn't settling for that role. KD and Russ are still doing fine. Only negative for that trade was not getting more for Harden.

The negative is that they could have kept the band together for one final year (since they got nothing in return anyway) and very likely won a Championship.

It was an idiotic trade for OKC and always will be.

They weren't winning anything with Westbrook hurt.

It certainly looks worse since the only player that has somewhat panned out from the deal is Adams. The rest of it was hot garbage.

I think this is partially a case of you being a fan of OKC. I think he is generally very positive about that team in the past, and brought up legitimate complaints over how it moved. But he has always liked durant and westbrook. Just my take.

Harden turned down $14 million/year. He wasn't staying. Should have traded him to the east and gotten more. However, Lamb was a lottery pick, Adams looks good and McGary seems to have a lot of potential. Still Harden is an MVP candidate and MVP candidates usually want to be an alpha. I'm not sure he will ever win a ring in Houston (needs to win a series first) and the Thunder, while derailed by injuries, haven't missed a beat.


Bill Simmons is a tool. He LOVED Durant early on but I'm not sure Durant knew who he was and nowSimmons acts like a jilted 15 year old girl. As Bob Knight said, "we all learned to write in the 3rd grade. Most of us moved on to other things."

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Harden turned down $14 million/year. He wasn't staying. Should have traded him to the east and gotten more. However, Lamb was a lottery pick, Adams looks good and McGary seems to have a lot of potential. Still Harden is an MVP candidate and MVP candidates usually want to be an alpha. I'm not sure he will ever win a ring in Houston (needs to win a series first) and the Thunder, while derailed by injuries, haven't missed a beat.


Bill Simmons is a tool. He LOVED Durant early on but I'm not sure Durant knew who he was and nowSimmons acts like a jilted 15 year old girl. As Bob Knight said, "we all learned to write in the 3rd grade. Most of us moved on to other things."

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There is room in the cap for 3 max players, they just didnt want to spend that much on Harden because they would have had to go over the cap to keep Ibaka. Harden would have stayed for the max, which OKC could have given him, if they used the amnesty provision on Perkins (who is basically a taller joey dorsey). I remember when he first ended up in Houston and he was just kind of shocked that he was there. He loved that team and wanted to stay with them, but he had a different estimation of his value. They viewed Harden as the best 6th man in basketball and tried to pay him like a 6th man, not the 3rd key piece of a championship team.

As a Houston fan I am completely happy that this happened the way it did, but a basketball purist would surely be upset. Harden's game melded perfectly with those guys. If you remember, all the talk was about whether he could actually thrive as the dominant player on the team. Houston made him into a ball dominant player out of necessity, that was not who he was before he came here.

I can't disagree with that last paragraph, pretty well said, but you just never know with egos if something would have gotten hairy between them. Also, while Ibaka is not the caliber of Harden, not having him would have been a huge blow to the team as well. You can't imagine the team as having all four, because that wouldn't have been the case.

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that guy has such a gigantic hard on towards OKC. started when they moved here, he was the biggest ***** about that, and then after the Harden trade. there is absolutely nothing in this universe that could happen that would ever make that guy say a positive word about this franchise. screw him and his smugness. i liked him much better when he was a voiceless writer.

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How can someone who always talks sh/t about a certain franchise "have such a gigantic hard on" for them?

Yeah it was the wrong phrase choice, thought about after the fact but didn't care enough to change it

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I can't disagree with that last paragraph, pretty well said, but you just never know with egos if something would have gotten hairy between them. Also, while Ibaka is not the caliber of Harden, not having him would have been a huge blow to the team as well. You can't imagine the team as having all four, because that wouldn't have been the case.

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It could have been. They had Bird's Rights to all 4 of them and could have maxed them all if they wanted to win Championships. It would have cost them a ton in luxury taxes, but they would have been dominant. It was an ownership decision and ownership went cheap and they might never win a Championship now.

You sure argue on a lot of what ifs. They could have done that and been bounced, you never know.

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You sure argue on a lot of what ifs. They could have done that and been bounced, you never know.

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You argue they couldn't have kept Harden when in reality the could have kept Harden and Ibaka. They didn't pony up and deserve all the ridicule they get for passing up likely championships. Simmons is spot on. OKC fans just don't like to hear it because deep down, they know it's true.

For how long could they have kept both is the question?

As long as they wanted to pay luxury taxes and win which turned out to be no time at all, hence the Simmons criticism.

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As long as they wanted to pay luxury taxes and win which turned out to be no time at all, hence the Simmons criticism.

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Yep, it's a shame we're not winning now. Could we maybe have won a title? Sure, but nothing is a sure thing in sports, and to assume that we would have and everything would have been hunky dory, well I don't subscribe to that theory. Would I have liked to have seen it? Sure. Do I think it would have lasted in harmony? No I do not.

Fair enough. I think we all as basketball fans would have liked to have seen it just because they built through the draft. It would have been cool to see them all hit their peaks on the same team that drafted them, but I'm cool with it because the Spurs likely got #5 because OKC didn't have Harden.

Well thought out, Diet. However, I still feel like Harden wanted his own gig. If you're an MVP caliber player, and James is, you'd eventually tire of coming off the bench. With that much invested in four players we'd have had zero depth. Look at Miami, they had 3 max players and a bunch of vets playing for a chance at a ring. I get it worked for a few years but is it sustainable?