yawny06 said:

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What's drivel is concluding that Durant staying in OKC was somehow a poor decision that would have been completely illogical. They had the talent, the coaching, the fan support, and surely the management to make it work and have a real shot at winning a championship.

What would all you guys say about Lebron if after he gets swept this year decided to join Golden State, if they could make it happen? Would that be his only "logical" choice?

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Nobody is saying staying in OKC was a poor decision... just Golden State was a better opportunity. You are changing other people's arguments which is tell tale sign that yours is just plain silly. OKC wasn't a bad spot and I know that you keep saying they almost beat Golden State last year (btw... Curry if you recall was pretty hurt... and they still lost). Also, why would you be so confident if you are Durant that OKC management... the group that traded James Harden for... basically a handful of pinto beans way earlier than they had to, might make getting a championship team around you work?

Again, nobody is calling it his only 'logical' choice... just that it was his best. There can be numerous logical choices depending on what a player wants. And, like many of your examples, the Lebron one is silly. Had the Warriors not made some tough decisions on other players who were integral to last season's team to make room for Durant (Barnes, Bogut, and to a lesser extent Ezeli), they'd not have the resources to go get Durant. I'd imagine that if your Lebron scenario played out, that would only work if the Warriors parted ways with 2 of their big 4.... so, in that vein, I'd say good for Lebron and the Warriors.

Anyhow, keep calling Durant a coattail rider after he takes the Finals MVP... it remains a ridiculous argument.

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Nobody is saying staying in OKC was a poor decision... just Golden State was a better opportunity. You are changing other people's arguments which is tell tale sign that yours is just plain silly.

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Thanks for bringing up an even better analogy than I could. Durant turning down GS is essentially identical to a business intentionally handicapping themselves (i.e. purposely selecting bad suppliers, not picking the absolute best employees, etc) for the sake of proving how "badass" they are at business to everyone else.

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I didn't change his argument. That is exactly what he is saying...

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Anyhow, keep calling Durant a coattail rider after he takes the Finals MVP... it remains a ridiculous argument.

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Kudos to him if he does. I never said he wasn't a highly talented ball player.

Not a fan of GS, but have a huge amount of respect for how they built this team and put themselves in positon to add a player like KD on a 73 win team. They did not just buy their way here. As far as kD and OKC go, a divorce with Westbrook seems like it was inevitable. So he went to the best option.

Sure, more building had to take place in Miami. But I really cant stand how that announcement and pep rally went down.

So my scorecard is that it took more effort/building to win a title in Miami, but it was also a bigger dbag move in execution.

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Again, nobody is calling it his only 'logical' choice... just that it was his best. There can be numerous logical choices depending on what a player wants. And, like many of your examples, the Lebron one is silly. Had the Warriors not made some tough decisions on other players who were integral to last season's team to make room for Durant (Barnes, Bogut, and to a lesser extent Ezeli), they'd not have the resources to go get Durant. I'd imagine that if your Lebron scenario played out, that would only work if the Warriors parted ways with 2 of their big 4.... so, in that vein, I'd say good for Lebron and the Warriors.

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I even agreed it was a logical choice. He wanted to win a championship. I get that...

Perhaps I am spoiled because the Spurs had a Tim Duncan, who had a sense of loyalty and a team first mindset. He played for 19 seasons and won 5 championships, all of which were great to watch. That means there 14 disappointments, some very tough to take, especially one in particular. But they bounced back and tooled the team around him. I am sure if Timmy wanted to leave SA at any point in time, pretty much anyone in the league would have done what was necessary to land him.

We all know that if Lebron joined the Warriors after this season, everyone would call him a coat tail rider, even though he is arguably one of the greatest of all time. And we know that if he wanted to join the Warriors, they'd be absolutely insane to not do whatever it takes to make it happen. Its only silly in the context that it would never actually happen.

I tbink the teammate situation is something to consider. Spurs did a great job of complimenting Duncan with quality, non-dbag talent around him and great coaching. Much easier to remain loyal when you don't despise your most important teammate.

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Much easier to remain loyal when you don't despise your most important teammate.

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What is crazy is that you had Westbrook, Harden, and Durant all at one time.

Can you imagine what OKC would look like had they been able to keep it together?

Shame what dysfunction will do to a team...

Part of me also thinks Durant is kind of a ***** because he went to texas.

\petty

True Anomaly said:

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Not to make any judgements of people here, but I don't understand if you're anyone who claims to be right-wing, who wants a league with more "parity". This is the free market of the NBA.

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Know how I know you're 16 and 50 pages into Atlas Shrugged?

I just wish Durant had gone to the Spurs instead.

DannyDuberstein said:

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I tbink the teammate situation is something to consider. Spurs did a great job of complimenting Duncan with quality, non-dbag talent around him and great coaching. Much easier to remain loyal when you don't despise your most important teammate.

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How many years did Tim Duncan have to play with a superstar ball hog like Westbrook in an ISO heavy offense? Would Duncan had stayed if the Spurs had fired Pop and hired Billy Donovan? Would Duncan had stayed his entire career in San Antonio, with no frustration, if he had never won a single NBA title there?

I don't think these comparisons of guys are apples to apples. Some guys are in happier job situations than others, and thus stay there a long time, but doesn't mean necessarily that some other guy who leaves his job for greener pastures is a wussy.

Cstrickland05 said:

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I just wish Durant had gone to the Spurs instead.

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The Spurs tried to get him last summer along with everybody else and have a Kawhi-Durant-Aldridge super team. They went to Durant's house and made their pitch as did several other teams like Miami, Boston, etc.

Those are fair points but I'm not sure that Donovan wasn't an upgrade over Brooks.

It doesn't matter who your coach is when one of your star players is Westbrook. You won't be running any offense, he will just do whatever he wants.