Durant and WB need to get out of OKC fast
- Thread starter The Frozen One
- Start date
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
They spent money. They couldn't get the big man they needed to round the team out. Instead they turned Serge Ibaka into another guard pretty much.
Not paying a 6th man max money is not their undoing. They're spending money now. Lots of it. Not making a difference if it's not allocated correctly.
Greenhornet
A God Among Kings
No, they penny pinched and banked on Ibaka instead of Harden and that is their undoing. Harden rejected their 4 year $52 million deal, if they offered him the full max they'd still have him.
They maxed out Kanter no issue there, and they have been scrambling and looking for a 3rd scorer since they got rid of Harden. There are plenty of teams that would have kept those 4 guys together no matter the cost. Also, don't tell me he would have been a 6th man, not with the direction the league is moving, at some point he would have been in that starting 5. The Warriors are breaking the bank on damn near every player they have knowing full well they're going to have to give Curry the full max too.
Still a weak rebuttle. You don't watch any OKC game. When you see the last 5 minutes, the players just sit and watch Durant and WB go to work. There's no backdoor cuts, no movement, just a stagnant offense. And it's predictable as fukk. If harden was therr, it would take off so much pressure because it would be less predictable. And the defense has to keep guessing. But because there is no 3rd option threat, the paint gets packed and Durant and WB are forced to shoot jumpers. Unless you're Jersey name says curry, you're not gonna score efficiently shooting jumpers.
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
They'd still be using Harden the same way. He wasn't gonna be what he is in Houston (even in your best case scenario, now your bench really sucks). Something was gonna have to give if not then, then later between Harden and Westbrook and KD late in games. Also, if you pick Harden over Ibaka, you have NO frontcourt, which was their biggest issue.
As for the 3rd scorer, Reggie Jackson coulda filled that bill too, but we saw what happened when it came time to make a decision on him. He wanted to go elsewhere, get paid and have a bigger role.
The Warriors are paying Curry below market value. Barnes is still on a rookie deal. Helps also that Lee came off the books as Green got paid. Iggy doesn't have much left on his deal. Livingston is an MLE deal. Festus, rookie deal. Even Klay's "max deal" is cheap compared to what a max deal is now. When Curry's deal comes up again, they may have gotten 3 titles out of it, AND if it means Barnes has to go, so be it. They can find a replacement for him. They've been excellent at avoiding hurtful deals. Put all that together, they're only spending $2 mil more than OKC yet look at the wide ass gap in talent. Y'all wanted OKC to go full Cavs on everyone yet we can make the argument that all that money spent might not matter ultimately.
Boston will have enough cap for 2 max contracts this off season 
DonKnock
KPJ Gonna Save Us
Boston will have enough cap for 2 max contracts this off season
You really think KD from the DMV, who went to college to Texas, and played 7 years in OKC is gonna want to go to Boston?
Its way to cold up there
You cannot say how they would or wouldn't use him, we'll never know, the Warriors were content to use Draymond and Barnes off the bench until a better coach came a long and decided to start them. Again, the direction the league is heading a better coach may have used Russ, Harden, Sefalosha, KD and Ibaka in the starting 5. It's not like he had someone great in front of him either, and Jackson could have assumed the role of bench scorer, but they never let that happen. Who said anything about choosing Ibaka over Harden? They had the means to keep both of them.
The Warriors are still throwing caution to the wind, you can site Curry's deal, but if they had him on a max deal they'd STILL be paying these guys, because ultimately if they didn't Curry could leave. The Cavs are paying everyone out the ass, the Thunder still have the second highest payroll in the league, except they have a bunch of garbage around KD and Westrbook now, I could see your point if they didn't use that money, but they did in the end, the difference is they'd rather pay Enes Kanter $16 million a year than Harden. That's really where your point about them falls apart, they are paying a dude max money to come off the bench right now.
I still think it's mostly just their defense. A lot of overreaction, but WB did have a garbage ass game. WB was looking like Harden on defense and was just playing bad iq basketball. But he'll be fine, for everyone of these games, he has ten great games. Defense was bad down the stretch and WB was off, that's why they lost 
Durant should get more point forward time, and they need to play tougher defense. Not sure if that's coaching or what, but shyt has been trash.
They might not have a great third scorer, but they have two of the best scorers in the league, plus some decent threats in Ibaka and Kanter.
Durant should get more point forward time, and they need to play tougher defense. Not sure if that's coaching or what, but shyt has been trash.
They might not have a great third scorer, but they have two of the best scorers in the league, plus some decent threats in Ibaka and Kanter.
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
We do know though. Brooks never had intentions of starting him (and it took them long enough to make a change at coach to see how he would have operated.
It's hard to say what the direction of the league is now when this whole thing happened 4 years ago (time flies). If OKC could see how the league was gonna be, for all we know they don't trade Eric Bledsoe, let along James Harden. They also wouldn't have cared about the lux as much since the cap would soar, but that's unfair to pin on OKC for not seeing the future. Nobody saw how the future was gonna wind up being (if they could, Steph Curry would be in OKC, NOT James Harden)
Again, hindsight. It's not as they chose to spend on Kanter over Harden. That's the team deciding to spend for once, but if Enes Kanter can't assume that role of third scorer, why are they paying him $80 mil? What else is he providing them that justifies that deal? In reality he's being benched for the same reason Harden was when he was there; the team figures that offensive firepower is best served off the bench and it's easier to yank them off the court when their defensive liabilities resurface.
The only criticism that can be handed down to Presti is not being able to land a big man for Harden when it's clear he can find guards who can score.