They wouldn't have. Not at his asking price. Not with one ball to share between 3 perimeter players who need the ball in their hands. Not with a need to resign their power forward and find a functional center. Not with the need for better perimeter defense. I will never, ever understand how this has been difficult to grasp.
Well let's see...
Did they ever find a functional center...nope...so that was a waste...
Did they ever get better perimeter defense...nope...if Serge hadn't come back to that series last year the Spurs would have averaged about 130ppg..but they have had a top tier defense when serge was healthy so i guess we could call this a success...
Need to resign their power forward...that did look good at first...until Serge morphed into a stretch 4 who is to far away from the basket to do anything on the offensive glass and is now injury prone...so that is quickly turning into a waste...or would you rather pay serge 12.3 million dollars to shoot 3's and be hurt instead of paying Harden 14, 15, and 16 million a year to rack up points, freethrows, and fouls on the other team?
"Not at his asking price" doesn't make any since...Harden salary was about 1.5 million more than Serge last year, and goes up about an additional million a year...People always bring up the money but the biggest difference in the contract is the extra year...
Even more laughable is that when Harden left they filled the roster with guys who wouldn't shoot the ball...Perkins wouldn't shoot...Thabo wouldn't shoot...Collins wouldn't shoot...Serge would only shoot if he was wide open...Adams doesn't shoot...lamb doesn't even play enough to shoot...so you trade away a guy who needs 20 shots a game to be effective and replace him with a ton of players who won't shoot the ball...
Oh and they did all of this a year before they actually had to...Had both Harden and Serge under contract for the season that they traded Harden...
Trade was bad then and with every mounting Serge Ibaka ankle/calf/knee injury it is slowly turning into one of the worst trades of all time...
I mean...the only reason why Westbrook ever gets hurt in the first place is because he is playing against a Houston team who got to the playoffs because of James Harden
...without Harden on that team Houston is not in the playoffs and Patrick Beverly can never waste about a year and a half of Russ career
@ Harden meeting up his homies and falling or badly flailing at even the smallest sign of contact.
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