It's a good thing Durant and Westbrook are 21

[houston911]

im still pissed about drafting harden. hated it on draft night hate it even more after what the heat did this offseason. evans should have been the pick. people say evans doesnt fit, but i think evans will be better than westbrook. thunder werent in a position to pass on the superior talent for fit in my opinion

Evans over Harden, Whiteside over Pleiss. I get the feeling that Presti is going to piss you off on a regular basis on draft night or with transactions in general. Like it or not Presti has a vision for how he wants to build this team and to date has shown amazing discipline in staying with that plan.

My observations are that Presti isn't just assembling some talent to see how it plays together and looking to make moves down the road. His tact seems much more of a chess player than a gambler. Presti is looking several moves ahead of the current move and from the beginning has valued fit as much and in some cases more than talent. As fans we rarely get to see a GM build a team so methodically and with so much attention to how each player fits with the other.

Time and results will show whether Presti is the smartest man in the room or blinded by his own master vision for this team.

like i said, i agree with drafting for fit in most places, but when you have a chance to draft a guy who could be the 2nd best player on your team, you don't pass on him because of a fit....thats just common sense.

has presti drafted anyone with a tattoo yet? thunder would have been so much better with reke. i've never seen a player miss as many layups as harden did this season.

[slick_watts]

like i said, i agree with drafting for fit in most places, but when you have a chance to draft a guy who could be the 2nd best player on your team, you don't pass on him because of a fit....thats just common sense.

has presti drafted anyone with a tattoo yet? thunder would have been so much better with reke. i've never seen a player miss as many layups as harden did this season.

Tyreke Evans and Russell Westbrook would not work. They are too similar. They need the ball in their hands to be effective, neither of them has much range, and they both want to attack the rim. James Harden can shoot the 3, he defends well (better than Evans, IMO) and he doesn't need the ball in his hands to be an effective player offensively. Teams will still pay attention to him when he's behind the 3pt line spotting up. Nobody cares about Evans out there.

Evans and Harden are both very young and neither is through with their development. This is too early to settle either way, no matter what your opinion is. A good example is Westbrook over Brook Lopez. After their rookie seasons it looked like a stupid thing that Presti did. Now it looks a lot less stupid.

[houston911]

I hated brook lopez, i can't believe he ended up being this good. we'll see what happens with reke, like you said he's only 20, who knows how his shot will develop. i'm not really feeling aldrich either. how did yall like that pick?

[fallacy]

I hated brook lopez, i can't believe he ended up being this good. we'll see what happens with reke, like you said he's only 20, who knows how his shot will develop. i'm not really feeling aldrich either. how did yall like that pick?

yes. A 6'11" Center who WANTS to play defense and can block shots and be an intimidater down low. We led the league in blocked shots last year (im pretty sure) and we're only going to get better with him down there. can you imagine Aldrich and Ibaka in at the same time? I'd be terrified to drive that lane

[Jimmy76]

I hated brook lopez, i can't believe he ended up being this good. we'll see what happens with reke, like you said he's only 20, who knows how his shot will develop. i'm not really feeling aldrich either. how did yall like that pick?

yes. A 6'11" Center who WANTS to play defense and can block shots and be an intimidater down low. We led the league in blocked shots last year (im pretty sure) and we're only going to get better with him down there. can you imagine Aldrich and Ibaka in at the same time? I'd be terrified to drive that lane

ibaka/aldrich starting and playing starter minutes

we could be a hell of a defensive team

[houston911]

i was very high on aldrich has freshman/sophomore year...he kinda regressed last year and that made me question his potential

if he can get back on track then

pleiss, smh...dude looks so stiff and swaggerless from the clips i've seen. i would have much rather gambled on whiteside, stephenson or willie warren

[sonictecture]

[
like i said, i agree with drafting for fit in most places, but when you have a chance to draft a guy who could be the 2nd best player on your team, you don't pass on him because of a fit....thats just common sense.

has presti drafted anyone with a tattoo yet? thunder would have been so much better with reke. i've never seen a player miss as many layups as harden did this season.

I don't agree, but let's say you're right and Evans is a better player than Westbrook. How much better is he?

Evans doesn't have a huge skill advantage over Westbrook, ages are negligible and what Evans has in size he gives up in athletic ability. If Evans has even a small advantage couldn't that advantage be overcome through better player development? Why give up a year of development invested in Westbrook to start over with Evans? It doesn't make sense. You move forward you accelerate the growth process and keep your players happy.

My favorite prospect in 2009 was Stephen Curry, but I respected Presti for sticking with Westbrook even though we all had lingering questions. It's difficult to say if Evans would have been more successful than Harden, but from a skills and fit perspective it was clear that Harden was a logical choice.

Presti nearly chose 3 centers in the 2010 draft. He moved up, taking on salary to get Aldrich, moved up to 18 and took on salary in attempt to move up ahead of San Antonio to get Kevin Saraphin. Traded the pick (Bledsoe) when Washington took Sarphin one pick before 18. Traded cash to get Pleiss at the top of the 3rd round.

Before the draft I saw Aldrich as a college role player who measured out short and light for an NBA center. My first mental image was Aldrich trying to guard Andrew Bynum at the rim and it wasn't pretty.

After the draft, like most, you try and talk yourself into the idea that Aldrich could be better in the NBA than in college with more space and a faster pace. You hope he is the bouncy active player you watched in Freshman and Sophomore highlights. You hope his willingness to bang in the paint doesn't disappear against NBA competition. You look at his wide shoulders and long arms and see a guy who should be able to use what size he has effectively.

What I'm growing to respect more and more is Presti's belief that he can take guys with certain talents and with the coaching staff develop them into pieces that make the whole better. It's and extremely logical and efficient way to build a team and I'm fascinated to see if it will work.

[sonictecture]

pleiss, smh...dude looks so stiff and swaggerless from the clips i've seen. i would have much rather gambled on whiteside, stephenson or willie warren

i think every NBA team should have someone in the draft room to give input on a players swagger quotient before making a decision.

[houston911]

lol, sonicecture, i know youre making fun of me but im for real with the swagger stuff....my player predictions have been pretty accurate the last few years since i started incorporating swagger ratings, im just saying

and yeah, in hindsight curry would have been the best fit, hes one of the best shooters in the league. i liked him much more than harden but i thought a backcourt of curry and westbrook was too small

and presti is gonna keep gambling on bigs and hope one of them pans out. it's too bad they took dj white over deandre jordan. i saw deandre at the a&m maroon madness doing exhibition stuff, dude is an unbelievable athlete fdr his size. i still cant believe nobody gambled on him in the lottery

[sonictecture]

lol, sonicecture, i know youre making fun of me but im for real with the swagger stuff....my player predictions have been pretty accurate the last few years since i started incorporating swagger ratings, im just saying

I think swagger can be a good thing, but I also think that if you go beyond just trying to pick which player is going to produce the most and focus on which players compliment each other the best to produce sustained success, that swagger becomes a less important factor and in some cases a liability.

and yeah, in hindsight curry would have been the best fit, hes one of the best shooters in the league. i liked him much more than harden but i thought a backcourt of curry and westbrook was too small

I agree, I think a Westbrook and Curry backcourt would be a liability defensively.

and presti is gonna keep gambling on bigs and hope one of them pans out. it's too bad they took dj white over deandre jordan. i saw deandre at the a&m maroon madness doing exhibition stuff, dude is an unbelievable athlete fdr his size. i still cant believe nobody gambled on him in the lottery

I was watching Jordan in summer league and came away thinking how does a guy who has played so much basketball still have so little skill. He's just an athlete, I'm sure he looked good in a exhibition setting because his strength. Not only did no one gamble on Jordan in the lottery but no one gambled on Jordan in the first round. I'm not a fan.

I like D.J. White, I think he's an NBA player, but if he stays with the Thunder it looks like he'll be little more than insurance this season.

[Bubstubbler]

They all have ET options after their 3rd year so if one of them isn't happy they can bail quite quickly. This might fall apart before anything happens

Anything other than 3 consecutive championships, anyway.

[fallacy]

and yeah, in hindsight curry would have been the best fit, hes one of the best shooters in the league. i liked him much more than harden but i thought a backcourt of curry and westbrook was too small

I agree, I think a Westbrook and Curry backcourt would be a liability defensively.

Westbrook is probably the second best defensive starting PG in the league behind rondo. I agree that Curry would be a HUGE dropoff defensively from Sef and Harden. Most people don't know that Harden actually held opponents to a lower FG% than sefolosha last year. Although that doesn't mean that Harden is the better defender, it does show that he's a damn good defensive SG

[PortlandForever]

Do not kid yourselves and leave the Blazers out of these talks. Good luck to you and yours, but we will be seeing ya.