Harden Traded to the Rockets!

[90sAllDecade]

It was a given, but he was just awarded Western Conference Player of the Week:

http://www.nba.com/2012/news/11/05/players-of-the-week-for-week-1/?ls=iref:nbahpts

[RYgoBOOM]

I am mad we didn't get Harden



-Magic fan

[texasholdem]

It was a given, but he was just awarded Western Conference Player of the Week:

http://www.nba.com/2012/news/11/05/players-of-the-week-for-week-1/?ls=iref:nbahpts

The 3 other Western Conference players considered for POTW: Chris Paul, Tony Parker and Carl Landry(!)

[Guy986]

Please don't mention Carl Landry.

*cue Australian 3.2.1.....*

[rocketsballin]

oh no you didnt do that, next time dont mention his name

[inquisitive]

since we don't have a real post presence down low, we will see our perimeter shooting % go down quite a bit since opposing defenses aren't going to be honest...

[rocketsballin]

we can solve that by giving asik 50 shots a game. he'll make 10-20, thats like 20-30pts a game at least, not counting free throws. gotta respect that

[BaYBaller]

since we don't have a real post presence down low, we will see our perimeter shooting % go down quite a bit since opposing defenses aren't going to be honest...

Doubtful. Harden's % will normalize obviously since teams will scheme defensively for him as the season goes on but that really doesn't have much to do with the lack of a post player. The half-court offense is pretty much spread the floor and run the PnR with Asik picking for Harden or Lin, iso Harden, or motion offense involving a lot of dribble handoffs and swinging the ball around.

How the offense is currently constructed I don't think the lack of a post presense is really the biggest issue. Not including our complete and utter lack of a bench, the concern is more so the shaky shooting of Parsons and Patterson. Clearly McHale is attempting telling Patterson to spot up in the cornors and take the open 3 which he hasn't done before and Parsons was never a good 3-pt shooter and his shot looks even worse this year.

[Aaron Brooks]

found this on clutchfans

[MaxRider]

found this on clutchfans

it's from this
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVJYEApIMk#![/youtube]

[Vator]

As we inch towards the halfway point, this thread came to mind. Read through this thread again if you have the time. Good stuff lol.

[rocketsballin]

we all eating crow now

wtf this was random as hell. totaly unexpected

i gotta say i dont like this. i think harden is overrated. if we only got harden back i'd say we got ripped off but we got something in return, not complete scrubs imo. i never wanted harden, he wants a max deal.

i really liked lamb, thought he's the only player from this and last years draft to be a solid all star.

i dont like it. i'd rather keep martin till the deadline, and watch your young guys develop, see if we could get something from drafts. when i saw the headline i thought we traded half our roster for him. good thing we didnt

Kevin Martin. Ok.
Lamb.... ehhhh

Multiple first round picks inlcuding rapter????

Fire Morey now.

This is a bad trade for Houston through and through...

Lamb is going to be a quality starter if not a stud... Martin still has offensive output in him.. and those future 1st rounders... all this for the opportunity to pay Harden max.

I mean Harden is good, and he's a good asset to trade for, but his worth is grossly inflated. People here keep talking about his offensive efficiency (discussion on his defense is not necessary), but look at who he was playing with... you can expect to see Kmart show immediate improvement in this same area when the opposing team has their hands full dealing with Westbook/Durant.

Kevin Martin's career averages are higher than James Hardens' career high!!! and then you throw in losing a future stud like Jeremy Lamb!!! and then you throw in losing a two future 1st round draft picks from a lottery dwelling team like the Raptors and a declining Mavericks team!!! Daryl Morey should read 'Derelict Moron'!!!

Sorry guys I feel bad for you. I'm not trolling as I believed Harden is overrated for several years now. His main trait is his efficiency, and without two top 10 players, that will plummet so fast he will be just like a Kevin Martin. Their defence is both equally terrible. The guy you traded in this deal along with your young studs in Lamb (who I thought would be your future) and the Raptors pick. Not trying to rain on your parade but just how I feel.

a gif in this thread that i completely forgot about

[moofs]

Man, I was slightly excited, ha!

HOLY CRAP WE JUST GOT A SUPERSTAR FOR KEVIN FREAKING MARTIN

p.s. I'm waiting for Max to show up and declare his hate for this trade.

And the results...

one good thing ... at least it's not injured-prone eric gordon

"At least"???
1. How do you get "At least" out of "2nd best SG in the entire league"?
2. ...
3. You still sound pessimistic about getting THE SECOND BEST SHOOTING GUARD IN THE LEAGUE FOR KEVIN FREAKING MARTIN OMG. May I recommend Prozac?

We aggregated our talent. We very likely got the superstar like we've needed. Everyone on the board wanted it to happen and proposed trades on it constantly for 2 straight years.

Think of it this way, too. Let's say through some unearthly fluke we'd gotten LEBRON. He really has about a 4 year window left on his dominance. If you're good, it takes about 3-4 years to build a team that can contend around a superstar on a sparsely populated team. Let's call the minimum 2 years. In 2 years, LeBron is 30 and will need at least one seriously good player for help. We'd have to be insanely lucky to have that in two years. Even if we got that talent, the odds are low for top tier teams to actually win in any given year (around 15-35%), which means you need at least 2-4 tries at the peak. Basically, even if we got far-and-away the best player in the game right now, he actually wouldn't help us get where we want to go! Crazy, huh?

I mean, we just got the second best SG in the NBA! He's 23! The only SG better than him is 30 year old Dwayne Wade! We have tons of ways for players to make tons of money here! We have one of the best GMs in the game! HO LEE CRAP WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Harden might be top 10 though, and is definitely top 15.
Kevin Martin was maybe in his peak season near a top 5 shooting guard, but he was never even remotely considered one of the top players in the league. Harden is top 20 easily, almost certainly top 15, and maybe top 10 (he's not top 5, though). The biggest thing Harden does is lets us finally get over the hump of having our talent distributed between too many players We had good talent at 1-11 for the last several years, but in order to really be good in the NBA, it has to be distributed from 1-7 with most of it sitting in 2-4 players, typically with an average age of under 29-30. We're halfway there now! We made it over the hump! This is the single biggest event we've had since our team started to dessicate slightly in 2006-2007 under the weight of Howard/McGrady/Ming/Battier/Alston/Sura's contracts (who took up pretty much all of our cap), then from 2007-2008 onward in the form of key injuries! And our foundation players are all under 23!!!!

I CAN'T STOP BEING PSYCHED OUT OF MY MIND!!!!

I'd wet myself in public if we somehow managed to get Noah.

Amid a giant tear of stats and arguments. Man. I wish I was that excited right now. Stupid project.
OMGOMGOMG: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=105#p33427218
Max likes complaining: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=165#p33434619
Tanking is stupid: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=210#p33439019
Both of the above: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=150#p33432737
Forward to the future: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=225#p33442927
Bynum is a dickweasel: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=240#p33458470
(Oh yeah, also he hasn't played this year, may get traded by Philly, and I wouldn't be surprised if he Sampsons his way out of the league, but without the goodwill Ralph had)
I told you so: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1210069&start=240#p33465458


We needa trade for LeBron to snap me out of my depression.

Don't forget these:

I tried to talk myself into this trade but I can't. We gave up too much.

Hmm I don't know about this trade.. I wish Morey's impatient ass would have just waited longer. I mean I really thought we were finally gonna do an appropriate rebuilding phase. We as fans deserve a superstar that we drafted and groomed. This past draft was nice but there was only one clear cut superstar. The next two drafts could be special. Especially 2014. Ah that draft could have 3-5 superstars. I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins. Those guys are super legit. Now I feel like we won't suck, but we're still not good enough to compete. We still need that superstar to lead us. Morey has been trying the past few months, but Lin and Harden are not gonna cut it. The team is still mediocre.

(Note: The team IS still mediocre, but not via fault of Harden)

Turns out the trade was good in both directions, whereas I'd thought we straight fleeced OKC:

Man plus the Thunder got a great deal. Lamb could be a really special 2-way player that could start for them in the next few years, while they still get scoring production from Martin. And then on top of that they're gonna get 1 or 2 lottery picks either next year or the year after. What the hell.

Cook's OK.

I still can't believe Guy was ever opposed to this trade after his epic Kevin Martin rants, just because it changed our tanking plan (that we never had), but then again:

In all honesty, either way requires some luck.

[Vator]

This thread is full of awesome.

[Guy986]

Shut up. I hate all of you.

As all of you know, i didn't care for Kevin Martin but i have a fetish for draft picks. Trading away the Toronto Pick and Lamb felt like a punch in the gut.

That Miami final was still fresh in my mind. But once i've seen Harden play on a consistent basis, i knew we had a gem.

[Zubby]

wow moofs > most of the board...
That or Max actually got half of the board into the idea that tanking was the best way to go.



But yea i'm probably most disappointed in Guy & rocketsballin... that is soooo shameless mad at a trade taking Martin away. smh
dirty Kevin Martin lovers

[Tien]

Not a Rocket fan by any means but what I saw Harden do vs Spurs I was convinced he franchise player material. His disappearance in the finals was very well attributed to being inexperienced.

I'm glad he and Lin are having success on this team. Been cheering for you guys to win games.

[madbucky]

Here's some debate fodder: in retrospect/hindsight, would you have rather traded Kevin Martin or Jeremy Lin to OKC, or no trade?

For me, I think the Rockets would have been best off with:
1) Harden + Martin
2) Lin + Martin
3) Lin + Harden

Here's why: this year Harden is scoring 25 pts per36, Martin is scoring 19 pp36, Lin is scoring 13 pp36 (compared to 20 pp36 last year). Harden has proven himself to be a superstar, no doubt. Martin is shooting an amazing 45.0% fg and 45.3% 3pt now that he's not the primary scorer on the team. Can you imagine Martin taking all those open 3's instead of Lin? Lin's offense has been neutered by the presence of Harden. Harden doesn't play much defense, so I don't think he's an improvement over Martin on defense, Lin's probably the best defender out of those 3. Another x-factor is that I feel that Lin's style elevates the play of less talented teammates, whereas Harden's style is to take the game upon himself. So if you take the sum of the parts, I think the Rockets would have been best off with:

1) Harden 25 + Martin 19 = 44 pts (average annual salary $16+$11 = $27M)
2) Lin 20 + Martin 19 = 39 pts (average annual salary $8+$11 = $19M)
3) Harden 25 + Lin 13 = 38 pts (average annual salary $16+$8 = $24M)

[M4P]

If you were on this board last year and you had to endure Martin's BS, you would know that Lin + Harden was the right decision. No question.

[moofs]

Can you imagine Martin taking all those open 3's instead of Lin? Lin's offense has been neutered by the presence of Harden. Lin's probably the best defender out of those 3. Another x-factor is that I feel that Lin's style elevates the play of less talented teammates, whereas Harden's style is to take the game upon himself.

1) Harden 25 + Martin 19 = 44 pts (average annual salary $16+$11 = $27M)
2) Lin 20 + Martin 19 = 39 pts (average annual salary $8+$11 = $19M)
3) Harden 25 + Lin 13 = 38 pts (average annual salary $16+$8 = $24M)

An interesting point, to be sure. However, these points in return:
1. KM is pushing 30 and thus is a poor piece to build around long term.
2. Harden is easily the best SG in the league right now with Wade's injuries.
3. KM is a free agent after this year and the Houston fan base would have revolted if we'd signed him to an extension or new contract. It's also generally a bad idea to sign a 30+ guy to a contract expecting him to be a central piece. If the guy is 27 or older, you'd better have plenty of other pieces in place and just be looking for the right supporting cast.
4. Lin provides additional inroads into the chinese market, making us a better free agent destination
5. Harden is much better at creating via slashing than Lin, though their strengths being in the same area does make them a somewhat awkward fit

That seems good enough for starters...