James Harden traded to the Rockets

[tmacattack33]

I don't think they'll be a big step backward for okc on offense. There was only one ball to go around anyway, and Durant and Westbrook are better options than harden was. An Kevin Martin is better off the ball and for spacing than harden was.


Defensively, harden was a little better. Though he was not great at it

[Pattycakes]

Question for this entire thread? Why is James Harden so overrated?

He's no all-nba here... K Mart is a "SLIGHTLY" slightly less efficient version of him plus they got possibly the most talented/highest potential rookie SG in the game.

Both teams did pretty well...

[commadoor 64]

First of all Harden is a fine player, but he is not a MAX player. People are criticizing Presti, but down the line paying Harden the max would have hampered their cap situation. Let us see how Harden does when he does not have the likes of Durant, and Westbrook alongside of him. Good for Harden to get the contract he did get. Not bad for a 6th man.

SMH, he's far better than anyone on the Raptors. The Thunder were title contenders only because they could have someone like him coming off the bench. Now they have Kevin Martin? Oh dear...

Kevin Martin ain't coming off the bench ... unless you want a very disgruntled Kevin Martin.

I wonder how he's gonna react when he goes from being "the Man" on crapish lotto teams to being the "next to last option guy" or off the bench guy.

Also, wasn't it Harden the one the Thunder relied on late in games to distribute the ball more so than Westbrook?

Is Westbrook gonna be more of a distributer now that they've added a long range jump shooter beside Durant or are the Thunder gonna have Martin handling that?

So is Martin the starter, he hasn't come of any bench since his rookie season in 04?
Then what happens to Sefolosha besides not being happy about it?

One of the two is getting a demotion, not to mention Lamb goes all the way to the back of the line.

[Devils Advocate]

You really can't jump to one to conclusion or another on this trade until we see how things play out.

Harden is a good player who hasn't quite proven he is a star. He was the 3rdgame option on a contender who's numbers were ok until he broke out in the 10-11 playoffs. He carried that momentum into the 11-12 season and had a great year before collapsing in the playoffs. How will he do as th# guy without Durant and westbrook drawing most of the the attention. If he proves he can lead a team to the playoffs Houston wins big and OKC is filled with regret.

OKC might have chemistry issues or really miss hardens playmaking. The could also become more deadly with the added depth and who knows what thosee pics will turn into. Martins numbers shooting wise are nearly identical to hardens over their careers. Martin may fit like a glove in OKC since he is an off ball player who runs off screens just like Dura

[_Game7_]

Harden is great, but he was a non factor when the Thunder needed him the most in the Finals. To demand a maximum contract & then quibble over $5-$6 million in difference, especially after failing to perform on the big stage is ridiculous.

Kudos to Presti & the Thunder organization. They turned what could of been a season long distraction into valuable pieces. Kevin Martin has been forgotten in Houston, but is still a skilled offensive weapon & a huge expiring contract. Lamb has potential, & then you add two 1sts.

OKC is in a great position & will not miss a beat.

Just woke up to this news, still in wtf mode. But these are my thoughts as well.

[toddlincoln]

Gonna be really funny when Harden competes for a scoring title this year and makes the all star game. Most of you will be eating crow (but will later pretend you didn't disparage the trade).

Harden might end up being the best player of anyone on that 2012 thunder team. He's 23, posted a PER OF NEARLY 22 taking 10 shots a game (plus freethrows). That's insane.

But sure, he's terrible, he's overrated and Kevin Martin is great!!! Oh and Jeremy Lamb, unproven rookie.. man what a steal OKC!!! This surely isn't a case of an ownership and management group getting greedy and cheap.

[black bart]

Question for this entire thread? Why is James Harden so overrated?

He's no all-nba here... K Mart is a "SLIGHTLY" slightly less efficient version of him plus they got possibly the most talented/highest potential rookie SG in the game.

Both teams did pretty well...

Harden is also on his 4th season and just turned 23. He isn't close to his prime and will probably be 3rd team all nba this year

[slick_watts]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

[vincecarter4pres]

It's the beard. People see the beard and assume Harden''s a 30 year old finished product.

[Yuri Vaultin]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

Thank you. I feel like I have taken crazy pills or something trying to explain that Harden is good and should not be solely based on a 5 game series. If that is the case then LeBron was pretty brutal against San Antonio his first finals too, so clearly he is not worth much money either.

[vincecarter4pres]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

Thank you.

He was basically OKC's 2nd best player the whole season leading up to the Finals.

Now you can argue Westbrook quite easily as well, but the point is, they are both just superb young wings who operate in a different fashion with a different style, with a different mindset.

In the Finals I would say Westbrook was your best player though, Durant 2nd and Harden a distant 3rd.
but that's just one series, whether some will argue that was the most important series or not, there's no reason to discount the rest of what he does.

Harden should pretty easily be a 20/6/5 guy this year on solid raw percentages to go with maybe something like a 56 TS%.

He's already a top 20 player, I could argue top 15 and is likely still a ways off his ceiling.

If he gets a little more confident and better develops his midrange game, you're talking about a guy who could top off as maybe the 5th to 8th best player in the league in a couple years, just to argue somewhat arbitrary numbers.

If this wasn't about money, or if they don't have another trade lined up, you have to ask why they didn't just trade for an established young big?

That's why to me this trade was about money for the most part unless you wind up landing LMA or Love, or something along those lines.

People always say Harden benefits from playing off the attention Durant and Westbrook divert, but does this not work both ways?

Kevin Martin is a relatively gifted scorer, but he's not James Harden in style of play, fit or impact.

And people think Harden's defense was bad last year? Wow, wait til they see Martin.

On paper this was still great value for them though, I'm a big fan of Lamb and that Toronto pick is likely to be between 6xth and 12th, but IDK, just don't love this right now.

I'll take a wait and see approach, but to me Harden is a Ginobili clown who has yet to hit his ceiling or prime and is likely to be much more durable.

San An doesn't win many(any) of those titles replacing Ginobili with David Wesley or Derek Anderson and draft picks and prospects.

San An needs a Ray Allen or Vince Carter if they dealt him, or someone of that ilk.

[Lightning25]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

He also played pretty bad against LA. He just happened to have played very well against Dallas and San Antonio. He wasn't that consistent.

[C-izMe]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

The Finals he had a 8.4 average game score (average is 15) while playing horrible defense. He put up 12.5/5/3.5 with 37.5FG%.

Against LA he had a 11.2 average game score, while playing terrible defense. He put up 16/4.5/2 with 36FG% (and most of those scores came from blatantly cheap calls, actually he probably deserved under 10 calls total).

[vincecarter4pres]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

He also played pretty bad against LA. He just happened to have played very well against Dallas and San Antonio. He wasn't that consistent.

Oh he "just happened to".

Total outlier. Just lucked into playing good in 2 high pressure series against venerable perennial contenders. Never played good before in his career. What a luck truck.

[LLJ]

[I'll take a wait and see approach, but to me Harden is a Ginobili clown who has yet to hit his ceiling or prime and is likely to be much more durable.
.

Interesting typo.

[slick_watts]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

He also played pretty bad against LA. He just happened to have played very well against Dallas and San Antonio. He wasn't that consistent.

Russell Westbrook vs. Dallas 2010-11

23.6 p/g 4.8 a/g 4.8 to/g 47.8% TS 34.8% USG

If we're going to judge players based on the 'bad' series they have you can nitpick anyone's playoff performance. Fact of the matter is, on the whole, Harden performed very well in the playoffs for the Thunder, and it's unlikely they could have beaten San Antonio without him. He ran into a buzz saw PnR defense and had a bad series - how is that any different from Westbrook's series against Dallas the year before? A series that Harden shot 66.7% TS and was as efficient as ever?

Harden didn't just 'happen to' play very well against Dallas and San Antonio, he is a great player, and great players have great games. There's no player in the league who you can't look at their playoffs history and cherry pick subpar series.

[black bart]

A lot of talk about Harden 'collapsing' in the playoffs.

He put up 18.6/5.8/3.9 per36 in the playoffs on 60%+ TS. If that's collapsing, what's he going to do if he has a good playoffs? Sure, his series against Miami was bad. But that's just five games in the face of an otherwise great playoff run + regular season.

Thank you.

He was basically OKC's 2nd best player the whole season leading up to the Finals.

Now you can argue Westbrook quite easily as well, but the point is, they are both just superb young wings who operate in a different fashion with a different style, with a different mindset.

In the Finals I would say Westbrook was your best player though, Durant 2nd and Harden a distant 3rd.
but that's just one series, whether some will argue that was the most important series or not, there's no reason to discount the rest of what he does.

Harden should pretty easily be a 20/6/5 guy this year on solid raw percentages to go with maybe something like a 56 TS%.

He's already a top 20 player, I could argue top 15 and is likely still a ways off his ceiling.

If he gets a little more confident and better develops his midrange game, you're talking about a guy who could top off as maybe the 5th to 8th best player in the league in a couple years, just to argue somewhat arbitrary numbers.

If this wasn't about money, or if they don't have another trade lined up, you have to ask why they didn't just trade for an established young big?

That's why to me this trade was about money for the most part unless you wind up landing LMA or Love, or something along those lines.

People always say Harden benefits from playing off the attention Durant and Westbrook divert, but does this not work both ways?

Kevin Martin is a relatively gifted scorer, but he's not James Harden in style of play, fit or impact.

And people think Harden's defense was bad last year? Wow, wait til they see Martin.

On paper this was still great value for them though, I'm a big fan of Lamb and that Toronto pick is likely to be between 6xth and 12th, but IDK, just don't love this right now.

I'll take a wait and see approach, but to me Harden is a Ginobili clown who has yet to hit his ceiling or prime and is likely to be much more durable.

San An doesn't win many(any) of those titles replacing Ginobili with David Wesley or Derek Anderson and draft picks and prospects.

San An needs a Ray Allen or Vince Carter if they dealt him, or someone of that ilk.

Durant was clearly the best player in the finals. He was arguably the best player on both sides. He was unstoppable. Scored 30 pts on 65 ts%. Compared to westbrook 27 on 50 ts% and harden 12.4 on 52 ts%. It is funny how people talk up how inefficient harden was when westbrook had a lower ts%

[vincecarter4pres]

[I'll take a wait and see approach, but to me Harden is a Ginobili clown who has yet to hit his ceiling or prime and is likely to be much more durable.
.

Interesting typo.

[aol4532]

People who say Harden benefits with Durant and Westbrook forget that he shoots 49%. Even if he dropped to say 45%, which I highly doubt, because it would be like saying Manu would drop to 41%, if he didn't play with Parker and Duncan, it would still be very good.

On the other hand, a guy like K-Mart allows teams to put their worst defenders on him and say, don't ever leave him open. Kobe can now take Westbrook full time, because Nash has someone to guard. I'm not convinced that KMart is better than say a guy like Jamal Crawford, and you could get a guy like Crawford through free agency.

[slick_watts]

On paper this was still great value for them though, I'm a big fan of Lamb and that Toronto pick is likely to be between 6xth and 12th, but IDK, just don't love this right now.

From Sam Presti's press conference, it was clear that OKC had a number they wanted to get him in under and when it wasn't possible, they informed him they would explore trade scenarios. He stated explicitly that he thought he could get more for James Harden now - with a full season of rookie scale to go - than he would be able to get at the deadline or after the season in a S&T. Woj has speculation that the Thunder felt James wouldn't have been himself with contract status looming (Westbrook wasn't, either) and he certainly hasn't looked himself in preseason for what that's worth.

It's hard to digest because there's no question to me the Thunder took a hit on talent - but it's probably less of a hit than they would have taken if they had waited. When it was apparent they couldn't come to terms with James, it seems easier to understand. Doesn't mean it makes it easier to swallow that we had HCA in the Finals last year, had our whole team back except the two worst players, and now we lost our third best.

San An doesn't win many(any) of those titles replacing Ginobili with David Wesley or Derek Anderson and draft picks and prospects.

San An needs a Ray Allen or Vince Carter if they dealt him, or someone of that ilk.

The Spurs were very lucky that they got the opportunity to extend Manu after his second season and not his third season, or they may have just as well faced the same issues the Thunder did this week.