Harden Traded to the Rockets!

[90sAllDecade]

I like this trade a lot. we're building a nice solid nucleus of youth with room to sign another max player. Lin needs to develop into at least a 17 and 7 guy over his time here and Harden will most likely be a top flight all star SG as Wade, Kobe and Manu age and eventually decline. He could possibly put up 19 - 25+ points a game with the right system and 18-20 shots a night. He already gets to the FT line like a star, can put up assists and rebound along with solid defense that could improve under Mchale. Asik might also become a true rebounding and defensive monster to be a game changer on that end of the court.

With another superstar potential player move, we could actually do some damage in the future. I'm excited.

Not sure where you came up with 17/7 but those are all star numbers. This was taken from another board, but here are the 2011-2012 stats of PG's that were in Lin's salary range. All but one weren't even close to averaging 13/7.

Player: Points / Assists / Rebounds / Steals / 3PT%
Mike Conley: 12.7 / 6.5 / 2.5 / 2.2 / .377
George Hill: 9.6 / 2.9 / 3.0 / 0.8 / .367
Devin Harris: 11.3 / 5.0 / 1.8 / 1.0 / .362
Jameer Nelson: 11.9 / 5.7 / 3.2 / 0.7 / .377
Goran Dragic: 11.7 / 5.3 / 2.5 / 1.3 / .337
Mo Williams: 13.2 / 3.1 / 1.9 / 1 / .389

People have unrealistic expectations.

I do think Harden/Lin/Parsons will make up the bulk of the scoring though.

I disagree, those aren't necessarily all star numbers at all.

Well, you took Goran's stats while he was coming off the bench averaging 26 minutes, if you look at his 28 games as a starter while playing 36 minutes:
As Starting Guard: 28 games 36.5 minutes FG% .490 3pt% 379 8.4 assists 18.0 pts

Kyle Lowry averaged 14 and 6.6 last year. Aaron Brooks averaged 19.6 and 5.3 one year as a Rocket. None of those guys have made an all star game and all make as much or less than Lin. Also Ty Lawson at 16 and 6.6 who is 24 and makes less than Lin.

Lin himself averaged 14 and 6 in just 27 minutes per game last year. He averaged 18.2 and 7.7 as a starting PG last year in 25 games of the 35 total he played. He is coming off a major injury, but he also just turned 24 and has three years to improve. I just don't agree with you that 17 and 7 is unrealistic, especially since it's just three points more than he averaged last year.

[Baller 24]

i hate that phrase of " has not hit the ceiling" on young player
you can use that on almost everyone
didn't you guys use that on terrence williams?
harden was playing with durant and westbrook
team pay most of their defense attention on them and not harden
when thunder need harden the most to be the playmaker and he failed
it's a good plan
but this plan make sense if we still have half of our old team (we need to trade most of them to trade for harden) at least with dragic
but not lin

23 is young but this is his 4th year
usually players reach their ceiling around 3-5 years in this league
people just think younger is better
just have to realize these days players enter the league at age 19
before it was 21-23
imo harden is already at/near his ceiling
it's just that if he can figure out how to play without durant and westbrook

Listen, I know you don't like the trade. But I'm not trying to argue or change your mind. I'm trying to state that you're flat out wrong on some of the assessments you're throwing out there (and I usually agree with you on a lot of things).

[Mount Mutombo]

Harden's name was called upon in the playoffs, and he struggled, which is a concern. I am not high on potential, seems like more and more draft picks recently are just quietly exiting the league. The fact that Harden is unproven as a star is a concern, and everyone is overrating the effect Harden will have. We have no idea how he'll do as a starter on a team where he can't rely on Durant or Westbrick to pick up the load if he's having an off night. Overall, whatever, meh - the trade is a medium risk high reward type of thing. He won't excel until we have a decent core around him, his passing might be neutralized if Parsons, Lin, Delfino...etc aren't hitting shots at a high clip.

I just don't get this "Harden sucked in the Finals, therefore he's not a star." None of the Thunder players played all that well, are they not stars? Lebron stunk it up when he got to the Finals in 2007, is he not a star? And furthermore, Harden DID play well throughout the playoffs as a whole- OKC doesn't defeat San Antonio without him.

I'm going by a small sample size. Harden, quite frankly, is a mystery.

[MaxRider]

i wasn't talking about you
it was someone else ...

[Aaron Brooks]

whats this im hearing about OKC wanting parsons in the deal originally? i read through that whole 83 page thread in general forums and there was nothing on it

[TMU]

whats this im hearing about OKC wanting parsons in the deal originally? i read through that whole 83 page thread in general forums and there was nothing on it

LOL

[MaxRider]

whats this im hearing about OKC wanting parsons in the deal originally? i read through that whole 83 page thread in general forums and there was nothing on it

it was in the story somewhere, i think espn
okc original wanted martin+parson+3 1st round picks (toronto lottery pick, dallas top 20 protected pick, and 2013 houston own pick)
morey counter with martin+lamb+2 1st round picks (keeping own pick)+2nd round pick (charlotte)

[rocketsballin]

nice counter by morey. **** no they aint getting parsons aka the white lebron james as some of you call him

[moofs]

no point on arguing back and forth
you guys get the point that i don't like this trade
let's wait 3-4 years and come visit this again
hopefully realgm is still around and mod would actually let us talk about old stuff
no more from me on this topic

Max, I was waiting to hammer you on it yesterday for that exact reason - because you NEVER like any of our trades!

[x-]

whats this im hearing about OKC wanting parsons in the deal originally? i read through that whole 83 page thread in general forums and there was nothing on it

It's from Woj:

Before sitting down a final time with Pelinka, Presti became more serious in his discussions with Morey. Houston wanted Harden badly, believed he would evolve into a transcendent franchise star for a championship-caliber team and planned to award him a five-year maximum contract worth nearly $80 million. So, Presti laid out what he wanted for Harden and the original price was steep: Kevin Martin, Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lamb and three first-round picks, including Houston's own in 2013.

Across 72 hours and culminating on Friday night, the deal became this: Martin, Lamb and two first-round picks, including a guaranteed plumb lottery pick via Toronto. Before Presti sat down with Pelinka on Saturday morning to make his final offer of $54 million over four years, the Rockets were made to understand: If Harden turns it down, your long-awaited star is on his way to Texas.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--insid ... 01609.html

[moofs]

Haha I like this comment:

OKC winds up most likely getting two lottery picks (Toronto’s and Dallas’) in next years draft. With Presti’s track record, we don’t know how he’ll do. He’s done well with Harden and Ibaka and lucked into Durant. However, he drafted Westbrook over Kevin Love and he drafted Jeff Green over Joakim Noah. Had he drafted Noah instead of Green, there never would have been the need to trade Green for Perkins and of course, the Thunder would have preferred a front court of Love and Noah with Ibaka as their backup. Because they maxed out Westbrook, they couldn’t afford to keep Harden. There was no need to max out Westbrook. Trading arguably the best shooting guard in today’s game will later come back to haunt Presti. In crunch time, Scott Brooks often put the play making into Harden’s hands and took it away from Westbrook as Westbrook would first look for his shot, whereas Harden would first look for Durant and the other players. OKC is putting a lot of hope in Eric Maynor being able to bail out Westbrook when he becomes trigger happy and refuses to pass to the open men.

[000001]

my first reaction was this is a bad trade

why not wait until free agency and save our assets just tank high pick and then sign harden

but now im ok with the trade the problem is everything morey did before this trade lin asik delfino scola lowry all that trash is hard to fix with one trade

if you guys look at our roster we still have a very bad team the bad news is that there are like other 7 teams worst than us /some because injuries

i like the harden comparison to ginobilli hes at the same level i think. franchise player like morey said no way, harden is good player for sure but not a franchise player

[inquisitive]

i dont know..i think KMart's job is gonna be alot easier with Westb and Durant....he should get a ton of open looks and he still has the knack of drawing fouls despite the rule. I suspect Brooks will normally start Sefo, but certain games i think he will have Kmart start instead....Kmart, Westb, and Durant is pretty deadly offensively. Then there will be times where Kmart and Lamb will be on the court the same time too...that is one scary team....i still have them coming out of the West. I think Durant raises his game to another level too this year.

[spolgar]

my first reaction was this is a bad trade

why not wait until free agency and save our assets just tank high pick and then sign harden

but now im ok with the trade the problem is everything morey did before this trade lin asik delfino scola lowry all that trash is hard to fix with one trade

if you guys look at our roster we still have a very bad team the bad news is that there are like other 7 teams worst than us /some because injuries

i like the harden comparison to ginobilli hes at the same level i think. franchise player like morey said no way, harden is good player for sure but not a franchise player

Well, doing a trade now means you can offer more to keep Harden by way of the extra year on the contract extension. Doing at free agency means that you have to compete not only with other teams, but now all you can do is offer the player the same deal is everyone else. Doing it now means Harden's team is more likely to agree. It also means offloading Martin in a clean manner, moving the assets that are Lamb and the two picks (that are btw, mid teens now) that were originally intended for Dwight Howard. Now you still have four power forward prospects left to develop in the next few years, but the rest of the squad looks legit in its rotation.

As per franchise player, just because Manu's unselfish in the way of minutes, doesn't mean he's not extremely good. Any ball player who's scoring efficiency does not change from going left or going right means that he is impossible to funnel on the drive to any given space in the paint. It makes help defense extremely hard if the player can hit the open man. Ginobli is deceptively athletic, an excellent penetrator, a good on ball defender with a consistent shot and decent vision for a 2. Pops is wisely lowering Ginobli's minutes so he'll have less wear and tear over the season and it almost paid off in the Western Conference finals.

I mean your regard of him now is that he's a good ball player who is not a franchise guy. Manu is 35 frigging years old. How many 2 guards you know are still really good ball players and continue to contend for the 6th man of the year award consistently?

[moofs]

Let's just say Harden's Ginobli quality, since there doesn't seem to be as much argument there.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... bma01.html

Ginobli, I promise you, is underpaid. He's been the best player on their team for 5 or 6 years. Now, the Spurs admittedly won more titles before Duncan dropped off a bit in his early 30s, but they've been riding the last several years on Duncan's fumes, Parker's decentness, good role players, and how awesome MANUUUUU is. He's been carrying the team, and in limited minutes, even!

Harden, meanwhile, is scheduled to make 15 million where Gino had only been making about 9-12 (6-8 on his first contract - a steal!). I really think that 15 isn't all that bad for a guy who can carry a team.

We aren't going to win but high 30s to upper-mid 40s this year (barring trade deadline moves), but that's due to our supporting cast. Remember, we traded away pretty much EVERYBODY who'd won us any games this offseason in our attempt to get a superstar - 7 average players (Martin, Scola, Camby, Dalembert, Budinger, Lee, Hill ) = ~40-45 wins, or, exactly what the team's record has been for the last 2-3 years. The dice roll worked. Meanwhile, Morey has shown a penchant for being able to upgrade that on the fly, and unlike during the 2006-2009 era, he's not hamstrung by bad contracts during his attempts to do so. Unless he creates his own bad contracts, things could get very interesting, very quickly.

[MaxRider]

no point on arguing back and forth
you guys get the point that i don't like this trade
let's wait 3-4 years and come visit this again
hopefully realgm is still around and mod would actually let us talk about old stuff
no more from me on this topic

Max, I was waiting to hammer you on it yesterday for that exact reason - because you NEVER like any of our trades!

can't blame me when i finally got me wish and the assistant gm came up with an idea and destroyed it
he had pissed me off year and year in draft
he got parsons to make up for morris mistake
but i still rather have leanard than parsons and i was calling for that
i do like scola (the trade we got him not trading him away) and artest trade

[90sAllDecade]

Manu Ginobilli has definitely been a franchise player during the course of his career, he's never been asked to play more than 31 minutes a game and when he did, he averaged almost 23 pts a game.

He's carried those spurs teams in the playoffs many times, is an all star, 6th man of the year winner and with his international play (including his leading the gold medal team that beat the US team in the 2004 Olympics), he should have a very strong chance to make the hall of fame. If he was given 35+ minutes and 20 shots a game as a #1 option, Manu was certainly was capable of putting up 24-25+ pts a game.

If Harden is comparable to Ginobilli, as one of the elite SGs in the NBA, even at the age of 35 and a potential HOF'er, I think he has franchise player potential. We'll see if he truly compares in reality though, "that's why they play the games", regardless I'm excited.

[zapatasblood]

Well I am coming around on this trade but I still think we gave up to. What I hate the most is 5 years 80 mil. But we are still not that good since this trade only made us marginally better so I happy about that

[inquisitive]

these guys should be set for our future Harden, Lin, Asik, Parsons....all the other guys could be traded.

[zapatasblood]

Still not sold on Lin