agentzero2010 wrote:The rumours of raptors trading Siakam for Harden just doesn't add up for me unless we are also moving either Lowry or VanVleet. VanVleet is a lot younger and his ability to make shots off the ball will be greatly benefited from Harden's ball dominate offensive game. I somehow see the Raptors trading Lowry for young assets and packaging those assets with Siakam for Harden.
Give me your thoughts of the following scenario:
To Nuggets: Lowry, McCaw
To Raptors: Harden, Barton
To Rockets: Siakam, Harris, raptors first-round pick, nuggets second-round pick
Why the Nuggets make this trade: Nuggets receive an experienced, championship level, defensive-minded leader that can anchor their perimeter defence. IMO, the Nuggets need to add some "dog" to their team and some toughness to go along with Jokic and Murray.
Nuggets can have a closing lineup of Lowrry-Murry-MPJ-Milsap-Jokic which can totally compete for a title this season.
Why the Rockets make this trade: Rockets receive an Allstar level talent in Siakam with star up-sides (not superstar). Rockets can suddenly re-make themselves into an athletic team with Wall-Harris-House Jr-Siakam-Woods along with Gordon, Cousins, McClemore coming off the bench.
Why the Raptors make this trade: Raptors receive a superstar in his prime that can revamp their offence and push the team towards another franchise summit. In this scenario, Raptors could still have a max salary slot (around 32 million) if Norm declines his P/O, Barton declines his P/O, and Baynes T/O is declined and if they unload Boucher's 7 million contract.
Does a core of VanVleet-Harden-OG plus another max contract and a MLE along with Thomas, Flynn, Bembry and Davis get this team to another title within the next 2 seasons? Kind of hard to picture it...unless. Raptors bring back Kawhi?
VanVleet/Harden/Kawhi/Anunoby/Ibaka?
Total pipe dream but if we can add Harden and maintain max salary, there's at least 5% chance that happens right?
I think it's an interesting scenario. Couple things tho: nuggets don't get better on D by losing Harris and gaining Lowry. Actually makes them considerably worse doesn't it? That said....I think they'd be a better all round team.
Also...we don't have to unload boucher. Not sure why some sites have him inked in next year (I've seen this). We have a team option on him.
I don't think there's any hope for Kawhi.....but agree that next year would look promising with Fred/harden (a perfect match imo), OG and a max/near max player. Griffin would make alot of sense for example. We'd probably only have to acquire a scrub center who is serviceable. OG and Griffin is a decent small ball frontcourt. My guess is the close up lineup could be:
Flynn
Fred
Harden
Griffin
OG
Hey....that's alot of potential imo.
Not many ppl have suggested losing both Kyle and siakam in a harden trade but it's a pretty good idea imo. I'd rather do siakam/lowry/1 first than siakam and 3 firsts.
We'd essentially be trading Kyle (knowing he's gone anyway) for two of our future picks. We are not getting harden under any circumstances for anything less than siakam/3 firsts. So it's a clever move to replace two of those picks with Lowry.