Someone remind me, my mind is failing me. Thunder had the perfect squad with Westbrook - Harden - Durant - Ibaka - Perkins. I recall Harden playing 6th man but i cant for the life of me remember who started over him.

Help?

Now I'm remembering. Was it actually Sefolosha? My god...

This post was edited by AspenSniper on Jan 14 2021 06:20pm

Westbrook was their only roadblock

They committed a bunch of money to Perkins like the year before. And with the lockout coming up they were trying to avoid excess spending that would put them deep in the luxury tax They offered him something like $6 mil short of the max and a continued bench role. So Harden said fuck that and they traded him.

Obviously, looking back if they didn't sign Perkins to a 4-year 36 mil contract they more than likely would've offered Harden the max. He said he was OK with coming off the bench as long as he got the max. If they weren't gonna give him the max, he wanted at least to start. OKC said fuck off.

They chose Ibaka over Harden essentially, couldn’t resign them both

They started Sefolosha because he was an elite wing defender and Harden was a great spark plug off the bench. He played starter minutes so it didn’t matter really.

This post was edited by Izzo4Rizzo on Jan 14 2021 06:44pm

Money

you were trying to be clever, but bc you don’t actually watch basketball you don’t understand the intricacies of what you’re saying.

It’s like a good box score but an L for the standings. If you didn’t live it or haven’t spent time living it, but rather just looking at stats you begin to believe laughable things.

Get out of the basketball forum you clown.

This post was edited by Bubbler on Jan 14 2021 10:25pm

This.

why did this man get slaughtered like this

Couldnt pay him

This.

It wasn't about his role (he was playing full starter minutes), it's because they couldn't afford to pay him. OKC is a small market team, especially back then in the early years (first 5 years) they definitely couldn't sustain that type of payroll.

Daryl Morey knew what he was doing when he made that trade for him to get Harden in Houston. OKC had no choice, so it's not like they had much leverage.