They chose to pay Ibaka instead of harden .. biggest mistake

Gawd damn. outa nowhere lmao

I mean Ibaka was no high profile scorer like Harden evolved into, but he was still a terrific player and an anchor defensively (3 consecutive all-defense 1st team selections and led the league in blocks twice after the Harden trade).

He fit well on that team, and gave them a big man that could defend the rim. Ibaka was a maniac defensively, and a solid and super efficient offensive player even though he didn't get a lot of attempts because of KD & Westbrook on the team taking like 40 shots a game between them.

Yea it made sense for the composition of the team but harden showed
Flashes of being a superstar even coming off the bench. We’d probably call it a bad decision either way lol

Can we just talk about how Sam Presti drafted 3 future MVPs in back to back to back years. Dude is a crazy good executive.

They had to choose between harden and ibaka for salary cap reasons, they chose to go the defensive big. Bad call in hindsight, but I don’t think anyone could have foreseen harden becoming the scoring monster that he is today.

He went from a 3rd option to possibly the greatest scorer of all time.

This post was edited by Jimbrown on Jan 15 2021 09:34pm

It must hurt to be an okc fan

It was pretty well public consensus at the time to pay ibaka over harden too

So it wasn’t just the thunder that got it wrong

Idk they have a bright future with how many assets they’ve got, plus they’re a scrappy team that seems to always stay competitive no matter how many high profile players they lose

Any teams future is bright compared to the pistons let’s be honest