Quote (MrDestroyer @ Jan 15 2021 10:57pm)
This. People knew harden was good but no one knew he would become the MVP caliber player he is today. At the time, spending money on a defensive anchor was the ‘smart’ move to keep a well balanced team. Plus, Harden played poorly in the finals and took a year or two in Houston before he broke out. To put it in perspective , we replaced him with Kevin Martin who was just as productive off the bench.
The bigger mistake was having so much money tied up in Perkins... but the NBA was still dominated by bigs.
It’s easy to look back now and clown presti for the trade (Obviously, it would have been better to keep Harden lol). It seemed like the right move at the time, just didn’t work out 🤷♂️
He was an all star averaging 26/5/6 his first season in Houston
But yes the decision was understandable at the time. People foresaw Harden’s abilities but you already had two premier scorers in Westbrook and Durant and Harden was a defensive liability. Ibaka was the sensible choice at the time.