The Thunder’s Epic Failure

Rest assured, this topic will get more coverage from us. That said. Patrick reminded me he made the following remarks back in January!

In two years time, James Harden will want $10 million. And someone will pay him that much. Serge Ibaka will want $15 million. And lots of teams will pay him that much. What does OKC do then? Because neither are going to be replacable with the mid-level exception.

He had Ibaka and Harden switched a little on salaries. That said, the scenario played out just like Patrick said!

What you’re getting for me.

I’ve been immersed in a conversation about how overrated Westbrook is (and how underrated Ty Lawson is). In this I didn’t even bother bringing up James Harden. And while I was looking the other way, the Thunder have traded Harden and here’s how that looks:

Rockets get:

Thunder get:

Kevin Martin
Jeremy Lamb
Two future first rounders
Future second rounder
Mockery from the entire internet

-Stats for The NBA Geek

Last year Harden put up 10.6 wins in limited time. In limited minutes Aldrich played amazing. In fact, the Rockets just picked up +14 wins for an 82 game season. This trade smacks of the Timberwolves trade that put Kevin Garnett in Boston. Remember how that turned out?

The Numbers

Here’s how the Thunder looked last season (via The NBA Geek)

NAME	POS	GP	MIN	WP48	WINS
Kevin Durant	SF	66	2546	0.226	12.0
James Harden	SG	62	1946	0.263	10.7
Serge Ibaka	PF	66	1792	0.263	9.8
Russell Westbrook	PG	66	2331	0.102	4.9
Nick Collison	C	63	1307	0.124	3.4
Thabo Sefolosha	SG	42	914	0.172	3.3
Daequan Cook	SG	57	989	0.072	1.5
Kendrick Perkins	C	65	1744	0.039	1.4
Cole Aldrich	C	26	173	0.21	0.8
Nazr Mohammed	C	63	692	0.041	0.6
Ryan Reid	F	5	17	0.196	0.1
Eric Maynor	PG	9	137	-0.016	-0.1
Royal Ivey	PG	34	354	-0.034	-0.3
Reggie Jackson	PG	45	501	-0.029	-0.3
Lazar Hayward	SG	26	141	-0.121	-0.4
Derek Fisher	PG	20	407	-0.071	-0.6

Look who is the second best player on the Thunder! That’s right, Harden was right up there with Durant. Arturo has even argued that Harden may be more valuable that Durant. The reason is that the Shooting Guard Position is typically the weakest.

I actually want to bring up more salt. It’s easy to remember that Harden faded down the stretch in the finals. This is true. However, going into the Finals, here were the Thunder’s Wins Produced numbers (via NerdNumbers)

Player	Pos	G	MP	WP48	WP
Kevin Durant	3.4	15	623.9	0.245	3.2
James Harden	2.5	15	466.0	0.244	2.4
Serge Ibaka	4.3	15	437.5	0.202	1.8
Russell Westbrook	1.3	15	555.6	0.116	1.4
Thabo Sefolosha	2.3	15	316.8	0.199	1.3
Nick Collison	4.4	15	248.6	0.119	0.6
Cole Aldrich	5.0	4	20.0	0.239	0.1
Daequan Cook	2.0	13	98.4	0.058	0.1
Derek Fisher	1.0	15	317.9	0.043	0.3
Lazar Hayward	3.0	4	13.7	0.086	0.0
Royal Ivey	2.0	4	18.0	-0.260	-0.1
Nazr Mohammed	5.0	8	82.6	-0.095	-0.2
Kendrick Perkins	5.0	15	400.9	-0.027	-0.2

It turns out that last season Harden was the second best player on the Thunder in the regular season and was great going into the finals. Now, I have no problem with the fact that Harden in his first finals couldn’t handle Dwyane Wade and LeBron James — who are both renowned for their defense and had been to three finals. (Yes, that’s me being subjective about a player. It happens!) Basically, to put this in perspective, this would be like the Bulls trading away Scottie Pippen after the 1990 season.

Summing Up

The Thunder got played. I’d like to point out that for all the credit Presti gets for using draft picks correctly, he’s just let a top player walk out the door. And the returns are terrible. Martin is years away from when he was relevant. James Harden ranked fourth on Arturo’s draft sheet. Jeremy Lamb? He ranks 25th! And this of course leaves out that Harden is at the ideal age, while Lamb won’t hit his peak for a while. Finally, the draft picks may be nice. Except, first thanks to this move the Rockets likely won’t be getting lottery picks. (Editor’s Note: wiLQ brings up a good point, I’m not sure if they got the picks from Houston or from Dallas/Toronto. Those may be better but I’m still not sold) Second, it’s questionable if the Thunder draft office is as good as people think. (Jeff Green? Westbrook?) So in the end, Daryl Morey manages to somehow get out of my doghouse, which is an amazing feat. And somehow the Bulls and Thunder, who have been terrific teams the last two seasons, get to collapse this offseason.

-Dre

P.s. A brief followup. With Harden the Thunder were a title a team. They still had him under contract for another year. I am of the opinion that if you can’t get good value for your star, which they didn’t, you play for the title! The Thunder took themselves out of contention a year before they needed to. Giving myself more time to think about this trade just makes it look even worse.

22 Responses to "The Thunder’s Epic Failure"

Chris Yeh says:

October 27, 2012 at 11:28 pm

They should have amnestied Perkins and taken their chances with Aldrich as a starter. You don’t trade someone like James Harden unless you have absolutely no options left.
ascreamingcomesacrossthecourt1 says:

October 28, 2012 at 2:00 am

How do you feel Kevin Martin will help the team? He was poor last year, but the year before he had a 0.126 WP/48 and he peaked (years ago) at 0.210 thanks to his efficient shooting. Can he at least be a stopgap if he plays at an average level?
wiLQ says:

October 28, 2012 at 5:51 am

“Finally, the draft picks may be nice. Except, first thanks to this move the Rockets likely won’t be getting lottery picks”
It’s not true because Rockets traded Raptors’ pick from Lowry deal which is guaranteed to be in the lottery.
Anyway, outside of crying poverty and mess with new CBA IMHO this trade screams “I’m Sam Effing Presti and I can draft like god so I’ll just replace Harden with someone cheaper who is also very good”.
Andres Alvarez says:

October 28, 2012 at 7:33 am

wiLQ,
Updated the post. Also, what are you talking about “draft like god?”

1. He got Durant. Good pick but this was more luck than skill (No GM in league picks any other player in 2007)
2. Jeff Green – traded.
3. James Harden – traded.
4. Westbrook – Overpaid for.

That’s if we’re looking at top picks. I’m not sold on the brilliance of this. And the new CBA wouldn’t even matter if they hadn’t paid $20+ million a year to Westbrook and Perkins.
wiLQ says:

October 28, 2012 at 8:20 am

Dre,
To be fair, he traded Green and Harden not in a salary dump but for something of value and aforementioned [plus Ibaka] is a better track record than most GMs.
Anyway, I made up that quote from Presti’s point of view – I just think he overestimated his ability to draft hence the trade “superstar SG for many picks”.
Chris Yeh says:

October 28, 2012 at 10:01 am

I think it’s ironic that the CBA changes are forcing small market teams to trade their stars to their wealthier counterparts. Wasn’t the lockout supposed to be about competitive balance? Oh yeah, no, it was about squeezing money out of the players. My bad.
robert miller says:

October 28, 2012 at 5:58 pm

If we view the whole situation, I would say Sam Presti won.. We all know that Harden is better than Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb. However, Kevin Martin is expiring and Lamb seems like he will develop into a solid player. In other words, OKC has secured their future in this trade. They can’t afford to keep Harden (too expensive) so they opted to stay under the cap and get some great bang for their buck.

I’m not sure whether I subscribe to the idea that OKC should’ve gone all in.. If you are Presti and you are being pressured by your owner to trade Harden if he asks for more than the 54 or so million you offer…what do you do? NO ONE is available at the SG slot that could fill Harden’s shoes adequately while still being cheap and on the trading block. The only other option then is to get an inferior (but still decent) guard and acquire as much youth/draft picks as possible. Per Wojnarowski, OKC originally wanted Chandler Parsons and an additional first rounder but Houston couldn’t give up that much. The bounty would’ve been less steep if Presti tried a sign and trade at the end of the season.

In summation, OKC got a bit worse (but will still contend) AND will have the opportunity (through proper drafting/development of young talent) to compete at an even higher level (than this Kmart version of the team) in the future. In addition, they won’t be losing an arm/leg in luxury tax payments.

On the other hand, Houston, has put the majority of their eggs into the Lin/Asik/Harden basket. If Harden experiences drop off (he wasn’t that great before last season at .139 avg WP48) then they have lost the trade handily. Presti is taking on minimal risk while Morey is in a very precarious position and could find himself fired if this doesn’t work out.
Hasani Davis says:

October 28, 2012 at 6:07 pm

FINANCIALLY (remember guys we are sports economist) this was a huge win for OKC

lets not forget OKC is run by “fiscally responsible” people who ran out of Seattle like aladdin from the bazaar, all in the name of making a few adjustments to stay in the black insted of the red. OKCs small market dosent really bode well for them paying out the nice lux tax hit they will take, we give the knicks a pass for not signing lin and blame payroll, how about a team that ACTUALLY couldnt afford to pay it like okc?

OKC can go out and look for a vetren small forward who can defend and score , to fill hardens place for 3-5 mil with the MLE as opposed to 15 mil for harden himself.

I will go on record AGAIN by saying this. OKC will NOT last. mark my words. it was the perfect storm, you had a new team so people came out because it was a novelty. then it became a GREAT team with fresh faced young wholesome stars. do you REALLY see all of those middle america types going out to a basketball game and cheering vehemently when this team is not filled with superstars?
and without the huge college like draw, i dobut they would even generate as much money as they did in seattle and would be on the move again….
which is good because we have a vacancy in Newark New jersey id like filled.
Hasani Davis says:

October 28, 2012 at 6:14 pm

one change i would DIE for in the nba.
no mid level exception
in fact, remove EVERY SINGLE salary cap exception from the nba.
then… add back in the larry bird rule, but this time ONLY make it apply to players that YOUR TEAM DRAFTED, claimed off waivers or promoted from the NBA d-league.

which was the point of the rule to begin with.
Create a salary cap minimum , so we dont have things happen like what happened with the knicks in the mid 2000s, losing on purpose to create salary cap room for an expected class… same thing atlanta is doing now.

so i say all this to the point that , i want every team to have a chance to win every year just like hockey. but I also want home teams to be able to keep young talent so the fan base can become attached to players.

It annoys me that the knicks have bird rights for carmelo… who is almost 30 years old and was pretty much a free agent and mercenary comming to nyk, and dwight howard and deron williams are also granted bird rights as well.
Xcavator says:

October 28, 2012 at 6:34 pm

If the Thunder were gonna trade for a Houston SG they shouldve gotten Lee. Really disapointed in how OKC handled this whole situation. Who knows though, maybe Ibaka can play at a superstar level this year.
Shareef says:

October 28, 2012 at 6:49 pm

[1] Early ESPN coverage has this as a win for OKC. So there may not be the internet backlash that is expected as most people merely parrot what they are told by perceived authorities.

[2] Hats off to Daryl who was GMing for his job!

[3] Hats off to Harden for not accepting less than he is worth. Considering all productive players are grossly underpaid at max salaries. It will be easy enough to join the most likely contender as a tired vet.

[4] Hats off to OKC. They are a short money team and cannot set bad presidents with regard to salaries. Given the fact that Harden is underrated, they got more the I thought they would for him. And got it promptly.
Rafael Montalvo (@racmontalvo526) says:

October 28, 2012 at 7:33 pm

Presti looks for the long term with this move – mainly because the Thunder operate under the model of “contenders on a budget”.

If only he stayed longer in SA, then maybe he could learn how to pull off the draft steal – instead, he got his rep through lucking into Durant then lucking into consecutive top 5 picks (sure, Ibaka was a steal, but he’s not a Manu Ginobili-type of draft heist – then again, that may be the greatest draft steal of all time, considering pick position and WP). His quick-trigger puts OKC in quandaries: Extending Perkins before he even suited up for a game, getting an extension for Nick Collison done pretty early (yes, he’s productive, but he’s aging).
motherwell says:

October 28, 2012 at 8:25 pm

FINANCIALLY (remember guys we are sports economist) this was a huge win for OKC

Financially this trade was neither here nor there. This year, their cap situation is about the same – $2-3 mil MORE for OKC this year, but no tax. Next year is almost impossible to project – because OKC could have still sign and traded Harden, or let him go, or made a better deal. Really, all we know

So financially, what is a title worth vs finishing second, 4th or 8th? I have no idea (maybe Dave can pipe in with the financial value of a title vs finishing 2nd) but it would appear that any decision to reduce the title chances while not improving significantly the current ledger, would seem like a financial loss. Unless there is some accounting scheme that can spin that differently?

The only way to spin this as a financial win is if they can get a Harden level replacement on a rookie deal – and that is a future move that I am not sure it is fair to add to any financial projections.
joshweil says:

October 28, 2012 at 8:53 pm

The only way this trade counts as a win for OKC if you start from the premise it’s a good idea to trade James Harden.

Conventional wisdom says Westbrook is better than Harden. Wins Produced says the opposite.
sportsfanatic613 says:

October 28, 2012 at 9:42 pm

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.
Robin says:

October 29, 2012 at 5:14 am

Reminds a bit of Joe Dumars. In his early years as a GM he could do no wrong (by the jounos) he was frequently interviewed, and he did some good things, but the law of averages/his own averageness caught up with him. Perhaps Presti got some luck and did some good things in his first few years as GM. Time will tell how good he really is. This trade will probably be a career definer.
mike g. says:

October 29, 2012 at 7:47 am

Harden’s quotes Sunday don’t sound like a guy happy to be in Houston….

“It happened so fast….”
Steve says:

October 29, 2012 at 12:12 pm

My only prediction is that Harden will be a top-5 jersey seller in china ala t-mac in the mid-00′s.
More Market Perspectives on How the Thunder Messed Up says:

October 29, 2012 at 8:14 pm

[...] The James Harden trade has led to quite a bit of discussion. Within minutes of the trade being announced, Andres Alvarez had a story posted in this forum explaining “The Thunder’s Epic Failure.” [...]
THE Bob (@shesgotthestuff) says:

October 30, 2012 at 7:36 am

This is puzzling to me just from the perspective that if the Thunder signed Harden to a max deal, they could then trade him later on. With the current CBA (and small sample), it appears to be easier to trade away seemingly “untradeable” contracts and thus if they needed to avoid the tax it could be done.

I do not think Presti is too dumb to recognize this. Seems to me that those cheap underpaid assets (Lamb and draft picks) are the big drivers.

As JC Bradbury likes to point out that it is norm that in a trade both teams are made better off. I think that is the case here.

sidenote: what is up with the new format? I used to read the entire blog post from google reader (which was nice on my smart phone) but now it only shows less than a paragraph.
The Full Monty: Win Predictions for the 2012-13 NBA Season says:

October 30, 2012 at 2:45 pm

[...] Thunder fell a level with the recent Harden trade (particularly when you account for age improvement). The Celts and [...]
Billy says:

October 30, 2012 at 7:59 pm

Life long Bulls fan. Love the Pippen comparison. Not sure if people remember but Pippen suffered a nasty concussion in the ’89 playoffs that limited him. In ’90 he had migraines. Major disaster if the Bulls traded Pippen after ’90.

I don’t know why this hasn’t been said, but Harden was concussed by Artest this year. Given Harden’s age, expected growing pains, and Artest’s elbow to his temple, OKC gave way too much weight to Harden’s finals (under) performance.

October 2012
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Sep				Nov »
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

The Numbers

Summing Up

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