Worst thread start in recent history

[King Glorious]

I agree with you that Harden is not a superstar and benefited by playing with Durant and Westbrook because of the attention they got and the freedom it left him. I think it's going to be a major adjustment for him in Houston and again, I don't see him as a superstar player. I don't feel he was worth the max contract. That said, he was still a very important piece to his team. I look at him like I look at a guy like Kendrick Perkins. Perkins doesn't add much to a team and say he's in Denver or Atlanta or LA, he doesn't help at all. But what he can give a team is exactly what OKC needed so therefore his value to them was higher than it would be to most teams. I think of Harden the same way. I think Harden took a lot of the pressure off of Durant and Westbrook in ways that Martin can't and that's what will be missed. He gave them an ability to always have two guys on the floor that could create their own shot. They don't have that now. He was excellent at getting to the line. The other thing is that on defense, he and Westbrook were often able to to just guard who was closest to them. They didn't have to waste time seeking out and finding their man. That's very important and that's another area that Martin will hurt them in. I'm not saying that Harden is so much better than Martin as a player, just that what he does is so much more of what OKC needs than what Martin does. I'm also not sold on draft picks being so meaningful, especially when you get out of the top 10. I've always felt that if you have a championship level team, you keep it until you can't. I don't think they were under pressure to trade him. I would have kept him through the season and seen how things played out and worst come to worst, he was still restricted so you could have decided that you want to keep him and pay him the max come July. If they had been under the gun like Orlando was where you know you will be losing a guy for sure and will gain nothing, that's different but that wasn't the case here.