Sign and trades are harder than they used to be because of the new CBA. If you wanted to acquire Harden, you wanted to trade for him and then sign him yourself - that way you could give him a five-year contract instead of four. On balance what the Thunder did isn’t all that different. When they traded Harden they knew they were trading him to a team that was going to sign him long term. A team that was just getting him for a year would not have paid as much.
It wasn’t up to him. I guess he was OK with being traded there and getting a max contract because he didn’t come back to the bargaining table and say “I’d rather take your offer than play for Houston.”
It just goes to show how remarkable someone like Duncan is to take a hometown discount so his team could afford to keep good players around. I wish Kobe would do the same. It looks like the Lakers are going to tank next season in order to prepare for the free agent class of 2014
Harden offered to take a discount. They wanted him to take a bigger one and they couldn’t agree on the money, that’s all. Nowitzki announced the other day that he’s expecting to take a big pay cut so the Mavs can try to add some star players for the next few years.
Where are you getting that? They’re in an awful position to tank and they’re going to try to re-sign Dwight Howard. Kobe could take a pay cut after next year if he wanted - I think he’d have to - but he says he’s retiring instead.
The Spurs looked fantastic. I haven’t seen the Grizzlies’ defense get shredded like that in a long time. They had no answer for the Parker/Duncan pick and roll except to concede a mid-range jump shot, and if the Spurs are making that shot (and their threes), I don’t know what Memphis can do about it.
On the other end, the Memphis offense, always a slow one, pretty well ground to a halt. No flow or continuity, and Duncan took Randolph away as a scoring threat. Gasol looked good against Splitter, though. They need to get Bonner off the floor, try and get the ball to his man as often as possible.
He could have not taken the ultra-max offered him in the first place. He’s slated to make 30 mil next year which on any given lux-tax threshold is a touch more than half the roster and both Kobe and management were fully aware of that going into it. Committing over half your salary cap to a single player, even if it’s a soft cap is at least a LITTLE reprehensible.
Why the hell was Hibbert on the bench? Indiana’s starting five has destroyed everybody in plus/minus, it’s their horrible bench guys that are limiting how far they can go…and Vogel substitutes Sam Freakin’ Young for Hibbert? And keeps that lineup after Lebron drives for an easy layup so Lebron can just do it again??? Hope Vogel didn’t lose his players, I guarantee they were plenty pissed about it.
Paul George is stoked over this whole Hibbert controversy, because it allows the fact that LeBron drove by him like he wasn’t even there to slip off the radar.
Great job by Indiana. They’ve played Miami basically to a tie over the first two games. I still think the Heat will win the series but Indiana deserves a lot of credit here.
They are much better than I had given them credit for. Hibbert’s coming into his own as a dominant center and Paul George…where’s this guy been?! He popped up on my radar during the playoffs and he’s amazing!
I think it’s fair to say that Paul George and Steph Curry are the breakout players of the season. I see George joining Derrick Rose as players the rest of the Central Division have to plan for long term. 10th pick!
That was a pretty convincing win by Miami. The Spurs were brilliant the other day after a lousy first quarter, and Popovich benching his whole starting lineup in the first quarter has to go down as one of the great coaching moves in playoff history. I don’t know if Memphis will manage to win one tonight or if their confidence is just smashed now. Remarkable stuff from San Antonio, anyway, and if we’re getting a Heat-Spurs finals it could be amazing.