Thunder Reportedly Won’t Offer James Harden Max Deal

check this out….this link shows who has paid the luxury tax in the last10 years…OKC sells out every game…plus they will be deep in the playoffs (more home games)….they can without a doubt sign Harden if they truly want to

http://www.shamsports.com/media/luxurytax.jpg

Mormon.

There are more reasons he’s far more likely to remain in OKC than leave. Prior to being drafted, Harden flat-out said that he didn’t enjoy being “The Man” on his college team. He didn’t like being looked to all the time to score the most points. He emailed Presti and begged Presti to draft him so he could be more of a role player. Harden doesn’t want to go somewhere else and have his “own team”. He wants to help KD and Russ build something special.

Paying Harden max money isn’t so much about economics and paying the tax as it is keeping flexibility to improve the roster. Don’t forget that OKC still has it’s amnesty left to play. Prior to the Dwight trade, I thought for sure OKC would amnesty Perkins and use that flexibility to re-sign Harden and get a couple more solid bigs (think Kwame Brown/Marcus Camby types) to keep Ibaka from grinding with 5′s. Now that LA has Dwight, OKC is likely to keep Perk because he owns timeshare in Dwight’s head and is one of the few that can physically handle Dwight on the block. I’m not sure how long teams have to use their amnesty, but if the clock on that runs for at least 2 more years, then I can see OKC letting the season play out, let another team make the max offer they’re allowed to make under the CBA, and then OKC just matches it because it’s less than the max they’d have to offer. Then they roll the dice on breaking through in the near future. If it doesn’t happen, they can amnesty their worst contract (might not even be Perk at that point) to cut the tax bill and they still have a great, young core.

All that being said, if OKC says they can’t offer Harden max money because they can’t afford it, then I call BS on the owners (that’s not hard to do anyway, but I digest). They sell out every home game, sell a ton of merchandise and they’re also owned by billionaires. They can afford to give him max money, but they need to keep flexibility to add role players. If Harden is getting big money and keeps coming off the bench, then they need to be able to use something like mid-level money to sign the starting 2. Flexibility to keep adding pieces is the most important part of this song and dance. From the perspective of someone who doesn’t really care how it all shakes out, anyway.

I typed a novel below about all the reasons why OKC can and will keep Harden, but while I was typing it, the trade to Houston was announced. Dizzle!

He just got traded, in a fricking super lopsided trade.

He just got traded to Houston for K-Mart and Jeremy Lamb

damnit

Just got traded to Houston. This sucks…

you have some decent points above, but your last paragraph is laughable. TV revenue rules the nba, not tickets or tshirt sales, and OKCs TV market is small thus OKCs total revenue compared to the major market teams is significantly less. they simply can’t pay. if you expect a billionaire to pay for harden out other businesses money you will be let down, bc it ain’t happening nor should it, from a business standpoint. the team market and revenue dictates the contracts OKC can give or they will be at risk from a business standpoint.

Four year, 52 mill doesnt sound so bad now , huh James? It wasnt liek u were being ripped off or anything… u ruined a potentially great team.

mhhhh you mean rather like marthin luther king

not yet. kevin martin aint that bad neither. a lethal scorer from anywhere on the floor, better than harden at putting the ball into the basket. just doesnt do anything else which should be ok when playing against other second units

lol wtf? ghandi fought for apartheid? ghandi fought for independence and to advance past the caste system. i dont know about the cheating part, my bad. to me he is just the greater person than x coz his dream included not only equality between men but also unity. plus the peaceful way is always better (and as history prove) also more successful than the militant way, no matter what one wants to achieve. thats why i as an outsider/observer say: king over x all day lol